Chapter 11
After we walked out of the courtroom, Roy let out a heavy sigh, full of regret.
“I didn’t get much of a chance to be useful in the end.”
“You young people are odd. One moment, you’re all lovey–dovey. The next, you’re tearing each other apart. Then before anyone can blink, someone’s trying to atone by dying.”
“Hah. That’s what happens when life gets too easy.”
“Back in our day, evil was evil–no gray area. And the good ones? We fought the darkness to the bitter end.”
My mother and I exchanged a smile, eyes brimming with tears.
At long last… my father’s name had been cleared.
Once the media reported the case, people who’d once cursed us online came flooding back with apologies.
They called my father a hero, saying he had saved a young girl and spared her a lifetime of torment.
Some of his former students spoke up too, remembering him as a kind, gentle teacher with a heart of gold.
Many wanted to send flowers… but none of them could find his grave.
The Sylvia’s family became targets themselves. Word spread that they were cursed, a family full of misfortune.
Barry’s grave was constantly covered in trash and filth. Some even went so far as to daub it with sigils across it, intoning curses that his soul would scatter and never be reborn.
But my mother and I never heard about any of that.
We left Vyrtham with Justin quietly, taking my father’s and grandmother’s ashes.
On the road out of the city, Justin handed me a manila envelope.
Inside was a finalized divorce agreement… and a single black card.
“Before he was arrested,” Justin said, “Veyne came to see me.”
“He liquidated everything. All of it. Turned every cent into cash and had it transferred to this account.”
“He said… this was his final promise to you. If he ever betrayed you, he’d make sure he was left with nothing.”
I didn’t refuse it.
I signed the divorce papers, sealed them, and sent them to the lawyer for processing.
With that money, I bought two small courtyard houses in a quiet town.
Mom and I opened a inn together.
I heard that Veyne developed depression in prison.
He refused treatment. Couldn’t sleep. And when he did, he was haunted by nightmares.
They said he suffered terribly. That he talked about killing himself every day. That he cried, begging to see me.
But I wasn’t in Vyrtham anymore.
Even when the news reached me, I just smiled and said nothing.
I had no intention of ever seeing him again.
Not in this life.
Chapter 11
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Let him stay trapped in his world of regret, while I kept moving forward in mine.
We’d live in separate realities.
He’d drown in the past.
And I’d chase the light.
Maybe that’s how it was meant to be.
Maybe that’s enough.
[The End.]
H
Chapter 11
