“Hamish, the person who saved you sixteen years ago is already dead. I am Hamish, and you can only remember me, understand? No matter what happens, you belong to me. Since we started off wrong, let’s stay wrong till the end.”
He held her, comforting Elisa like one would comfort a child. “It’s late, go to sleep.”
Elisa had a splitting headache, her eyes stinging with pain. She clenched the blanket tightly around her. “Hamish, you’ll drive me crazy sooner or later.”
“You’ve gone mad in the hospital once before, so what is there to be afraid of? Even if you go mad again, I’ll take care of you.”
This man would never care about her. Perhaps he didn’t even care about her life and death. Elisa let out a long breath, her voice hoarse and weak.
“Hamish, I’m dying…”
Hamish’s steady breathing didn’t falter for a moment.
“I have stomach cancer. I may not live for another year.”
Hamish opened his eyes. “You lied to me once in the hospital before, do you want to deceive me a second time? Once is enough with the same trick; I won’t be fooled again.”
Elisa smiled, her voice unnaturally soft. “What if I tell you I never lied to you from the beginning?”
Hamish ignored her words, not paying them any attention.
There was no way Elisa had stomach cancer. At most, it was just a stomach problem. If it were stomach cancer, why didn’t she tell me from the beginning? It could have garnered a bit of his sympathy, but instead, she went through all this trouble for no good reason.
And he knew what late-stage stomach cancer meant. If Elisa truly had it, she would be bedridden by now, unable to move.
“Hamish, after all these years, do you have any feelings for me?”
“Yes,” Hamish replied without hesitation.
“Yes, even if it’s just keeping a pet, there should be some feelings,” Elisa said.
“Elisa, I like you.” At first, he thought of her as a pet, but over time, he couldn’t let her go.
If he only considered her a plaything, why would he go through all the trouble of keeping her confined in Shallow Bay? He did everything he could to prevent her from leaving. He always knew what he wanted.
“Hamish, your liking for me is nothing more than a temporary desire, a filthy desire to show off your superiority,” Elisa said, fully aware that Hamish kept her locked up here because of her rebellious nature and, more so, because she suddenly didn’t like him anymore.
Hamish, holding Elisa’s waist, listened to her steady breathing and said, “My liking for you is not just liking.”
Elisa turned over in Hamish’s embrace, her back facing him.
Perhaps it was because she had slept for more than ten hours yesterday, or maybe it was her psychological resistance to sleeping with Hamish in the same bed, but Elisa couldn’t fall asleep no matter what.
She watched as the light outside the window gradually chased away the darkness.
Hamish extinguished her hope to live. Hattie warned her just a few days ago not to stop taking her medication, but now she had stopped.
Would the cancer cells spread faster than before?
Hamish slept deeply, and Elisa knew he was truly asleep. She turned her head and whispered quietly.
“Hamish, I’m dying. I could have lived like a normal person, but you took away my will to live.”