Chapter 6
I can’t describe Nathan’s expression when he saw that message.
I just felt like his soul had been ripped away in an instant, leaving him completely hollow.
Nathan didn’t bother grabbing his coat and bolted for the door.
In the hallway, he stumbled along, nearly twisting his ankle several times.
Once he got in the car, Nathan’s tears dripped onto the steering wheel.
Then his tears just kept flowing.
Nathan wiped his eyes with one hand while frantically pounding the steering wheel with the other. The car nearly crashed into the roadside barrier.
He kept muttering, “It’s impossible. How could Caroline be dead? She was so strong, so resilient,”
I sat in the passenger seat, turning to look at his tear–reddened
eyes.
Before, when he watched me get fired from the hospital, those eyes were full of contempt.
Lafer, when I begged him to save Liliana, those eyes were full of2
Now they were crying. But what good did that do?
Nathan hurriedly arranged to meet Jackson at a coffee shop.
The moment he practically burst into the café, he grabbed Jackson’s arm tightly, his nails nearly digging into Jackson’s flesh.
He asked, “This is fake, right? Tell me this is fake!
“The death certificate is forged, isn’t it? How could she possibly be dead?”
Jackson sighed, shook his head, then pulled out a stack of documents from his bag and placed them in front of Nathan.
He said, “Dr. Morgan, please don’t grieve excessively. All of this is real.”
The top sheet read: [Caroline, time of death: March 17th, five years ago, cause of death: hemorrhagic shock.]
The moment Nathan’s hand touched the paper, he jerked it back as if burned.
But he quickly grabbed it again, his fingers trembling violently.
His tears dripped onto the paper, creating small wet spots.
Nathan mumbled, “This can’t be real.”
2/5
21:22
He flipped through the rest of the documents, which included
from the alley entrance.
Though the photo was blurry, you could see a large patch of dark red blood on the ground.
Jackson explained from the side, “That year, the son of the family involved in the medical malpractice case didn’t make it, so they’d been harboring anger.
“They didn’t know Caroline had taken the fall for someone else, so when they heard Caroline was released from prison, they cornered her in the alley at midnight.
“They said they hadn’t intended to kill her, just wanted to teach her a lesson. But during the confrontation, they lost control and
stabbed her.
“They stabbed Caroline thirteen times total. She died on the way to the hospital.”
I watched Nathan’s face grow paler and paler as the documents. slipped from his hands to the floor.
He covered his face, his shoulders shaking violently.
Nathan’s sobs squeezed out between his fingers, muffled and agonizing.
He said, “I killed her. If I hadn’t made her take the fall, she wouldn’t have been fired from the hospital, wouldn’t have gone to/grison, and wouldn’t have…”
21:22
I floated beside him, listening to his words, not knowing what to
feel.
What destroyed me wasn’t just the one act of making me take the fall, and it wasn’t just Nathan alone.
Nathan crouched down to pick up the documents. When his fingers touched the death certificate, he suddenly froze.
He looked up at Jackson, a trace of desperate hope in his eyes: “When Liliana died, did Caroline know?”
Jackson paused, then shook his head.
He said, “When Ms. Walker died, Liliana was still hanging on in the hospital. I heard that later, she couldn’t afford treatment anymore and died not long after.”
Nathan’s crying suddenly grew louder, as if he wanted to cry out five years‘ worth of debt and regret.
He collapsed onto the table, his back heaving with sobs.
Watching him like this, I suddenly found it somewhat ridiculous.
Jackson patted Nathan’s back without saying much more.
Everyone in the coffee shop was staring at Nathan. Some were even talking, but Nathan didn’t care at all.
4/5
21:22
I floated outside the window, looking at the gray, overcast sky.
sky looked just like this.
At that moment, my last thought wasn’t hatred toward anyone, but feeling sorry for Liliana because I hadn’t been able to help her live well.
Now, what difference did it make that Nathan knew the truth?
The dead can’t come back to life. The debt he owed us could never be repaid.
