Jano lost his first girlfriend when he called her Ronnie during a make out session one Friday. Her name was Lila. She had curly brown hair and freckles on her pale skin and she reminded Jano of Veronica. That was the girl's name, he saw it on her Journal the other day. Her friend's called her Ronnie, though. He did not mean to call her name when Lila was touching him, and he did not blame Lila for being angry. She would have been angrier had she known that he was usually thinking of someone else when he kissed her, so he calmly accepted her request to break up without trying to make excuses. There was nobody in their circle who had the name Ronnie, or anything that could be shortened to it, so for Lila it would always be a curiosity.
Word got around school that he had been cheating on her. Lila's best friend had always hated him and was quick to interpret the secret as told to her and spread the story around. It did not hurt Jano's prospects much. His dreamy demeanor and handsome countenance attracted many fans, but that horrible habit of his to stare off into the distance while people were talking made everyone feel like he really didn't care about any of them at all. The ones who loved him for his face continued to do so, and the few who wanted to approach him but didn't before continued to stay in the background. As for Jano, he realized that he was not interested in anyone but the cute girl who sang to him since he was a child. It would be years before he went on another date, let alone entered a relationship.
Not long before Jano turned 18, Veronica lost her mother. The songs became sad, and often he could see her holding a picture while curled up on her bed, tears splashing down onto the glass. in the frame. He recognized some of the songs, ones that she had sang with her mother when she was younger, but heartwrenching when sang alone. His heart ached and he cried as well, wishing he could be there to hold her hand. Instead he held the pendant she had appeared in and whispered words of comfort into it long after she had gone.
For the rest of that year before he moved off to career training he spent as much time with his family as he could. His mother and father were pleased,but concerned that he was dealing with things that he could not talk to them about. The death of someone who could very well be imaginary had hit him as hard as if it had been one of his own parents, and he wanted to make sure that they knew he loved them. His expression during that time was often full of melancholy, and his fans swooned, dubbing him the 'brooding poet' even though he had never written a single pair of rhyming lines.