SUPER SPOILER

for reporting her uncle for his multiple sexual attempts

and sadly was the effect of her trauma with her uncle

When the author wrote about how she would sleepwalk and, while doing so, she would always sit and stare at the clock.

She had to make sure she was awake until her family came home so she would not be taken advantage of by her "uncle". She stayed up until 3am in order to protect herself since he would always try and break into her room

Once I understood the true meaning behind her fixation on the time I was heartbroken.

This is really spoilers ok...

When she found out he had been there, silently, throughout her university days, always watching over her...I literally died. It's so moving and beautiful. The best book couple I've read in a long time.

rejecting the ML, for reasons you'll know later.

Her father passed away, and then her mother remarried a man who already had a daughter. To get out of their way, she was sent to live at her Uncles house. They treated her like s burden and constantly got on her about money and just overall how they arent obliged to care for her. Her mother also ignored her in favor of the new family. When her Uncle got drunk, he would beat on her door and try to break in, to r*pe her. Every night she would stay up until 3am when one of the other family members would return home from work, and she would be able to sleep in peace. He never succeeded thankfully, but on the last try did come close but she was saved. She called the police, but all her family members failed her by doubting her or not wanting her to cause a stir by reporting. The uncle also didnt get much time since her family members spoke against her and there wasnt much evidence. In the end she lived with a kind female officer until she made it on her own.

because she rejected him in the past and asked him to stop bothering her (theres a reason for this) he didnt want to be the one to approach her this time. He wanted to allow her to pursue him and take the initiative, which she did by the way

After MC rejects him with a lie that she already promised to be with someone else, he leaves and gets drunk with his friends. This was after theyd already arranged to attend nearby schools and basically did the student version of verifying their relationship aka do you want to go to the same college as me stuff. Anyway his friend was also dumped and lamented "Am I a spare tire?" and the drunk ML repeated his words, then added "A sparetire... is fine too."

MC dealing with the aftermath of her near r*pe and her family basically abandoning and victim blaming her, her own shame and depression from the experience, and left over sadness from her fathers passing, you can completely understand why fleeing the city was at the forefront of her mind instead of making sure she kept her promise with ML. Her life was hell and she was at a point where she could barely care for herself, and didnt want to drag anybody down with her. I completely get why she cut him off at that time, the shame, the uncertainty of her own circumstances (they didnt go into detail but I imagine living with a female cop was hard to adjust to especially with her hating to rely on people), she really didnt want to hold him down. But she definitely loved him then and even the years after, and the reason I say this is because if you pay attention to how closely she pays attention to him once they reunite, you'll notice her feelings never stopped. She simply had to restrain them because of her guilt over the rejection and her own trauma. I will say she felt terrible about lying to him and rejecting him, so please dont blame her and definitely consider from her point of view.

On the MLs side, you can ask why he didnt go harder for her. But hes such a prideful boy, he lowered his esteem a lot in order to pursue her both times. He was young and hurt and she cut him off and lied to him about having another, after rejecting him a couple of months prior, it was understandable he couldn't take two rejections. In the end though he pined for her and knew she was the only person he'd like in his life. It hurt his pride, but he couldn't not like her. And when he found out why she did all that, he was so disappointed in himself for not noticing the signs. But how could he when shes great at putting on a calm front? In the end the separation really shouldn't be blamed on anyone, there was alot of reasons behind it.

The part where she tried to love ML as deeply as she could while also protecting him from knowing about her awful relatives only for ML to feel hurt instead (because he thought she tried to distance herself) is so sad. Because in the end, it's no one's fault, it's not FL's fault that her relatives are such a garbage pile of human being, it's also not ML's fault that he misunderstood her intentions because he frankly didn't know anything AND their separation in the past makes him kind of traumatized.

It's literally mentioned in the novel that he loves FL so deeply and that's the only thing capable of making him sad.