The division between good and evil in lies was not something Elisa believed Hamish had constructed with good intentions.
She forced a faint smile, but it did not reach her eyes. Deep within her gaze, there was desolation. She looked more unsightly when smiling than when crying.
“If you love me, do you want to turn me into a fool?” Elisa’s eyes glistened with tears. “You’re so afraid of me recovering my memory. How can you expect me not to dwell on the past?”
She shook her head, staggering backward step by step. Before her eyes, the man she once knew had lost all traces of humanity. He was nothing but a demon crawling out from hell.
“I just want to ask one last question: Who is Autumn?”
At the mention of this name, Hamish panicked. What he feared most was gradually approaching, and he had nowhere to retreat.
Seeing Hamish’s panicked expression, Elisa seemed to understand something. The curve of her lips deepened, revealing a bitter smile.
“Is he dead?”
No one spoke, but their silence was an admission.
“He must be important to me, otherwise why would I dream of him so often?” Elisa muttered to herself, her voice hoarse.
Her intuition told her that Autumn was crucial to her, more important than Hamish. Just the thought of his name caused her unbearable pain, as if the air entering her lungs was not oxygen, but thousands of steel needles piercing her every breath.
“He’s dead. He promised to carry me home.”
Elisa’s eyes stung as tears uncontrollably fell. “Hamish, you must know who Autumn is. You have to tell me everything about him, I’m begging you…”
This was the first time Elisa had pleaded with him since losing her memory, and it was for another man.
He felt jealousy, anger, and more so, heartache. He couldn’t understand why, after all these years, Deacon could still linger in Elisa’s heart.
It was just over ten years ago that he had saved her and carried her home. If it was him, he could have done the same. They had been married for so many years, known each other for eight, yet he couldn’t compare to a dead man who had always been an intruder in their relationship.
Hamish took a deep breath. “I won’t tell you who he is. You must never try to remember him in this lifetime…”
He extinguished the faint flame of hope in Elisa’s heart with a bucket of cold water, plunging her into a despairing darkness.
“Hamish, you truly disgust me!”
“I know,” he said bitterly. He had always known.
Elisa’s gaze at him returned to the way she used to look at him before losing her memory-full of hatred, pain, helplessness, and desolation.
He didn’t know what to do with her, nor did he know how they would move forward. The four months they had spent together felt like a dream. Now that they were awake, it seemed they couldn’t return to the way things were.
Elisa felt as though her heart had been struck heavily, each beat causing her pain. She clutched her chest, but then her stomach began to ache.
She could only bend forward in agony, the words Autumn had spoken in her dreams echoing in her mind.
“Don’t love Hamish. He’s not worth your love.”
Suddenly, Elisa vomited, unable to hold back. It was the food she had eaten at noon, mixed with blood.
Her lips turned a pale shade, the speck of blood on them resembling lip gloss, accentuating her already pallid face.
She couldn’t control her body from falling backward. The entire world spun around her.
“Elisa!” With a shout, she fell into warm, embracing arms. She struggled to keep her eyes open but couldn’t see anything. She was in so much agony.
Elisa suddenly vomited blood and fainted. Caleb rushed over to check, seeing her pale face as if she had been holding her breath, and he felt that something was terribly wrong.
“Quick, get her to the hospital.”
On the way, Caleb asked Hamish, “What do we do now? She already knows.”
“Can she be hypnotized?” Hamish held Elisa tightly, as if she were a fragile treasure, afraid of breaking her with the slightest movement.
Caleb furrowed his brow in distress. “Hypnosis won’t work on her anymore, and its efficacy is limited.”
“What about medication?”
“Do you really want to turn her into a mentally disabled person?”
“I don’t want her to become foolish, but I don’t want her to leave me either!” Hamish struggled helplessly, like a trapped animal.
Caleb looked at him, his brow furrowed, and after a while, he spoke gently, “Sometimes I don’t understand your thoughts… I just don’t want you to regret. I only know that if you truly love someone, it shouldn’t be this kind of obsessive entrapment.”
Elisa’s second bout of vomiting blood and her subsequent fainting were not good signs. Caleb felt a sharp pain in his forehead.
After being taken to the hospital and undergoing a series of examinations, the results were shocking.
Elisa was four weeks pregnant.