Chapter 4

For three long years, I drank myself to a stomach hemorrhage just to help Helen win that multinational contract.

When her father fell ill, I stayed by his hospital bed for half a month, never leaving his side.

To give her peace of mind at work, I put up with her father's impossible demands and turned a blind eye to all the rumors.

Even after I was diagnosed with cancer, I kept it from everyone and endured chemotherapy completely alone just so I wouldn't distract her.

When my hair fell out in clumps, I bought a wig to hide it.

When I was reduced to skin and bones, I wore oversized clothes to cover it up.

Yet in Helen's eyes, every bit of it was just proof of how calculating and manipulative I was.

Helen picked up her phone, looking like she wanted to make a call, but her finger hovered over the screen for a long time before she tossed it aside in frustration.

"Forget him. I'm going to take a shower." She turned and headed into the bathroom.

The sound of running water filled the room.

Austin sat alone on the couch. The sweet, submissive act vanished from his face in an instant.

He pulled out his phone and typed out a quick message, "It's done. The idiot was probably fuming tonight. As long as he loses his cool and makes one more scene, Helen will be completely done with him. Then, I'll replace him as her husband."

He smiled triumphantly after hitting send.

Reaching over, he casually picked up a pill bottle from the coffee table.

It was the high-potency painkillers I had forgotten to take with me before I left.

"What's this?"

Austin opened the cap out of curiosity, poured out a white pill, and sniffed it. "Vitamins? Ha, how weak is this guy to be popping this many vitamins?"

He tossed the bottle into the trash with disgust.

A sharp rattle echoed.

My lifesaving medication was left sitting among banana peel and discarded paper.

I floated beside the trash can, staring down at the bottle.

I wanted to pick it up.

The doctor had gone through a lot of trouble to get them for me. One pill could keep the pain away for four hours.

Even though I couldn't feel pain anymore, I still couldn't bear to see it thrown away.

That was my life.

I reached out to grab it. I tried once, twice, then a third time, but my hand passed right through every time.

I collapsed onto the floor, staring blankly at the bottle.

Helen stepped out of the bathroom after her shower and saw Austin packing up some things. "What are you doing?"

"I noticed a few things here… Look like they belong to Reuben. I thought I'd pack them away so you wouldn't have to look at them and get upset."

Austin was holding a photo album in his hands. It was our wedding album.

In the photos, I wore a sharp suit, my face radiant with happiness. Even though Helen had a faint expression, the affection in her eyes was impossible to hide.

When Helen saw the album, her gaze went blank for a brief moment.

Then, she strode over and snatched it out of his hands.

I thought she was going to keep it.

Instead, she walked straight to the fireplace and threw her arm forward.

The album fell into the fire. The flames instantly consumed the smiling version of me in the picture.

"Good riddance," Helen said, her voice as cold as ice. "I was blind back then to think he was simple and kind. Keeping these things around only reminds me of how stupid I was."

The firelight flickered across her face, casting alternating shadows.

I watched myself turn into ash, piece by piece, in the flames.

The very last shred of longing inside me burned away along with that fire.

It wasn't just the photos Helen burned. It was the ten years I spent loving her.

Let them burn.

She could burn every last bit of those years.

That way, I could leave completely clean, with nothing left holding me back.

The next morning, I was woken up by a sharp, persistent phone ring.

Ghosts didn't need sleep, but I still habitually rested with my eyes closed.

Helen was woken up by the call and answered with a face full of anger, "Who is this? Don't you know it's barely morning?"

I couldn't hear what the person on the other end was saying, but Helen's expression changed instantly—from anger to shock and finally to a pale white.

The phone slipped from her hand and hit the floor with a loud thud.

"Helen, what's wrong?"

Austin was startled awake. He sat up, rubbing his eyes in confusion.

Helen ignored him completely.

As if she had lost her soul, she turned around stiffly and stared out the floor-to-ceiling window at the vast, white world outside.

It took a long time before she let out a voice that was parched to the extreme.

"The police said… They found a man's body… in the hotel's backyard. The build and the clothes… all look like Reuben's."