Asher got up, shaking and choking, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I really didn’t know. We shouldn’t have treated you like this. It’s my fault, all my fault.”
“Asher, if there’s any conscience left in you, please don’t appear in my final days. Seeing you reminds i
Iturned my head away, not wanting to see Asher anymore.
Asher knelt there, crying, repeatedly apologizing.
me of the pain of these past four years.”
Sunnyvale’s winter is endless, feeling like it spans half the year. Thick snow burdens the branches, creaking under the weight.
I no longer have the strength to fight the Becketts. My body is deteriorating, growing weaker.
After the third round of chemotherapy, I almost thought I wouldn’t wake up.
12:16
<
Outside the room, Asher shed tears too, but he didn’t dare come in.
Yet I still heard the muffled sobs outside.
I remembered my childhood with my foster parents, eagerly waiting for Dad to come home after school, feeling happy despite the hardships.
I also recalled my early days at the Becketts, where what should have been warmth felt uneasy and anxious.
The neglect from my biological parents, my brother’s misunderstanding, and my foster sister’s schemes left me living in constant fear.
When my mother passed, my father once said, “A person’s fate is predetermined.”
So when I learned I had cancer, I kept telling myself that death wasn’t so frightening, at least not in this life.
But when I saw my reflection in my phone, I cried.
I hid under the blanket, not wanting to see Jasper. From beneath, I muffledly asked, “Do I look ugly? Am I scary?”
I clutched the blanket tightly, “Please, don’t look at me.
Even with my impoverished foster parents, I was raised fair and tender. But now, this thin, sallow woman with sunken eyes, how could that be
me?
Jasper hugged me through the blanket, “How could my Cora be ugly? My Cora is the most beautiful girl in the world.”
I cried and trembled under the blanket, and Jasper just held me like that.
In April, I thought I had survived Sunnyvale’s winter, but why is it still so cold?
な
Jasper wheeled me out to the garden to bask in the sun, wrapping me up tightly against the draft.
I looked at the bare branches, wondering if my life was nearing its end.
I asked Jasper, “Am I dying? The nurse said I don’t need chemotherapy anymore.”
Jasper, holding back tears, told
“That’s not it. It’s because you’re getting better and don’t need chemotherapy anymore.”
The soft sunlight lightly scattered over Jasper’s dark hair. I envied it. I touched his hair and said:
“Jasper, I hope in my next life I can live my parents in a southern town,
continued, looking at Jasper,
“And no Beckett family and pain.”
where it’s spring all year round, no heavy snow, no winter…” I
Jasper nodded enthusiastically. “When the time
comes,
day.”
וויו
come find you in the south. We’ll open a cat café, and you can play with cats every
Just then, a sharp female voice jarred me awake from my reverie.
Lately, I’ve been falling asleep and dreaming easily.
I turned my head with effort. It was Adeline, striding aggressively toward
- me.
But when Adeline reached me, she suddenly stopped, her voice involuntarily softening.
Perhaps she didn’t expect that after a few months, I’d become this unrecognizable. Her shock was to be expected.
“You… are you Cora?” Adeline couldn’t believe it.
She probably couldn’t imagine that the girl she once bullied, who was vibrant and proud like a phoenix, had become like this.
But then Adeline suddenly became extremely agitated; “Cora, you’re dying, why won’t you let me se?
12:16 PM
L
But then Adeline suddenly became extremely agitated; “Cora, you’re dying, why won’t you let me go? Why are you stopping my happiness?”
Her noise gave me a headache.
“Cora, I beg you, please give my brother back to me, give him back to me, okay?” Adeline truly loved the Beckett family. Whether it was because she was an orphan or because she couldn’t bear to lose the identity of a true heiress.
From her initial arrogance upon seeing me to her current humility, all she wanted was for the Beckett family to love her forever.
I heard that after I went missing, Mrs. Beckett suffered from depression for a year.
Mr. Beckett took Asher to the orphanage to adopt Adeline, who looked a lot like me.
“Cora, I beg you, since you’re dying, let me stay with your brother and parents, okay?” Adeline knelt in front of my wheelchair, clutching my hand.
Asher rushed over, pulling Adeline from the ground.
“I didn’t bully your sister; she just suddenly came to kneel.” I spoke before Asher, having grown used to his favoritism for Adeline and his grievances.
