Heartbreak City

Leanna Lily Teng has always believed that distance is the kindest form of healing. In Dumaguete, life was quiet, familiar, and forgiving-slow afternoons, familiar faces, and memories she could keep at arm's length. But when her parents decide to move to Cebu, Leanna's carefully built sense of peace begins to fracture.

Cebu is louder, faster, and far less merciful. The city doesn't allow room for avoidance, especially when Leanna enrolls at the University of San Jose Recoletos-only to discover that the one person she has spent years trying to forget is there too.

Iñigo Andres Parcon.

Leanna's plan is simple: survive the city, keep her head down, and avoid Iñigo at all costs. But Cebu has a way of forcing collisions, and the university becomes a battleground between memory and restraint.

As Leanna struggles to adapt to a new environment, new friendships, and a version of herself that no longer belongs solely to Dumaguete, she is confronted with the truth that running away does not erase what once mattered. The past has a heartbeat, and sometimes it lives just a few classrooms away.

Set between the ache of greatest loves and the uncertainty of becoming, this story follows Leanna Lily as she navigates grief, growth, and the terrifying possibility that healing might require facing the one person she was never ready to lose.