- 8.
My injuries were severe. The nurses changed
my dressings daily.
Each time was excruciating.
My flesh was burned away; every dressing
change ripped away more flesh.
Everyone watched in horror as I screamed.
L
My hoarse voice made Ethan pale and
tremble.
Finally, he couldn’t bear it anymore and ran out.
He returned home, but didn’t go inside. He went to the temple.
It was a mess. Even the Buddha statue was
half–destroyed.
He knelt in the ashes, praying to the broken
statue.
“Please, give me back Rachel!”
“Take my life, just let her be free from pain!” “Tell me, what must I do for her to be safe!”
His tears were like blood. But it was too late.
Exhausted, he collapsed before the statue.
He saw a small wooden box hidden in a niche.
It was a box we’d bought when we were
eighteen.
We agreed to write down our secrets in it.
He hadn’t seen it in ten years.
<
He thought I’d thrown it away.
Trembling, he dug the box from the ashes.
Inside, was a yellowed note.
It contained the truth about that night.
Ethan froze.
Then he cried and laughed, laughed and
cried.
He kept repeating,
“All these years, I hated the wrong person.
I’m the one who should die!”
Regret consumed him.
When his parents died, he thought he
wouldn’t feel pain again.
But now, his heart ached.
He vomited blood and fainted before the
statue.
When he woke up, he hired investigators.
The timeline was clear; the truth was easy to
find.
Discovering Olivia’s crime nearly broke him.
He rushed home, dragging Olivia from her
bed.
She trembled, kneeling before him.
“Ethan, what’s wrong? Did Rachel say
something bad about me?”
“Tell her it’s okay, I won’t blame her…”
Before she finished, Ethan slapped her. “You bitch, did you think I didn’t know?”
“I remember, you were the housekeeper’s
daughter!”
“My sister begged my parents to let you stay,
but you drugged her!”
Olivia understood.
Pale, she begged for mercy, for the sake of
her baby.
Ethan laughed, kicking her stomach.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you, I’ll make your
life a living hell!”
He threw Olivia in the trunk and repeatedly
く
crashed the car into the wall.
He watched her suffer with satisfaction.
Olivia begged him to stop.
Ethan ignored her, taking a knife and cutting
open her belly.
He then ordered his assistant to patch her up
and send her to a foreign slum.
Within a month, Olivia was a mess, dying in
agony and regret.
Ethan was at my bedside when he got the
news.
He smiled, holding my hand, excited.
“Rachel, I avenged you and Grace!”
“Can you forgive me?”
I lay still, silent.
