Summer cicadas cannot withstand the winter’s cold. Once it is missed, it will never be encountered again.
“What do you mean?” Rain soaked Hamish’s face, droplets clinging to his eyelashes. Half-closed eyes gazed at Elisa. No one noticed his hands trembling slightly, as if he were enduring something, clenching his fists.
Elisa, holding an umbrella, sneered, “It means I never intended to forgive you from the beginning, let alone see you. Understand?”
Hamish’s lips trembled. The rain felt more like thousands of needles pricking his body, causing pain everywhere.
Last night, when Tobias told him about Elisa’s deception, he had already anticipated this outcome. He just didn’t dare to face it, let alone admit it. What kind of misplaced confidence made him believe that Elisa would truly forgive him? That she would reconcile with him as before?
Reconcile? How could he forget? He and Elisa were a mistake from the beginning, and it had never been good.
A chill ran down his spine, slowly spreading throughout his back.
“You lied to me.”
“Hamish, who are you putting on this wounded expression for? You, a person who can lie to a priest, why can’t I speak casually? You really think too highly of yourself.” Elisa tightened her grip on the umbrella. “Get lost!”
Hamish didn’t move. He stood still, staring at Elisa with a wounded expression.
“Elisa, I really know I was wrong. It’s my fault for misjudging people at the beginning. I mistook the person. I didn’t believe you. I really didn’t know it was you who saved me back then. If I had known…”
“What if you had known?” Elisa interrupted, “Just because I saved you that year, you fell in love with me? Hamish, this isn’t love. You’re here pleading for my forgiveness, just because the white moonlight in your mind needs a place to settle, to offset your guilt for killing someone. You haven’t changed at all. You’re still as childish, stubborn, and disgusting as ever.”
Hamish shook his head, his heart feeling like it was being strangled. With red eyes, he murmured, “It’s not like that… I truly love you. It’s not because of guilt… Elisa, I’m not asking you to stay by my side. I’m only asking for a chance to apologize, a chance to make it up to you. As long as you’re willing to have me by your side, I promise to treat you well, never to bully you, never make you cry. Elisa, please, give me a chance, I beg you!”
He finished speaking in one breath, his breathing rapid. Unable to suppress it, he covered his chest and coughed, leaning towards Elisa.
Elisa took a step back, only to hear a “thud.” Hamish knelt on the ground, his head hitting the ground, assuming the lowest position in front of Elisa.
Elisa’s expression remained unchanged, as indifferent as ever. Her gaze fell on the top of Hamish’s head.
She couldn’t help but remember how he had knelt in front of someone else, pleading for the Powell family’s forgiveness.
She had believed him, only to end up with her family destroyed, the Powell family no longer existing in Bankshire.
Elisa retreated a step, distancing herself from Hamish. “Hamish… I’m already thirty years old. ‘A young girl’ is not easy to deceive. I’m well acquainted with your tricks.”
She had endured all the hardships alone and no longer expected to be with anyone. She looked down numbly at the man trembling on the ground.
Hamish’s kneeling only reminded her of the unbearable pain of the past, his condescending mockery.
“You lied to me. I can give you everything…”
“But what you give is precisely what I don’t need.” Suddenly, Elisa thought of something, and she bent down slightly towards Hamish, her eyes as dark as ink. “Hamish, you want me to accept your apology. Unless you suffer like me, perhaps by dying once. Do you dare?”
Hamish looked into Elisa’s emotionless eyes. In his memory, Elisa’s eyes used to be as clear as water, not dyed black without a hint of light.
Hamish felt his heart being twisted like a knife. The pain in his chest intensified. He tried to calm down, but Elisa’s relentless gaze made it impossible.
Three long years, over a thousand days.
“Elisa, do you really not have any feelings for me?” Hamish forced a bitter smile, tears mixing with the expression on his face, making it even more agonizing than crying.
Elisa’s lips curled up, mocking him, “Feelings? Are you even worthy?”
Tears flowed uncontroll of his eyes. His body convulsed with pain as if his organs were being stabbed.
Hamish couldn’t believe that such callous words had come from Elisa’s mouth. He knew Elisa; she was easily swayed, as long as someone treated her a little better, showed a little more care, she would follow along.
“I don’t believe you don’t have any feelings for me. We’ve known each other for so many years. Even though our relationship started as a mistake, we’ve known each other for nine years and been together for seven. I refuse to believe that you never had any feelings for me. If you didn’t have any feelings, then why did you write about me in the diary on page 102? If you didn’t have any feelings, why did you knit a scarf for me, and why did you cook for me for four years, waiting for me to come home?”
His desperate words were aimed at Elisa, but also a plea for confirmation. He wanted the fact that Elisa had loved him to be confirmed.
Hamish looked at Elisa in agony.
Elisa being alive and coming back was already the best gift fate could have given him.
He knew Elisa would be angry and would not forgive him.
He had thought about it…
But he was Hamish, and he couldn’t leave Elisa. He had realized the importance of Elisa. He believed that Elisa should also understand his feelings for her.
Elisa spoke in a very calm tone, “Perhaps I did love you before, but afterward, there was really nothing left. Since the day I told you about the divorce, I haven’t felt anything for you.”
“Hamish, I’ve told you before, I’m not cheap. I can’t bring myself to stay with you after you’ve hurt me so recklessly. Sometimes, I’m genuinely curious about something. How can you have the nerve to come here and beg me on your knees, when there are people buried behind me? Aren’t you afraid, don’t you feel guilty?” Elisa chuckled.
Hamish’s breath hitched, then he struggled to speak. He couldn’t find the strength to support himself.
Elisa had truly loved him. Even without “Autumn” between them, she had loved him, but he had lost the Elisa who loved him.
He coughed up a mouthful of blood. He collapsed on the ground, his back drenched by the rain. A broken sob escaped his throat. He lay with tears and bloodstains mixing, forming a puddle beneath him. His shoulders shook uncontrollably, feeling cold. It was summer, but why was it so cold?
Elisa glimpsed the blood on the ground, remained quiet for a few seconds, then tightened her grip on the umbrella and walked away from him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hamish saw her slender figure, but he couldn’t stand up, his body unable to support itself. He crawled towards Elisa’s back, his hands propping him up, reaching out to her.
“Elisa… Please… don’t go…”
Hamish reached out to grab Elisa’s hand, but she evaded him. His hand only caught the rain from above. The wind passed through his fingers. He closed his hand, trying to catch something that wasn’t there. Elisa had become like the wind, something he couldn’t grasp, just as he couldn’t hold her.
This time, Elisa didn’t even turn her head. “Hamish, the way you beg, crying like a dog, is particularly ugly.”
This time, Hamish truly couldn’t hold on. He collapsed on the ground, like a lifeless body, lying there as if dead. His heart was torn, and he gazed at Elisa’s indifferent figure. His vision grew blurry, and the blood from his mouth seemed to never stop flowing.
Turns out, when a person’s heart dies, they don’t feel pain. It’s like their senses are frozen, from dull aches to numbness, like the unreal sensation after a major operation, with the anesthesia still not wearing off.
He thought Elisa coming back alive was fate giving him a chance to love her, not realizing that this might be fate punishing him for the mistakes he made when he didn’t know how to love.
The cruelest thing wasn’t the near-miss between two people reuniting after a long separation, but the intimacy once deeply ingrained, turning into a future indifference.
In the end, he looked at the scar on his palm with lifeless eyes. Turns out… the kite string never returned to his hands.