When Hamish turned around and saw Elisa, there was no hint of joy on his face. He sat stiffly on the steps, watching Elisa approach him step by step. His eyes didn’t blink once; his dark pupils seemed like an unfathomable abyss. It wasn’t until Elisa stood in front of him that Hamish, almost like a robot, stiffly uttered a string of numbers.
“The 37th time,” Hamish said. After this sentence, his eyelashes trembled, and with a soft gaze on Elisa, there was a quiet and serene tone in his voice, revealing bitterness.
Elisa, however, didn’t understand the meaning of this string of numbers and asked mockingly, “The 37th time of what?”
“Illusions,” he said, having moved here only 54 hours ago and yet having witnessed Elisa’s illusions 36 times.
Elisa’s throat tightened as she looked past Hamish at the layers of stairs behind him, asking, “What are you wiping?”
“Blood, Elisa’s blood, the child’s blood,” Hamish’s hands were red from the cold, his slender fingers not usually prone to frostbite. He had never suffered from it before, but in these days, constantly touching cold water and wiping the floor, his hands were red, his left hand, with the nail pulled off, red and swollen, and in some places, even cracked.
Elisa’s fingers had once been like this too. That year, when she had amnesia and couldn’t remember anything, her fingers would inevitably turn cold and ache on cold days.
Hamish’s hands had always been warm, and he would always hold her hand to warm her fingertips, soothing her pain.
Such a gentle person, but every time he looked at her, she would forget that he, too, was responsible for what she had become. There are always some things that need to disappear to prove their value. Once they disappear, it doesn’t matter whether they were genuine or not, because once you had it, now it’s gone. Losing it makes everything meaningless.
Hamish’s heart was like maggots in a drain, dirty to look at. But who would want to be born to be a maggot in a drain? The maggots in the drain never thought of leaving the drain; they spent their whole lives shrinking in the darkness.
Loving someone was a luxury for him. He didn’t understand love, and he didn’t dare to love. But once accepted, he could devote himself to others for a lifetime. However, fate played tricks on him. He hadn’t had the chance to learn how to love when the Elisa who had once been all to him, didn’t want him anymore.
He learned too late, and no one would wait for him to learn. Besides, he didn’t have the time or opportunity anymore.
When Elisa arrived here, her heart was full of destruction, wishing to take out the fruit knife from her bag and stab Hamish to death. But seeing him in such a soulless state now, she didn’t know how to proceed.
Hamish just treated her as an illusion.
Elisa looked at the pristine stairs behind him, where there were no traces of blood as Hamish had claimed.
“That blood has been cleaned long ago,” she said.
Hamish recoiled, gripping the wet cloth in his hand, shaking as he spoke, “No… not cleaned…” He then took the cloth and wiped the stairs over and over again.
There was blood everywhere, Elisa’s blood, and it hadn’t been cleaned. Elisa fell silent, watching Hamish in this state, thinking that he had used such despicable means to bring her here. Now, he was doing such “boring” things. Was he trying to pretend to be pitiful?
Elisa wouldn’t feel sympathy for Hamish, seeing him in such a “pathetic” state, and she wouldn’t be moved by his misery.
Hamish wiped the stairs, deluding himself into thinking that once cleaned, Elisa might come back.
Elisa reached out and grabbed Hamish’s collar, forcing him to turn around, then pressing down on his neck with one hand.
With a sudden movement, she knocked over the bucket next to her, spilling water all over the place. The water meandered down from top to bottom, much like the blood from before.
“No matter how clean you wipe it, this place is still dirty, just like all the things you did to me. Even if you were to suffer ten, a hundred, a thousand times more than I have, you still couldn’t make up for it, unless you can turn back time. But can you, Hamish?” Elisa finished speaking in one breath, leaving only the heavy sound of Hamish’s breathing in the air.
Hamish leaned against the stairs, his neck still being held, his back aching, but he didn’t struggle. He just lookedat the hand gripping his neck, then along the hand, the arm, the shoulder, finally resting on Elisa’s face.
Tears streamed from his crimson eyes. His previous composure was only surface-level, like a paper window, easily torn at Elisa’s approach.
He didn’t need many words to provoke him; just Elisa’s presence was enough to make him collapse.
Hamish forced a bitter smile, “So, it wasn’t an illusion after all…” He paused, then continued to ask, “Why did you come here?”
“Wasn’t it you who forced me to come here?” Elisa felt that Hamish was rotten inside and out, a pitiful and ridiculous sight. She hadn’t expected that the once high and mighty Hamish would become like this. But thinking of everything that had happened yesterday, those messages, she suddenly felt a surge of anger.