If it were the former Aoife, she might have cried and made a scene at such a thing, but now she wouldn’t.
”You hear that saying, right? You can’t take anything with you when you die, so everything becomes void once you’re gone. What’s the point of things that happened in life?”
“Aoife, listen to me,” Finn beckoned, wanting to explain but unable to do so, “The video wasn’t released by me, and I have no reason to release it now. I originally intended to destroy it completely, but I don’t know what went wrong to result in this. I will fix everything… Please, give me another chance… Do you believe me, right?”
Finn crouched in front of Aoife, his hands trembling as he reached for hers, looking as if he were kneeling on the ground.
“So?” Aoife gave a cold smile, “It was you who forced me, pressured me into filming those videos, wasn’t it? Even this victim could foresee this day, do you think you couldn’t? What are you pretending to be innocent for?”
In Aoife’s eyes, he had always been unreasonable, forcing her, but it wasn’t just coercion; he had ulterior motives, meticulously planning to keep her.
Aoife shook off his hand, stood up to pick up the phone from the ground. The phone wasn’t broken, just accidentally turned off. She turned it on, browsed the history, and opened the videos she hadn’t finished watching.
Playing the video at full volume, Aoife’s pleading voice echoed in the room, as if it had happened yesterday.
That day, she had desperately begged Finn to spare her, to give her another chance, but did he?
Hearing that voice, Finn’s pupils dilated, “Don’t watch!”
He attempted to snatch the phone from Aoife, but this time, she dodged. Holding the phone, she asked with a smile, “The person in this video is me. Why can’t I watch it?”
Turning the screen towards Finn, she added, “Don’t deny it, the team you hired for the shoot was quite skilled. The angles were captivating, no wonder those who watched the video kept calling me, wanting me to spend a night with them. After watching it, they all thought it was a shame that I didn’t do any films…”
“Aoife, are you really going to be like this?” Finn hoarsely asked, his tall frame swaying as if he might collapse at any moment, “Harming yourself to punish me.”
Since Ethan’s death, Aoife had changed. She wore a smile on her face, but her eyes held coldness.
She never left him, never mentioned leaving. She quietly stayed by his side, like a canary. Everything should have been what he desired.
But what he actually received was completely different from what he had anticipated.
This Aoife was not the one he knew. He used to scold her as worthless, useless, foolish, and ridiculous, but now, looking back, he realized he had always wanted that innocent Aoife.
The one who reciprocated kindness, the pure Aoife, the one who smiled and looked at him with admiration, the one who cooked at home and washed clothes for him, the one who softly called him “Mr. Snearl, I’ll wait for you to come home.”
Finn murmured, “You weren’t like this before.”
Aoife amusingly looked at him, “Then how was I before?”
At least I wasn’t covered in prickles like this, hurting others and myself, like a rose.
But when you wanted to pick a rose, you didn’t mind the thorns it had. Now that you’ve been pricked by those thorns, you blame it for not being the same as before. But don’t forget, the thorns of a rose were originally meant to protect itself, and when it was buried in the soil before experiencing wind and rain, its thorns were soft.
Aoife tilted her head, appearing somewhat obedient, “Finn, don’t show me this injured side as if I were bullying you. I didn’t cut off your fingers, force you to film this video, make doctors cut open your belly, or make you suffer from depression… How have I punished you?”
“Would you return to the past if you experienced all the injuries you had previously suffered?” Finn urgently asked.
Aoife calmly replied, “I wouldn’t return to the past.”
“Why?”
“Because the past Aoife has already died. You crushed her bones, scattered her ashes, and she will never forgive you for eternity.”
A muffled thunderclap rang outside, sudden and hallucinatory. Finn, who had been on a business trip, exhausted from consecutive nights of overtime work, handling trivial matters, and then fearing a frightened journey, thought all the way about how to make Aoife listen to his explanation that he hadn’t released the video.
But what he didn’t expect was that Aoife didn’t care about the video at all.
Logically, Finn should have been satisfied with this calm Aoife, but he was being foolish, wanting Aoife to scold him or even hit him.
Looking at her eyes, devoid of the previous hatred, calm as a pond that could silently drown someone, Aoife was looking at him, yet not looking at him.
For her, none of this mattered anymore because she was heading towards death, so nothing mattered at all.
“I told you before, I want to take our child’s ashes back to my hometown.”
“When are you going back?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll accompany you…” Finn paused, cautiously asking, “Is that okay with you?”
“It’s fine.” Aoife’s face didn’t show any annoyance towards Finn, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel it inside.
“There’s nothing, just go out. There’s nothing left to say between us.”
Finn didn’t leave. He remembered the driver telling him on the phone that Aoife had fallen and scraped her hands.
He glanced at the back of Aoife’s hand and indeed saw the exposed wound.
“I’ll help you bandage the wound on your hand, then I’ll leave.”
“No need.” Aoife knew exactly where the first aid kit was in the bedroom. She took it out, pulled out a bottle of iodine, unscrewed the cap, and poured it directly onto the wound.
Seeing a fresh red wound that had been scraped on the ground was painful to look at, let alone rinsing it with disinfectant. But Aoife didn’t even blink.
Finn stood behind her, realizing he didn’t have a chance to reach out. He watched as Aoife skillfully cleaned the wound, applied medication, cut a piece of gauze to cover it, and though her injured hand was stiff, she preferred to do it herself rather than let Finn help.
After watching Aoife treat her wound, Finn recalled that in his memory, Aoife was used to enduring pain. She wasn’t afraid of pain; she just didn’t want to show her suffering in front of others. Every time she got hurt, she hid and dealt with the wound discreetly, which honed her skilled bandaging technique.
Finn watched Aoife without expression, knowing full well the environment in which Aoife grew up. She would rather have no parents than have parents who didn’t genuinely care. Facing bullying as she grew up, she longed for someone to comfort her when hurt. But if she showed weakness, she would face even colder treatment.