Chapter 10
Extra
Colin’s POV
The first time I saw Hannah was at the orphanage. She climbed a tree and was caught by the director. Without a second thought, she shoved a branch of cherry blossoms into my hand and ran off.
She was truly beautiful, her hair in twin pigtails, her eyes crescent–shaped when she smiled.
I grabbed my grandmother’s hand. “Grandma, can you help that sister?”
I never imagined my grandmother would support her until she came of age. When
I saw her again in my freshman year, she had worked part–time to buy a gift for my grandmother..
When she smiled at me again, my heart raced for several nights. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was her smile.
I found an excuse for her to tutor me in math. Remembering my grandmother’s kindness, she agreed without a word. I was happier than I had ever been, as if I had the entire world.
Her grades were excellent, and after graduation, she was assigned to a prestigious company. But for me, she resolutely gave up that opportunity and chose to join me in starting a business.
We naturally ended up together, dating, marrying, and I was lost in the sweetness of
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our happiness.
The first time I realized she didn’t love me was when she risked her life to save me from a car accident. She lay in critical condition, and in that moment, I felt like my heart was being torn apart.
Despite the doctor’s warning that she might never be able to have children again, she simply said, almost carelessly,
“My life was given to me by your grandmother. Saving you is my responsibility.”
For the first time, I wondered if she ever really loved me. Had she stayed by my side just to repay my grandmother’s kindness?
I cried, telling her that I would love her for the rest of my life, but her response was nothing
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more than indifference.
That day, I drank heavily. When I woke up, I realized my mother had drugged my drink, A woman lay in my arms, one who resembled Hannah in certain ways, shyly gazing at me, her eyes filled with nothing but me.
I must have gone mad. Under the influence of alcohol, I had slept with this woman. My mother had used suicide as a threat, demanding that I leave an heir for our family.
It was the hardest time of my life. Every day, I feared she would find out. I lived in constant terror, yet I kept searching in Jessica’s eyes for proof that she loved me.
How I wished that the one who truly loved me was Hannah.
But when she caught me with Hannah
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that day, she remained eerily calm. So calm, in fact, that she even coaxed me into confessing.
My pride and shame filled my chest, choking me. When I looked into her eyes, all I saw was disappointment, not love.
I left her alone in the hospital, and when she told me she was dying, I foolishly brushed it off as just another game she was playing with me.
She had always been so calm, never questioning me, never shouting or throwing a fit, no matter what I did.
I felt both pathetic and foolish.
Out of spite, I stopped going home. I knew she thought I had moved in with Jessica. During that time, I stayed at the office,
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waiting for just one call from her. If she sent me a message, I would have gone back without hesitation.
But I was wrong.
That day, when I came home and found her collapsed in the bathroom, I wanted nothing more than to slap myself twice. I wanted to reconcile with her, but there was nothing left for me in her eyes.
The day my grandmother passed away, I thought of how fragile Hannah’s health had become and didn’t want to upset her. I agreed to let Jessica take care of my grandmother’s funeral, as my mother insisted.
When I saw Hannah fall, her blood felt like a sword piercing through my body. Only then did I realize how terribly wrong I had been all
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along.
The doctor said Hannah was in the advanced stages of cancer, and there was nothing they could do. I remembered how she had told me over and over again that she was ill, but I had never believed her.
I recalled the day Hannah had suddenly mentioned wanting to see the cherry blossoms.
Desperately, I grasped at the straw of hope. “Hannah, didn’t you want to see the cherry blossoms? When you’re better, we’ll go, okay?”
But she wouldn’t even speak to me. Her final wish was simply for me to give her a funeral.
At the funeral, I saw the photos she had carefully arranged. Each one pierced my
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eyes, and I couldn’t bear to imagine what kind of strength it had taken her to sort through them in the final days of her life. Just thinking about it made me feel like I was going insane.
So this was how far her hatred for me had gone.
“Hannah, I’m sorry.”
“I really love you.”
“Can I see you one last time?”
Holding her photo, I repeated these words over and over, but she would never open her eyes and speak to me again.
I drowned my pain in alcohol every day, and when I closed my eyes, her desperate gaze haunted me, as though a knife were
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continuously carving at my heart. The pain, the despair, weighed down on me until I could hardly breathe.
“It’s just a woman who’s dead! You don’t even want your own child anymore?!”
My mother shoved the baby into my arms, and I looked at the obedient child in front of me, a painful reminder of my foolishness. I longed to use a knife to rid myself of my
sins.
That knife plunged into my own chest. The intense pain finally gave me a moment’s breath, and for a brief instant, I thought I saw Hannah beside me.
I called her desperately, but she walked away without looking back.
END
