They both rushed toward me.
“Erika, what’s all this nonsense in the news?” Jack demanded, his voice desperate. “It’s not true, right? You’re not really leaving me, are you?”
“I am.”
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Chapter 2
His desperation escalated. He grabbed my arms and pulled me into a fierce, suffocating hug.
“Erika, I’m begging you. Please, don’t leave me. I know I was wrong. I swear, I know I was wrong.”
“Mommy, please don’t leave us,” Tim sobbed, clinging to my legs.
I looked down at the two of them, clinging to me and crying as if they weren’t the very people who had despised me just weeks
ago.
In that moment, I knew I had to tell them everything.
I pushed the man away, creating a space between us. Then, I held up my wrist, showing them the ugly, permanent scar.
“Jack,” I said, my voice cold and clear. “There’s something you need to know. I am not Erika. Erika is dead”
“What?”
“This scar,” I said, pointing to it, “severed an artery. She died the night you were watching fireworks with your precious Sophia. I’m just a stranger in her body, a visitor who inherited her memories and her pain. You killed her. You and your son. There was never a chance for you to atone, because the person you wronged is already gone.”
I knew he must have seen the scar before. He had just chosen, time and time again, to pretend it wasn’t there.
“No! That’s impossible!” he gasped, staring at me, trying to will my words away. “Erika, you’re my Erika!”
I wiped a tear from my cheek–one of hers, not mine.
“Erika was an orphan. She had no one. She made you and Tim her entire world, her only pillars of support. And you two, with your own hands, demolished her hope. I have no right to forgive you, and you have no need for my forgiveness. The person you need to
apologize to… you can never reach her again.”
Jack collapsed, as if his spine had been ripped from his body. “No… it can’t be… my Erika… she…”
“Daddy, what’s Mommy saying?” Tim cried, confused. “Mommy is right here! Where did she go?”
“You two destroyed her,” I said, my voice filled with a fury that wasn’t my own. I pushed them away and walked away for the last
time.
I used to think Erika was foolish for dying over these two.
But now I understood.
Abandoned at birth. Married at eighteen to the man she adored, only to be met with a decade of indifference. Her own child, the one she nearly died for, wishing for her rival to be his mother. She had poured all her hope into two people who would never love
her back.
In the end, she chose suicide, a final, desperate farewell to a world that had shown her no love.
11
In the month before 1 left, I set up a memorial for Erika. At her symbolic grave, I anonymously submitted all the evidence she had
collected against Kartalian Corporation–tax evasion, loan sharking, all of it–to the authorities. Sophia, too, was implicated in a
separate financial fraud scheme and ended up in prison. The two star–crossed lovers could have their reunion behind bars.
Tim was taken in by relatives. I arranged for the trust fund Erika had secretly set up for him to be managed by a bank, inaccessible until he turned eighteen.
I knew, from exploring her memories when I first arrived, that Erika’s original plan had been a murder–suicide. She was going to
take Jack down with her.
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12:42
But in the end, her heart was too soft.
She had saved all the evidence on her computer and made sure Tim would be provided for. I had simply finished what she started, fulfilling the last of her dying wishes until the lingering obsession in this body finally faded away.
On that same day, I turned down Ethan’s marriage proposal.
But I still went to Port City with him.
I didn’t love Ethan. But he was my proof. He was the only person who could validate my existence, who knew I wasn’t Erika.
And besides, I really did want to see Port City.
He introduced me to all his friends, parading me around as if I were already his fiancée.
On his birthday, the entire city seemed to celebrate him. But he chose a private yacht, where, under the s.. e got down on one
knee and proposed again.
“Erika,” he said, his eyes shining with sincerity, “I fell in love with you the first day I met you in Ashton. Will you please… marry me? I
promise I’ll spend the rest of my life taking care of you.”
I looked at the massive, pigeon–egg–sized diamond in the ring box.
And I pushed it back.
“Let’s just be friends, Ethan.”
He looked genuinely hurt. “Erika, why won’t you say yes? I swear, I don’t care about your past. I just want a future with you.”
I gave him a small, sad smile and shook my head.
“I don’t believe you.”
A seven–year marriage to Jack had taught me a bitter lesson. Ethan was young, passionate, and head–over–heels now. But how long
could that fiery love last? Once the passion cooled, all the things he “didn’t care about” would become the only things he could see.
I had learned that much in my one year in this world.
“But it’s true!” he insisted. “I really love you. Why won’t you believe me?”
“Ethan, thank you,” I said softly. “I’ve already booked a flight for tomorrow morning. I’m leaving after your party.”
I thought to myself that there were too many beautiful places in the world I had yet to see. I couldn’t waste my life on the emotion- al turmoil of another relationship.
The next morning, I boarded a plane to Iceland.
Ethan didn’t come to see me off, which was a relief.
12
For the next few years, I traveled the world.
I saw everything. I filled journals with my experiences, my thoughts, and my photographs, posting them online as a tribute to the woman who never got to see any of it.
I think Erika would have liked the view.
Eventually, I grew tired of wandering. I decided to settle down in Port City. It was, after all, a city that held a piece of my story.
The moment I stepped off the plane, I sensed something was off. The arrivals hall was eerily quiet.
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Chapter 2
I dragged my heavy suitcase toward the exit. It was unwieldy, and I struggled with its weight.
“Miss, would you like some help with that?” a polite voice asked.
I was about to decline when I found myself surrounded by a formidable wall of men in black suits.
I turned around. Standing behind me, smiling like a triumphant movie villain, was Ethan.
“Uh…” I stammered. “Long time no see?”
“Not for me,” he said, his smile widening. “I’ve been following you for years. Now, you have two choices. One, you become my wife.
Two, you become my girlfriend.”
“Is there an option that doesn’t involve you?”
He closed the distance between us and swept me into his arms.
“Nope,” he whispered in my ear. “You have to be involved with me.“–
Well, fine. I was tired of running anyway. I suppose I’ll stay. When he gets tired of me, I can always leave again.
