The phone only emitted a cold, emotionless system notification sound.
“Bang–” Louis hadn’t reacted yet, and his phone had already fallen from the bed to the floor. From such a height, the phone landed upright, but the screen cracked at the corner, the small crack spreading like a spider web, blurring Elisa’s face on the phone’s screen.
The assistant quickly picked it up to hand it to Louis. When he straightened up, Louis was already trying to get out of bed.
His strength hadn’t fully returned, and as soon as his feet touched the ground, he felt dizzy, as if his legs were being electrocuted, and he knelt down, collapsing like a boneless snake.
Within a few seconds, sweat had already formed on his forehead.
The assistant hurried over to help him up. Louis had lost a lot of weight recently – despite his tall stature, he didn’t weigh much. The assistant tried to lead him back to bed, but Louis insisted on going outside, his steps trembling and unsteady.
“Mr. White, you can’t leave the hospital yet. The doctor said you have acute gastroenteritis, and they found traces of sedatives in your bloodstream. If you leave now, and things worsen, you’ll end up back in the hospital, and it won’t be as simple as a regular hospital stay.”
As soon as the assistant finished speaking, Louis was instantly frozen: “You mean sedatives were found in my bloodstream?”
The assistant nodded.
Louis’s complexion was even more frightening than before. Various images flashed through his mind, linking everything that had happened that day, from waking up to going to the hospital, like a revolving lantern, finally pausing on Elisa’s words to him at the door that morning.
“Louis, bye.”
It was “bye,” not “see you later.” She really didn’t say “see you later.”
Elisa had said many things when she sent him out that day. She reminded him to eat well, sleep well, and take care of himself. She was both caring for him and planning for their “parting,” because she knew that after she left, she wouldn’t be able to remind Louis of these things every day.
She said everything in one breath, not giving Louis any chance to react.
The sedatives must have been put in his breakfast by Elisa. She had long been prepared to leave, but he was still confused, thinking about their future alone.
People don’t just suddenly leave. Everything is the result of accumulation over time, and something must have happened that he didn’t know about.
“I need to go back. Something might have happened to her.”
“Madam is in trouble?”
Everyone in the company knew about Louis and Elisa’s marriage. The assistant had long replaced the title “Miss Powell” with “Madam.”
Louis was agitated. He had to go back. Elisa had left him, what was he supposed to do? He had promised to protect Elisa for a lifetime.
For a moment, he couldn’t hear the sounds around him, he just urgently wanted to go outside. He still had the intravenous needle in his hand.
The nurse outside heard the commotion inside and realized something was wrong.
After learning that Louis was eager to leave, the nurse advised, “You can’t leave the hospital yet, there’s still a bag of IV fluid to finish. Please don’t move, go back and lie down, you can leave tomorrow morning.”
Louis gritted his teeth: “I have to go back!”
Unable to persuade him, the nurse had to call the doctor. Louis was determined to leave, and no one could stop him.
“If you want to leave, let the IV finish, and when it’s done, we can remove the needle.” The doctor tried to reason with Louis, fearing that his condition would worsen if he left and had to return to the hospital again.
This time, Louis finally nodded.
The assistant called the driver to accompany Louis back. He held the IV bag in one hand, and the liquid flowing from the IV was slow, even at its maximum flow rate, it would take over half an hour for the small bag of medication to empty.
Louis continuously called Elisa, sent text messages, for half an hour, his fingers became stiff, but he got no response.
Attempts to locate Elisa through her phone’s signal were unsuccessful. The signal was lost. If someone truly wanted to leave, it was as if they had disappeared into thin air.
When they arrived at Vaquita Bay, Louis hastily got out of the car before it had even come to a stop. The assistant held the IV bag and made a gesture to support him.
Louis didn’t let him help. He kept his hand behind him, ready to catch Louis’s swaying figure at any moment.
Louis walked up and shakily placed his hand on the fingerprint lock on the door. As the door opened, he pushed it and stepped inside. Itwas quiet inside, so quiet that he could hear his own breathing and feel his heart thumping in his chest.
Louis’s mind was filled with thoughts of Elisa. There was still some fluid left in the bag, and the transparent tube slightly hindered his movements. He reached back and forcefully pulled out the IV needle from his hand, with blood flowing, reddening the transparent medical adhesive on his hand.
It was already dark in the Southern winter by six o’clock. The streetlights cast a dim glow as Louis opened the door.
Louis instinctively said, “Elisa, I’m back.”
No one responded to him. He familiarly turned on the lights on the wall.
With a “click,” the light illuminated the entire living room.
Even though the lights were on, for some unknown reason, everything seemed blurry. The more quiet it was, the more it made one prone to wild thoughts. Throughout the journey, a sense of panic had been surging through him, which he had been desperately trying to suppress. But now that he was back home, he could no longer contain this panic, and it pressed on his chest, relentless and unyielding.
In the room, everything was as it should be. Even Elisa’s favorite rocking chair, where she loved to sit and read, remained undisturbed on the balcony, facing the same direction as always. Her beloved books, the cup she used, the flowers she bought, the utensils she had used in the morning – everything was still there… but she was not.
Suddenly, Louis dashed upstairs in a frenzy, grabbing onto the railing and using its support to rush upward, not even noticing as the blood flowed from his hand.
The assistant couldn’t stop him, all he could do was watch Louis’ retreating figure.
Louis burst into the bedroom and turned on the light. His eyes fell on the sunflowers placed on the bedroom balcony. Then, Louis’s gaze shifted, finally coming to a rest on the bedside table.
As he approached, and saw what was on the table, he made a muffled sound, a sickly sweet sensation rising in his throat.
When the assistant went upstairs to check on the situation, he found Louis sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed, holding a few pages of documents, trembling uncontrollably.
Louis’s eyes were bloodshot, and when he heard movement at the door, he raised his head in confusion, warm tears uncontrollably streaming down his face.
Louis trembled his lips and uttered in a whisper, “She’s gone, she doesn’t want me anymore…”
No one had expected Elisa to leave without a word, without any warning, leaving behind only a signed divorce agreement.
Just yesterday, they had gone to the amusement park, visited his parents, discussed their wedding, set a date, even considered where to go for Christmas. How could she suddenly leave like this?
It turns out, those who choose to leave do so silently, taking nothing unnecessary with them. Elisa had only taken her phone, leaving all her clothes neatly arranged in the closet.
Louis was overwhelmed by a powerful tremor. The shaking sensation dragged through his entire being, even causing his lips to quiver, and his breathing became erratic.
He had gone through the documents countless times, creasing the papers. Looking at the signature, the handwritten “Elisa,” he tried to understand Elisa’s emotions at that moment.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sense anything from the document. He just felt the divorce agreement was chilling. The window was slightly open, letting in the cold breeze that stirred the curtains.
After standing quietly for a while, the assistant sighed and went to close the window when he saw Louis was unresponsive.
When the assistant turned back, Louis stood up. “Call the police, and arrange for people to find her.”
This divorce agreement was like Elisa’s hastily signed departure. Louis wouldn’t sign it.
If Elisa truly wanted to divorce him, he would let her go. However, her sudden disappearance, her unreachable phone, and the unanswered messages suggested that something must have happened to force her to make this decision.
Why couldn’t she have just trusted him?
The surrounding surveillance cameras were broken, so they couldn’t use the footage to find her. Louis paused his work, and despite the state of his body, he continued to search throughout the night, not even stopping for a sip of water until the following afternoon.