Watching You Burn In Regret novel Chapter 48

Lennon chuckled. "Even if you gained a few pounds, it wouldn't make a difference."

"You sound just like my grandpa," Seren replied with a wry smile. "He always tells me to eat more, says an extra bite or two won't hurt. And before I knew it, with every 'it doesn't matter,' I lost all self-control. One more bite today, another tomorrow, and suddenly I was the chubbiest girl in class."

"You were never really chubby, even at your 'fattest,'" Lennon said gently.

Back then, Seren was only a little rounder than she was now. Her arms and legs remained slender, her features still delicate, just her cheeks a bit fuller—giving her that cherubic, innocent charm.

Seren hadn't realized it at the time. Now, almost defensively, she insisted, "I was! Among all the girls in our class, I was definitely the heaviest."

But as soon as the words left her mouth, she paused, suddenly struck by a thought. "Wait—you knew me back then?"

Lennon's gaze softened, his voice low and warm. "You always wore your hair short, never letting it touch your shoulders. Every morning you'd dash through the school gates at the last possible second before the bell."

"And at lunchtime, you'd sneak off to draw instead of napping—sometimes in the art studio, sometimes beneath the old sycamore by the basketball court, sometimes down by the lakeside."

He spoke of her past as if reciting treasured memories, every detail perfectly recalled.

The high school and middle school at Seaside City Academy shared the same campus. If you paid enough attention to someone, it wasn't hard to keep track of their comings and goings.

What Lennon didn't say was that he'd known Seren long before those days.

Seren stared at him, stunned. "How do you know all this?"

Lennon answered calmly, "At Seaside City Academy, everyone talked about the prodigy in the middle school art program. Word gets around."

Seren's thoughts drifted back. She'd started learning traditional painting from Mr. Shaw at eight. By the time she was thirteen, she'd already won her fair share of awards and was something of a celebrity at school.

But talent in one field often meant shortcomings in others. Seren poured her heart into her art, leaving little energy for anything else. Her grades, especially in math, trailed near the bottom of the year.

At Seaside City Academy, where academic achievement was everything, her single-minded focus on painting made her seem irresponsible—like she was squandering her education.

She still remembered: that was when the Bradley family's attitude toward her changed overnight.

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