She ran all the way to the beach, and sure enough, she saw the upright back of Kevin.
Stepping up and walking towards him step by step, standing beside him, she said, “Don’t think that I’m here to apologize to you. I don’t feel sorry for you.”
Kevin looked askance at her and said coldly, “I also don’t feel that you should appear in front of me now.”
“I have my reasons why I am here.”
“Whatever your reasons are, I can choose not to hear them.”
“You don’t get to choose not to listen, you get to listen to me instead!”
Bella met his icy gaze and said word by word, “Yes, you have been greatly hurt. You were abandoned by the woman you loved wholeheartedly. You have enough reason to be sad and decrepit, but you have no reason to be devastated. Even if it is the day that woman abandoned you, so what? Your life was given to you by your mother, not her. What qualifications does she have to ruin such an important day? Our mothers suffered a lot on the day we were born. How can you forget the pain your mother experienced when she gave birth to you just to escape from your love wounds?
“You’ve never been betrayed, so you will never know what I feel. It’s always so easy to tell a lot of truths to others, but it’s a different story when it comes to yourself. I can muddle along or disappear anytime, anywhere.”
Bella did not expect him to say such irresponsible words, and angrily roared, “Well then, since your life is so worthless and you do not care so much. There is the sea in front of you, you can disappear at any time. Don’t let your family grieve with you!”
“You think I wouldn’t dare?”
Kevin smiled bitterly, and walked towards the center of the sea. Bella watched as he walked further away, the seawater overflowing his legs and waist, just about to overflow his back. She suddenly lost control and chased after him, running wildly in the seawater, holding him by the waist and crying sadly against his back.
“Well, since you want to die, then I’ll die with you. Anyway, I wanted to die many years ago…”
Bella’s tears fell down his spine into the sightless sea.
Kevin stopped, glanced at her and said, “You are silly woman. Wouldn’t it be a shame to die with a jerk like me?”
“In your eyes, we are just a pseudo-couple, but in my eyes, you are already my family member. Even if there is no love between us, I won’t leave you behind. I will always be by your side, no matter in what identity.”
Kevin was deeply moved by her words. He turned around, tidied her tear-soaked hair at her temples, and said solemnly, “You’re a fool. Do you think I’m really that vulnerable? The loss of love did cause me indelible pain, but not so severe that I couldn’t live.”
“Why do you still want me to think that you really have no hope of survival?”
“I just try to clear my head. I don’t deny you’re right. Our lives aren’t our own, so we can’t let it down for any reason.”
“Do you really think so? Is that true?”
The tears in Bella’s eyes glistened under the moonlight, and when she saw Kevin nod, she finally broke into a smile.
“Thank you for being willing to listen to me.”
She was really happy.
Kevin reached out and gently wiped the tears, “You’re a very warm woman. The one who should say thank you is me. Thank you for putting up with my bad temper all the time and for not giving up on me like the other women did.”
“I don’t want you to say thank you. But if you do want to thank me, then can you promise to overcome your PTSD as you helped me overcome my claustrophobia? It may be a little hard, but there’s no hurdle that can’t be broken if you just persist. Everything that happens in our daily lives is determined by how we feel. As long as we don’t feel hurt, then we won’t be so easy to get hurt.”
Kevin gazed at her for a long time speechlessly. He lifted one of her hands to his damp chest, “Up until last year, my heart would be cold at this time, but not today.”
He unbuttoned his shirt and showed his chest. Bella saw him naked before, but the first time she discovered, to her surprise, there was a word engraved on his chest, exactly a person’s name, Freya.
Whether it was the last time in the hotel swimming pool in T City or further back, Bella had never noticed such a word in that place.
“How much do you love her to have her name engraved on your heart?”
She was incredibly lost and sad.
“One day, when you’re really in love with someone, you will know.”
“So, there’s no way to forget her, right?”
“I will try my best, because of you, I’m also starting to want to be a normal person. So I’ll definitely try my best, and in the following days, I will forget this word on my heart and her as well.”
Kevin was not impulsive, but really determined. The next day, he came to the shop where the tattoo was first made. He was standing in front of the shop, looking at the familiar sign, feeling sad. Five years ago, when he first came here, he was with Freya. But now that he was here again, things were already different.
The person who accompanied him back then had long since gone nowhere.
The tattoo master still recognized him and greeted him warmly, “Kevin, why are you free to come to my shop today?”
Not only the tattoo master. In B City, everyone knew him.
“Please wash off the words carved before.”
The tattoo master was stunned, nodding woodenly, “Okay. Why do you have to wash it off?”
“There’s no value anymore.”
Kevin responded indifferently.
“Oh, that’s good.”
It was not good to ask too much about other people’s private matters, though this tattoo master still clearly remembered the happy expression of that hot-blooded young man who carved his girlfriend’s name with a deep love for her.
“Kevin, where was your girlfriend? Did you guys break up?”
The tattoo master asked as he cleaned the words from his chest.
“Yes.”
“What a pity! I’ve been tattooing countless couples for twenty years, but I’ve never seen any couple like you, who are willing to have each other’s names carved on their chests.”
“Each other?”
Kevin frowned, “What do you mean?”
When Freya came here with him, he was distressed that she might be in pain from carving tattoos, so he changed his mind on the spur of the moment and didn’t agree to let her carve on her chest.
“Don’t you know? Your girlfriend came to me later by herself and carved your name.”
He froze suddenly, “When did that happen?”
The tattoo master thought, “It was about three years ago. I remember it seems to be the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar, because the next day was the anniversary of my wife’s death.”
Kevin sat up and pressed his shoulders urgently, “Are you sure?”
The tattoo master was shocked by him and nodded frantically, “Yes, I’m sure…”
His hands suddenly dropped, and he looked indescribably sad. He woodenly drew a few hundred dollar bills from his wallet and handed them over, looking muddled and walking away.
“Kevin, aren’t you going to wash your words?”
The tattooed master chased out, yelling at him.
He waved, said nothing, opened the car door, started the engine, and drove away.
He drove aimlessly around the edges of the city. The tattoo on his chest was only half washed, but it hurt more than when he’d carved an entire word. For the first time in three years, he felt confused and didn’t understand what the woman had done.
The tattoo master said that that day was the anniversary of his wife’s death, but he must not have known that the day after that, Kevin and Freya would hold a wedding.
If she wanted to leave him, she must have been planned long ago. Why would she carve his name at that time?