“Is there really no chance for us?” Tan still didn’t want to give up.
Selena didn’t answer, but her silence was already an answer in itself.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t reject him.
She just didn’t know how to say goodbye without hurting him.
This silence was the last bit of kindness she could offer him.
“It understand.” Ian lowered his head and finally let go.
Selena helped him up and took out a cassette tape from the pocket of her lab coat.
Tan recognized it instantly.
It was the first gift Selena had ever given him, a tape with his favorite songs recorded on it.
Back then, when he had ended things with Selena to be with Vanessa, he had returned both the tape and the recorder to Selena, wanting to sever all ties with her completely.
It was the decision he regretted the most.
Later, when he couldn’t find the tape in the recorder, he assumed Selena had burned it along with everything else.
But now he realized she had kept it with her all this time.
“It should have burned it,” Selena murmured.
“But if I did, there would be nothing left to prove that I once loved you. ” She pressed the tape into his hand.
“Don’t lose it this time.” Ian pulled her into a tight embrace, nodding over and over, his voice trembling.
“Thank you for keeping it for me.” Selena hugged him back for the last time.
In the rain-soaked night, two weary souls finally learned to lay their past to rest in silence.
The next day, on his flight home, Ian sat by the window, absentmindedly rubbing the old cassette in his pocket.
It was now his most treasured possession.
As the rising sun pierced through the clouds, its golden light spilled across his face.
—- For the first time in a long while, he slept peacefully.
After returning, Ian never told Zachary where Selena was no matter how many times he asked.
As for Vanessa, she had been beaten up and thrown out of the house by Zachary.
However, in name, she was still his adopted daughter.
Like a parasite, she remained a presence that could never truly be shaken off.
One day, desperate to pay off her gambling debts, Vanessa snuck into the Carter family estate through a window, attempting to steal the property deed and sell it.
But before she could escape, Zachary caught her.
In the struggle, Vanessa accidentally pushed Zachary, and he hit his head hard against the edge of a table.
He never got up again.
Realizing he was no longer breathing, Vanessa panicked.
She stole one of the Carter family’s cars and tried to flee in the dead of night, but her nerves got the best of her.
She lost control of the car and drove straight into a river.
