Chapter 9
My family and I left the airport with smiles.
No one mentioned Dylan or Mandy again.
They weren’t worth it.
But unexpectedly, that same night, we received a call from the police
station.
Mandy was dead.
She had jumped from the roof of the apartment building they were renting.
Dylan, as the only roommate, was taken in for questioning.
Although the suspicion of homicide was eventually ruled out, the incident still became a minor news story.
The former crisis negotiation expert was now reported to have driven his live–in girlfriend to her death.
How ironic fate was.
When my parents told me this, I was telling Kevin a bedtime story.
I only fell silent for a moment, then continued in a gentle voice, “Later, the little rabbit found the carrot that truly belonged to him.”
Blessings and misfortunes were interdependent, all rooted in cause and effect.
From the moment Dylan betrayed me, he should have foreseen this
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ending.
Those who betrayed their feelings would eventually fall into hell.
After the event ended, I took Theodore and Kevin to the amusement park.
The sun was shining brightly, and the music of the carousel was cheerful and light.
Kevin sat on the wooden horse, smiling like a little angel.
As I watched him, my heart was filled with peace.
Dylan’s POV
When I found out that Emilia was pregnant, my first reaction was joy.
But beneath that joy lay a trace of panic that I myself was unwilling to
admit.
I was going to be a father.
I was going to build a family with a woman I wasn’t sure if I still loved deeply.
I confessed, after seven years, that the passion I felt for Emilia had faded, leaving only a family–like habit.
And Mandy’s appearance was like a shot of adrenaline.
She was so fragile and dependent on me. Her eyes were filled with admiration and love.
That feeling of being completely needed was addictive to me.
I indulged in that feeling.
When Emilia said she was going to have an abortion, I suddenly felt that
Chapter 9
my life was out of control.
I knelt outside her house all night, not to win her back, but to retrieve the out–of–control version of myself.
I thought that as long as the child was there, Emilia would never leave.
- me.
But I was wrong.
She had the abortion and left without the slightest hesitation.
At that moment, I actually let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Seven years of relationship felt too heavy.
I thought I could finally catch my breath.
I’d go and coax her once she cooled down. She loved me so much, she would come back.
But I never expected that indulgence would lead me to fall completely into the web Mandy had woven.
There were two kinds of human desires, greed and unwillingness.
What I felt for Mandy was greed.
I wanted to taste the fresh and exciting flavor of another kind of love.
What I felt for Emilia was the unwillingness.
How could she just leave like that? How could she have no lingering feelings for me at all?
So, driven by a vengeful sense of unwillingness to accept, I got together with Mandy.
Chapter 9
I wanted to make Emilia regret it–regret her unwavering resolve back
I wanted her to know that losing me was the greatest loss of her life.
Time flew by.
Life with Mandy quickly turned from fresh and exciting to endless quarrels and suffocation.
She was like a bottomless pit, constantly devouring my energy and patience.
I began to feel bored and resorted to cold violence.
It wasn’t until I was dismissed from the police force, with everyone avoiding me like the plague, that I started missing Emilia like crazy.
I missed her gentleness, her understanding, and the unspoken rapport between us.
I finally realized that I had lost the most precious treasure in the world.
I waited for five years, and finally, I got to see her again.
The moment she walked out of the airport, I felt like I was seeing a ray of light.
She had become more beautiful, more confident, and was radiant all over.
I thought I had a chance.
But when that man and the child appeared, all my hopes were shattered.
That day, as I watched their back layered with happiness, I felt an emptiness in my chest.
If only I hadn’t turned away at the wedding back then.
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Chapter 9
If only I had held onto Emilia tightly and not let her have that abortion.
If only I hadn’t had other thoughts about Mandy.
Would we have been this happy now?
I regret it so much, regret it to the point of madness.
When I got home, Mandy asked me if I was regretful.
I said yes.
I said I regretted meeting her, and I even wished she were dead.
I saw the despair in her eyes.
But I didn’t care.
The next day, I stumbled out of the house in a daze.
I forgot to check whether the bathroom door was closed when I left.
It wasn’t until the police came knocking that I found out.
They said Mandy was dead.
To my own astonishment, my first reaction was a sense of relief.
Good.
That lunatic was finally dead.
I was finally free.
Yet I began to have nightmares every night. In them, she stared at me with blood streaming from her eyes, asking why I’d destroyed her.
My mind started to unravel.
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Chapter 9
Sometimes, I’d see Emilia in her wedding dress. Other times, I’d see Mandy leaping from the rooftop.
Their faces flickered back and forth in my mind.
Until one day, I realized something.
They were originally all good people.
It was me. I was the one who destroyed them with my own hands.
It was I who had lost Emilia’s heart a long, long time ago.
After that, I trampled Mandy’s life under my feet.
I truly deserve to die.
That day, I drank a lot of alcohol and walked up to the rooftop.
The wind on the 33rd floor was strong, and the city’s night view was beautiful.
I felt as if I had turned into a bird, flying to the window of Emilia’s house.
I saw her turn off the TV that was broadcasting news of my death, and calmly tell her son a bedtime story.
At that moment, it seemed that I had finally let go.
