Semua Bab After They Gambled With My Life, I Went to the Scottish Highlands: Bab 1 - Bab 10

I slipped my phone into my coat pocket, ignoring Ethan's question.At the entryway, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a spare key.Ethan had insisted on giving me this key six months ago. That day he'd leaned against the doorframe and told me with a smile that from now on, this wasn't just his apartment. It was our home. My books, cameras, and clothes could stay wherever I wanted, and I'd never have to pack up like a temporary guest every time I left.That sentence had made me happy for a long time.Now, I placed the key gently in the brass tray on the shoe cabinet. Metal met metal with a crisp clink.Ethan's gaze fell on the key, and his expression finally changed. "What is this supposed to mean?"I didn't look at him. Instead, I took out my phone again and opened the photography cloud drive we shared.This account held most of the material I'd shot over the past few years. Ethan had said that couples shouldn't have secrets, and Sophie was always borrowing my photos for her trav

I sank slowly to my knees on the cold marble floor and began picking up the scattered SD cards.One card had slid under a stranger's suitcase. I bent down to reach for it, but my fingertips hit a shard of broken filter glass first. A sharp sting, then blood welling up instantly, dripping onto the edge of a nearby boarding pass and blooming into a small dark-red stain.Sophie stumbled back two steps, her face white.But the first thing out of her mouth was still, "I didn't do it on purpose. Who told you to pull so hard? If you hadn't tried to grab it from me, the bag never would have fallen."Ethan walked over with a frown and glanced at the broken lens on the floor. He crouched down, his tone as measured and rational as ever. "The lens is broken. I'll buy you a new one. Cards can be replaced, and even if the data's corrupted, we can hire someone to recover it. Get up first. The floor is cold. Don't make yourself sick again."Those cards held the footage I was preparing to submit to the

The plane broke through heavy clouds and touched down at Inverness Airport. Dawn was just breaking.I turned on my phone. The screen was clean. No missed calls, no unread messages. The temporary restraining order had been served by the police. Ethan could no longer contact me directly or enter my residence without permission.I didn't know what expression he'd worn when he arrived at the hospital and found the bed empty, the trash can holding nothing but blood-soaked gauze.I didn't care anymore.Walking out of the arrivals hall, a gust of snow-laced wind hit me head-on. I pulled my coat tighter and spotted a man in a black windbreaker standing at the exit.He was holding up a white cardboard sign with "Nora Bennett" written on it in neat black marker.When he saw me approach, he checked my photo first, then lowered the sign. "Nora? I'm Gabriel Grant, the project director at the Photography Center. Professor Reed asked me to pick you up."His voice was low and steady. No excessive warm

The day the exhibition opened, Inverness was buried in heavy snow.I wore a white turtleneck sweater and a long dark skirt, standing before the main wall of the gallery. Twelve photographs from Before the Lake Turns Blue hung there. The centerpiece was a winter morning shot of the lake surface. The ice hadn't fully sealed the water yet, and deep blue seeped through the cracks, like a pair of eyes opening for the first time.Many visitors lingered before the photographs.Someone asked me why I hadn't put myself in any of the pictures. I said I had always been in them. The surface of the lake, wrinkled by the wind, that was me. The stone wall, standing again after being battered, that was me too.Gabriel handed me a cup of hot tea and said quietly, "You were wonderful today."This wasn't Ethan's brand of condescending reassurance. It wasn't a pretty line designed to stop me from being angry.Just a calm, equal acknowledgment.I cradled the teacup and smiled at him. "Thank you."Just then

After wrapping up everything in London, I said goodbye to that apartment for the last time, and to the version of my life where I had mistaken endurance for the only way to hold onto love.When I returned to the Highlands, it was already deep winter.The lake had frozen over completely, like an enormous sheet of blue glass lying still between the mountains. In the distance, snow-covered peaks refracted blinding light under the sun. The wind blew in from the far edge of the moor, carrying a clean, sharp cold.I set up my tripod, adjusted the aperture, and prepared to photograph the play of light within the ice as the sun set.Gabriel stood two steps away, blocking part of the wind coming at me head-on. He remembered I got cold easily and had slipped two heat packs into my coat pockets beforehand. He also remembered I didn't like being touched without warning, so every time he came closer, he would call my name first."Nora, are you cold?"I reached into my pockets, felt the steady warmt