Chapter 9
Alistair came to see me the day after he was discharged from the hospital.
When I got home, I found him sitting in the courtyard, having coffee with my mother.
My mother had been close friends with his mother.
After his mother passed away from illness, my mother had always looked out for him.
In that sense, Alistair and I were alike. My own father had died in an accident when I
was young.
The difference was that my mother never remarried.
Our parents didn’t know about the tension between Alistair and me.
They only assumed the distance between us was due to years apart and his memory loss.
But now, he had remembered everything.
My mother beamed at me. “Celestine, Alistair is here to see you.”
A cherry blossom tree stood in the courtyard.
It was spring, and petals drifted down gently, landing on Alistair’s shoulders and hair.
was just like that year he’d snuck me away from a banquet, and we ran into the thick
snow to build two snowmen together.
Our footprints were tangled together.
He scooped up a handful of snow, threw it into the air, and held my hand.
“Celestine–let’s walk this path together! We’ll grow old together!”
But later, fresh snow covered our footprints.
And all that white on our heads melted away. Everything vanished.
Alistair poured a cup of coffee and pushed it toward me, smiling faintly.
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“It feels like it’s been a very long time since we last sat down and had coffee together
properly.”
I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d sat together like this–in peace.
It felt like a lifetime ago.
When Alistair talked about the island, he mentioned how harsh he had been to me.
There was a hint of regret in his expression.
“I owe you an apology.”
“If I’d known losing my memory would make me hurt you like that—I would’ve rather
died in the sea from the start.”
He had said something similar when I first found him on the island.
“I’m not the Alistair you keep talking about. And I’m not your fiancé.”
“The person you’re looking for might already be dead in the ocean.”
Cherry blossoms drifted down one after another. Alistair let out a bitter smile.
“If I had just agreed to go back with you back then… would everything be different
now?”
“Even if I fell in love with Serena while I’d lost my memory…
“I would’ve remembered eventually–that it was you. You were the one I loved.”
I took a slow sip of coffee and said calmly and firmly, “No, Alistair–you wouldn’t
have.”
You wouldn’t have come back with me,
because you
you couldn’t let go of Serena.
And you wouldn’t have fallen in love with me after regaining your memory, because your heart had already changed.
Alistair didn’t follow. Disappointment flickered across his face.
Chapter 9
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“You’ve always been decisive. Why didn’t you just bring me back by force back then?”
I studied his face, searching for something. But there was nothing there to find.
In the end, I said, “Because I fell into the sea. I was out cold for days.”
He had seen it with his own eyes when I fell into the sea that day.
The water had swallowed up everything I once felt for him, leaving only hatred behind.
Alistair once called my methods filthy. Said I had a vicious heart.
But that wasn’t all.
I was also good at pretending, and even capable of enjoying other people’s downfall.
The only reason I could sit here so calmly now was because I’d seen what he’d become.
The Alistair of the past–brilliant, proud, effortlessly the center of attention wherever
he went.
And the man before me now? Limping. Withdrawn. Utterly defeated.
He no longer had anything left worth being proud of.
A strange look crossed Alistair’s face–as if it had just hit him.
That day on the boat, when the wave came… it was Serena’s wrist he had grabbed. Not
mine.
I glanced at him, still lost in thought, then stood up to leave.
“There’s no possibility left for us anymore.”
