Chapter 9
It was a clinical depression diagnosis, showing that my condition had progressed to an intermediate stage.
The medication was no longer effective, and surgery was recommended.
Attached to it was a transcript from one of my therapy sessions.
–
Doctor, I’m so exhausted. Every morning when I open my eyes, I just want to die.
–
Can you tell me when these feelings are most intense?
– Whenever I fight with Caspian. Every time, it feels like I just… want it to end. But I can’t die yet–I still
owe the Hyperions a debt. I have to give them a child first before I can finally end it all.
–
When was your most recent self–harm incident?
–
The night he brought Sherry home.
Reading this, Caspian’s lips trembled, his face contorted with agonizing pain.
That day, he had brought Sherry home.
Coming out of his study, he saw Sherry on the floor.
He believed her lies, thinking I had tried to kill her. He pushed me down, letting the knife cut into my wrist.
Watched as the knife sliced through my wrist, and instead of stopping me, he told me to apologize.
So I picked up the knife and cut myself again, smiling through the pain.
“Is this apology good enough for you?”
His grip tightened around the papers, pressing them against his chest, tears welling in his eyes.
So I had already been suicidal by then. Yet he had only twisted the knife deeper.
His breath came ragged, his whole body trembling as the memory ripped him apart.
He remembered forcing me to kneel and apologize to Sherry in front of everyone at the hospital. I hadn’t cried or protested–I’d simply said I was the mistress.
13:32
Chapte
What the fuck have I done?“–I’m a fucking asshole!”
He fell to his knees, slapping himself across the face again and again.
Everyone knew it by now–After I “died,” Caspian went insane looking for me.
By then, I had already arrived in Hong Kong.
The truth was, I did jump that night but was rescued by Eamon Leonel, my former class president from college.
“Loviisa, I’ve loved you for eleven years. I finally have a chance now that you’ve left Caspian–how could you try to end your life?”
“If you’re determined to jump, then I’ll die with you.”
In the darkness, I couldn’t see his face clearly. But I felt it–the desperation in his grip, the pleading in his voice.
Maybe I didn’t want an innocent person’s death on my conscience, or maybe I was moved by his passionate confession.
Either way, I agreed to go with him to Hong Kong.
As for the ocean video, Eamon had paid the photographer a small fortune for it and re–edited the footage.
Then, to make it even more convincing, he booked an elite fake death service–complete with a lifelike synthetic corpse.
He just hadn’t anticipated that Caspian would remember the exact location of my birthmark.
By the time he started digging into flight records, Eamon and I were already on a private jet, halfway across the world.
In Hong Kong, I discovered that Eamon ran a bridal boutique that was looking for a wedding dress designer.
My college major had been design, and my dream was to become a wedding dress designer.
After marrying Caspian, I’d been forced into the role of the perfect wife and mother.
Now, I had the chance to start over.
And I took it.
Under our joint management, two years later, the boutique became Hong Kong’s hottest bridal shop, and
13:32
Chapter 9
I became a renowned designer.
Meanwhile, Mervi climbed the corporate ladder too, working her way up from an office worker to a department head.
From her, I learned about Caspian’s situation.
After I left, he discovered what Sherry had done to me.
He immediately divorced her, threw her out, and left her to rot in a club, selling herself to survive.
These past two years, he never stopped looking for me.
For the past two years, Caspian never stopped looking for me.
He stopped sleeping around, touching women entirely and devoted himself to raising our son.
I thought I’d never cross paths with Caspian again, but fate had other plans for our reunion.
13 32
