Chapter 10
Samuel collapsed on the couch, shaking his head as he repeated the words, “That’s impossible. How can she die when I haven’t even forgiven her?” A bitter laugh escaped me as tears cascaded down my cheeks. So, as far as he was concerned, I couldn’t die before he forgave me.
Samuel picked up his phone from the floor and tapped into the photo gallery. He pulled up the only photograph of him and Lucas. As he stared at it, his shoulders began to shake, and his tears rolled down his phone screen in two lines.
He suddenly shot to his feet and practically hurled himself out of his villa. His hands trembled as he drove.
Once again, Samuel pulled up outside the cottage Lucas and I had stayed in. He had visited our cottage more times in a few short days than he had in the last few years.
I had no idea whether to find the irony amusing or bitter.
Samuel opened the gate, and this time, he made a beeline for the front door of the cottage. He stood on the doorstep for a good ten seconds or so, then pushed open the door that had been tightly shut for the last three years.
The door creaked open, and hot air tinged with the smell of musk and mold greeted him.
The room beyond the door was still as tidy as it had been when I died, save for the slight mess on the dining and coffee tables. The mess was the result of Lucas’s mischief in the days after my death.
The living room, located off to the side of the cottage, boasted the outlines of two human silhouettes drawn in white chalk on the floor. The bigger silhouette was mine, while the smaller one was Lucas‘.
I had passed out on the floor while I was returning to the bedroom after using the bathroom. Lucas, on the other hand, had curled up and quietly died in
my arms.
Samuel stared at the two silhouettes intently, his face growing terrifyingly dark as he seemed to be in a daze. He was shaking all over, his expression beginning to crack until his features twisted like he was on the verge of a meltdown.
He moved and started peering into each room in the cottage. He stopped by Lucas‘ room first. The stuffed pig toy was still on Lucas‘ bed. Samuel had grabbed it during his company’s annual gala and given it to Lucas. It was the only present Lucas had ever received from him.
On the nightstand was the photograph I’d taken of Samuel and Lucas. There was even a drawing by Lucas depicting a family of three–Samuel, Lucas, and me.
Samuel took the drawing, his tears splattering on it. He quickly whipped out a tissue to dry the tears he’d shed atop the drawing, then carefully placed it back on the nightstand.
My room was next door and bore simple decorations. Only a few items of clothing and books marked my former existence.
Samuel took out my clothes from the wardrobe, holding them in his arms as he caressed them slowly. He stared at them, most of which were picked out by him before things between us got messy and strained.
His face crumbled with sorrow as a small, choking sound escaped him. He crouched as if his knees had become too weak to hold up his weight and buried his face in my clothes, letting out a pained sob.
He stayed in my room until night fell. The cottage’s power supply had been cut off, considering I hadn’t been paying my electricity bills for the last three years, so it was completely dark. The weeds and grass outside were waist–high. This was a house in which Lucas and I had died.
I might be a lost soul, but even I couldn’t help feeling creeped out just by being in this room. And yet, Samuel didn’t seem scared at all. He looked like a shell of himself as he sat dumbly on my bed.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when his phone rang, piercing the stifling silence.
Leaning over to glance at the caller ID, I spotted Kendall’s name. Gosh, that man didn’t know when to let up.
Samuel slid his thumb horizontally across his screen to put the call through, but remained silent on his end of the line. Kendall was the first to speak.” Look, I figured that there are some things I need to explain to you. I don’t want that foolish woman to die with such a tarnished reputation.”
There was a pause before he continued, “I was only trying to get back at you for hitting me on the head with a beer bottle, so I used your future well- being as leverage against Calla. She ended up caving in to my blackmail.
“At first, I considered paying for her upkeep if she’d agreed to be with me. I was even willing to take care of your child, whom she was carrying at the time. But Calla was a loyal romantic who did not and could not have feelings for me.
“I’m no wife–stealer, either. I didn’t want to risk having her stab me in my sleep. I thought that after enduring your torment for the past few years, she might finally come to her senses and return to me. I didn’t think she’d die, and certainly not from donating her bone marrow to your sidepiece. “Funny how things turned out, isn’t it? To hell with you, Samuel. How can you call yourself a man after you let this happen? When I returned from abroad, I was told she’d been dead for three years! You fucking bastard!”
Kendall suddenly became unhinged on the other end of the line. I was perplexed by the scion’s behavior.
At that mornent, Samuel hung up on Kendall, effectively putting a stop to the latter’s relentless, mardiacal cursing
I didn’t want to stay here and look at Samuel’s anguished expression. I thought I’d be thrilled to see him break down over my death, but I felt nothing
1 drifted out to the yard and found Lucas sound asleep on the crooked branch of a large tree I wrapped my arms around
Chapter 10
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always, and kissed his sleeping profile over and over.
I’d been feeling so much lighter the past two days. Perhaps the tether chaining me to this mortal world was finally loosening. Perhaps soon, Lucas and I could go into the light and forget about the sorrows of this lifetime.
