Chapter 16%
After taking the documents from his assistant, Beckett suddenly felt nervous.}
He hesitated for a moment, but the urge to find me won out. He quickly opened the folder and flipped through it page by page. He hesitated for a moment, but the urge to know the truth about me overpowered his anxiety. He quickly opened the file and began flipping through the pages.
As it turned out, he really had divorced me–he had even signed the papers himself. Looking at the bold, sweeping strokes of his own signature, Beckett’s eyes suddenly turned red with emotion. He couldn’t even remember when he had signed it.”
By the time he reached the end, Beckett finally broke down.
His hands trembling, he picked up the final page–a cancer diagnosis report–with my name written clearly on it.”
Beckett suddenly remembered–at the hospital that day, I had tried to hand him a report.
But he had been too angry back then. Without even looking at it, he tore it to pieces. If he hadn’t, he would’ve known about my condition
sooner.
Thinking of that, Beckett collapsed to the floor.
“Cancer? Evelyn has cancer? How could she have cancer?” His mind spun with disbelief, but his instincts kicked in. §
“I told you to pull the hospital surveillance, didn’t I?” He turned sharply toward his assistant, eyes bloodshot. “And the house’s CCTV? You find anything?”
The assistant had been startled by Beckett’s reaction. He had never seen him like this–completely falling apart, right in front of him. Clearly, I had left a huge mark on him.
The assistant handed him a USB drive. He had meant to give it to him earlier, but Beckett had been too focused on the documents, so he held onto it.
Beckett plugged it into the laptop. And when he saw the familiar figure on the screen, his mind went blank. §
He had only intended to verify the cancer report, but what he saw was something else entirely. It showed the day of the checkup–when he and Delaney were happily together. I had been there the whole time, watching quietly. Then came the part where Delaney walked over and provoked me–and it was all caught on camera.
None of it was how he had remembered. His tears came pouring out, uncontrollably.
He kept replaying the two clips: Delaney provoking me and him–without hesitation–choosing Delaney’s side. Even when I tried to show him the report, he tore it up without even looking at it.
His heart felt like it was being gripped by a spiked hand–agonizing and suffocating.”
Just the hospital footage alone had completely shattered his impression of Delaney. When he moved on to the Shaw house footage, he finally lost all strength to hold it together. He never imagined that even that day had been staged by Delaney.”
The footage was crystal clear. It showed my helplessness–and Delaney’s smug expression.
Beckett clutched his head in pain, wishing he could go back in time and strangle his past, blind self. And when he saw the blood pooling under me in the final frame, he finally lost it.”
He shot up from the chair–only to collapse in the very next second.§
Even while unconscious, Beckett kept murmuring my name, tears still falling from his closed eyes.
The assistant rushed to get him to the hospital–completely forgetting that Delaney was still in the living room.
Delaney called for Beckett and the assistant, but got no response. Her instincts told her something was off. She ran to Beckett’s study- and there, she saw documents scattered all over the floor.”
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