Louis spoke softly, as if the words slipped out inadvertently from his heart. Although it was such a warm statement, Elisa felt a bitter pang in her heart, her eyes blinked back tears that she couldn’t hold back.
Returning to the bedroom, Elisa’s eyes fell upon the divorce agreement on the bedside table. She had left it there when she walked out, and now, upon her return, it remained in its original spot.
The only difference was that the pages were wrinkled, clearly indicating that they had been repeatedly flipped through for quite some time.
“You didn’t throw it away?” Elisa felt guilty when she saw the divorce agreement with her signature.
Louis shook his head. “I wanted to wait for you to come back and explain. What if… you really wanted to leave?” His words were accompanied by a bitter smile that couldn’t be erased from his lips.
The days that Elisa had left without a word had almost broken him. During that time, he had risked his life, searching for her and preparing for the worst-case scenarios. If he found Elisa and Hamish refused to let her go, he was willing to give his life along with hers.
But if he couldn’t find her and his body couldn’t hold up any longer, then he could only set Elisa free. He couldn’t let this piece of paper, the divorce agreement, bind her.
Louis never believed that Elisa would leave him and go with someone else. He simply didn’t trust his own physical condition.
Elisa swallowed hard. “Why are you so foolish?”
“Because I’m Autumn,” he replied.
He was the Autumn who could only wait for her from afar, who didn’t dare to approach her. Autumn’s self-esteem stemmed from his foolishness. At that time, everyone said he was a fool who didn’t deserve Elisa. He didn’t even have the right to be close to her. He could only secretly watch her from a distance, unable to even stand in front of her to protect her.
For fifteen or sixteen years, his foolishness had buried his deep sense of inferiority within him. The first time Autumn saw Elisa was under the wisteria tree in the orphanage. A sense of familiarity arose in his heart, and he held a small biscuit in his hand. It wasn’t anything special, but it was his favorite thing in the orphanage. He had saved it for a long time, and when he saw her, he couldn’t help but give the entire biscuit to her alone.
Even the orphanage director was shocked. Just as the director of the orphanage said, Autumn may be foolish, but he never tried to please others.
A foolishness accompanied by a wild nature, like a pack of wild wolves fiercely protecting their food. That was the first time he shared his food with someone he had just met.
But after Elisa left the orphanage, he didn’t have any means to contact her. Every day, he asked the director for her phone number, frantically sending text messages and making calls.
Her birthday was on May 21st, but he only found out later. All the children in the orphanage had prepared gifts for her, but he hadn’t.
Other than helping the director with some agricultural work, cleaning, and doing odd jobs, he didn’t seem to know how to do anything else.
The cherries in May were ripe, round, and red. Red suited Elisa the best. Autumn wanted to make a pair of earrings for her using a cherry. One cherry was too few, so he made a whole string of them, resembling sugar-coated haws.
Elisa’s car remained parked in the orphanage’s parking lot that day. He cleaned it every day, making sure there wasn’t a speck of dust on it.
He washed the car while waiting for her, waiting until he finally saw her again after two months, when summer was almost transitioning into autumn.
That day, Elisa wasn’t alone. She was with another man-her husband.
It turned out that she had already gotten married.
The orphanage director laughed at him and said, “Stop thinking about it. You’re just a fool. How could she be interested in you? Even if you weren’t a fool, you wouldn’t have had a chance. Do you know what her husband does? He’s the wealthiest person in Bankshire, rich and good-looking. Would someone who is used to a life of privilege pick up trash with you?”
The director said many things, but Autumn only half-listened at the time. The general idea was that he wasn’t worthy.
Outsiders said that Elisa had married a good man, and her husband treated her well.
But was that really the case?
Autumn saw the contempt in Hamish’s eyes, the disdain he held for everyone. Love should be equal, not a matter of superiority.
After Elisa left that day, she never appeared again.
Autumn knew too little about Elisa. He didn’t even know she had been married, let alone what she did and where she lived.
All he knew was that she had familiar acquaintances in the hospital, so he decided to work there as a temp. He arrived at the hospital before dawn, even more diligent than the gatekeeper dog.
He had never been so devoted to something before. He would come with anticipation, waiting eagerly, even though no one ever noticed him.
The stash of biscuits grew larger, and his pockets couldn’t hold all the candy anymore. He couldn’t bear to eat them, and he couldn’t find someone to share them with either.
Once one becomes dependent, it’s like a child waiting to be picked up from kindergarten.
He waited eagerly in the hospital, until he finally saw Elisa again.
But Elisa’s words, “You’re just a fool. There’s no possibility between us,” shattered the courage he had built up with joy.
An annoying stray dog is despised by others, even if it rolls on the ground, exposing its soft belly, no one will crouch down to touch it.
There was no despair, only a deeper self-inferiority in his bones.
Perhaps it was because of his extreme self-inferiority that he had never had such a strong obsession to regain his normal self.
Being able to regain his memories was an accident. After chopping off Ivan’s hand, he was afraid of being captured, so he didn’t dare return to the orphanage. He hid outside, constantly evading pursuit until he was captured by a group of people and locked up in a pitch-dark room.
They broke his hand, shot through his leg, and tortured him in various ways; he didn’t know how long he endured, unable to distinguish the passing of time. He couldn’t see the sun, and he didn’t even know when it became dark or when dawn broke.
Finn performed various experiments on him, one of which was a drug that destroyed nerves, and it was successfully tested on him.
It was during that time that he recovered all his memories. He remembered when he was nine years old and at the amusement park. There was a little girl named Elisa who climbed onto his back, licking a sugar-coated haw and saying that she wanted to marry him.
Time flew by, and the little girl who said she wanted to marry him had grown up to become the elegant young miss of the Powell family. She was so beautiful that even if he had become a fool, he couldn’t help but be attracted to her.
Unfortunately, that time he couldn’t bring Elisa back safely.
Now, Autumn had become Louis. The inferiority and timidity that originated from Autumn still lingered, even though he knew that Elisa liked him. But he couldn’t help but wonder, what if he became that person with nothing, that fool, again? Would Elisa still stay with him?
Elisa’s recent departure made Louis reflect deeply. Was he too weak? Did Elisa not believe that he could stand up against Hamish, which was why she chose to leave? Or did she think that he couldn’t protect her?
Louis had a nightmare, where he could only see Elisa’s back. He tried his best to chase after her, but no matter how much he ran, he couldn’t catch up. He ran out of breath, his chest tightening as if all the air in his lungs had been squeezed out.
He reached out, wanting to grab Elisa, but she turned around and moved further away. Endless cold wind passed through his fingertips.
“Louis, let’s get a divorce…”
“Elisa, don’t leave me…” I will try to become better, to protect you from being bullied. I can protect you, I’m not the fool I used to be.
“Louis… Louis, wake up! You had a nightmare again.”
Recently, Louis had been having nightmares every night. His nerves were exceptionally frail, and he wouldn’t say what he dreamt of, he only knew that he called out Elisa’s name.
Sometimes, Louis would wake up by himself and sit blankly on the edge of the bed, not sleeping or saying anything. He would sit for one or two hours straight until Elisa noticed.
Elisa told Mrs. White about Louis’ nightmare.
Mrs. White fell silent for a moment before saying, “He used to be like this during those days when you were gone. We thought that he would be fine once you returned, but it seems that’s not the case.”
“Has he experienced something like this before?”
“Yes. Right after we took him in, he was like this. It was even worse back then, so severe that we had to hypnotize him to make him forget the past.” Mrs. White remembered the past, her face filled with distress.
Seeing Elisa’s stunned face, Mrs. White suppressed her worries and reassured her, “Don’t worry, Louis will be fine. His current state is just because he’s worried about losing you. As time goes by, he won’t be like this anymore. On the night he went to pick you up, fearing that Hamish wouldn’t let you leave, he even prepared explosives and put them in the trunk of the car.”
At that time, Louis had prepared himself to give his life as a final stand against Hamish, but his face remained calm, not betraying any change in his heart.