Filed to story: I Got Married Without You
“I’m Alex.”
Those words brought Stella back to reality. She quickly let go of the doctor she had embraced, unable to believe it. She stared at Alex’s face and, once she recognized who he was, Stella lowered her head, said “Sorry,” and hurriedly ran into the restroom.
She turned on the faucet and desperately splashed water on her face, repeatedly warning herself, “Stella, you don’t love Erin anymore. The way you feel now is just guilt after learning the truth. You’re hallucinating because you miss Erin…”
She deceived herself like this, but suddenly felt a pair of warm hands wrap around her waist from behind and pull her into an embrace.
Startled, she turned her head and saw Erin with a both domineering and mischievous expression…
He held her tightly and slid his slender fingers up her waist until his index finger touched her chin. He applied a slight force, then curled it up…
Stella, forced to look up, stared at Erin as he lowered his head. She fixated on his dark red eyes, gazing at his eyelashes, his eyes, and his skin, but she didn’t dare reach out to touch him, unsure if the person in front of her was real or a figment of her imagination…
She allowed Erin to hold her without resistance, not moving or avoiding him like she used to, just looking up at him.
Seeing her behave so obediently, Erin’s mood seemed to improve. He gently touched her face, then grabbed her hand and placed it on his lower back…
He leaned in close to her car, his voice hoarse as he said, “Stella, effort to escape. And yet, you are going to marry another man. Is that fair to me?”
His voice sounded so wronged, as if he had been betrayed and had nowhere to vent, so he had to come to her and tell her this.
But at that moment, Stella hated that Erin had kidnapped her. Not only did she not show any concern for him, she even used her fingers to open his wound, allowing the blood to flow freely and him to suffer in pain…
Thinking about what she had done, Stella’s heart couldn’t bear the pain. She instinctively softened her actions and touched his wrist, asking, “Does it still hurt?”
Erin’s crimson eyes gradually showed surprise, followed by a sense of grievance. Then, like a child, he lowered his head again and buried his chin in her neck. “Rub it, and it won’t hurt anymore…” Stella replied, “Okay,” but immediately turned around to help him rub it. However, in that split second when she reached out, she saw Erin, who had been holding her, suddenly sitting on the ground…
He was covered in blood, sitting against the floor-to-ceiling window, with his upper body straight and lower body stiff. He held a gun in his hand, aimed at his own chest. The sunlight shone on him, making his skin appear white and translucent, devoid of any signs of life…
Stella was so scared by the scene that she froze in place and didn’t dare to approach. Instead, she quickly turned around and ran out of the bathroom. She was like a madwoman, climbing the stairs without even taking the elevator, and ran all the way to the office…
She wanted to go back to the office and take a good rest, but when she arrived at the door, she saw Erin in a white suit, arms crossed, leaning against the wall. When Erin saw her, he slightly tilted his head and looked down at her…
“Stella, I never thought that after ten years, you would still be so charming…”
Stella suddenly broke down. She crouched down and tightly hugged her arms, tears streaming down her face like beads falling off a thread…
Who would come to rescue her?
No one came to rescue Stella. She could only save herself, taking medicine, desperately taking medicine, that was her way of self-help…
She thought she was a doctor, thinking that this was post-traumatic stress disorder, believing that it would pass after a while and everything would be fine, and Erin WO disappear…
But what she didn’t expect was that memories of Erin were everywhere, like his shadow, seen everywhere.
She pretended to work as if nothing happened, while peacefully interacting with the imaginary Erin, occasionally even arguing with him… Every time this happened, Stella would think that if Erin were still here, their relationship would probably be like this, flowing smoothly. Unfortunately, there were no “ifs”.
Stella thought she had it under control, until one night she saw Erin sitting in front of her bed, head down, not saying a word…
Stella had just finished taking a shower and regardless of whether it was an illusion, she walked straight over and half squatted in front of him, raising her hand to touch his face, “What’s wrong with you?” Erin felt her touch and slowly lifted his eyelashes, looking at Stella, “You promised to accompany me for a month, but you only spent one day with me…”
Stella’s fingers stiffened, and her eyes, which had shed countless tears, quickly filled with tears at these words.
Erin didn’t care whether she was crying or not. He just grabbed her wrist and pulled her into his arms, then asked her coldly, “When will you come to accompany me?”
Stella remained silent for a few seconds after hearing this, then reached out and hugged Erin, “Do you want me to come and accompany you?”
Erin nodded, “I’m so lonely here, Stella, please come and accompany me. I’ll be waiting for you…”
Even though he disappeared after saying these words, Stella remained frozen in place, touching the spot where he had sat, feeling the coldness without any warmth. She knew he wasn’t real, just a product of her imagination, but Stella still cried uncontrollably…
She realized that it was only when someone truly left that she would understand how heavy the buried love in her heart was and how wildly it grew…
That’s how Stella was. She thought she no longer loved Erin, but she never considered that truly letting go of someone meant letting go of all the hate as well.
But she couldn’t do it. She had survived the past ten years by hating Erin, never achieving true release. It was because of that that she was entangled with him.
Stella looked out at the moonlight through the window and `remembered what Erin had said before he died. He had wanted her to spend a month with him before letting her go. He had given her a gun with only one bullet….
He did this to tell Stella that if the deadline passed and he didn’t let her go, she should shoot him. He was restraining himself with a gun, while also testing Stella to see if she would shoot him in order to escape.
Erin lost the bet, or rather, Stella never let him win. So when he was shot in the heart, he didn’t make a sound. He trembled, handed her the key to the handcuffs, and asked her to take Henry and leave… Stella wondered what Erin wanted to say when he grabbed her ankle. Did he want to explain the past? Why didn’t he say it in the end? Did he think she no longer loved him and only had Henry in her heart, so it was meaningless to say anything?
Stella couldn’t find the answer. She just stood up, turned on the tap in the bathtub, and filled it with water. Then she lay down in it…
It was said that when water submerges the heart for a long time, suffocation occurs…
Erin asked her to accompany him, and she should have gone to accompany him, so he wouldn’t be alone in a foreign country, feeling lonely…
With that thought, Stella closed her eyes and slowly sank into the bathtub…
As Stella felt suffocated, she heard a series of urgent knocks on the door outside. Knock after knock, pounding incessantly… Stella didn’t want to deal with it, but she faintly heard Rosalyn’s anxious voice…
“Stella, open the door!”
Rosalyn and Eva had visited Stella many times after learning about Karen’s situation, but Stella had always sent them away with the excuse of “I’m fine.” Stella acted like a normal person, going to work every day and coming home on time, making them believe that she could get through it.
But tonight, Rosalyn couldn’t sleep. She was restless and worried, thinking about Stella’s experiences. She couldn’t shake the feeling that what Stella had gone through wasn’t just a normal annoyance, but being used by loved ones since childhood and then killing her beloved herself. How could she possibly handle all of that?
She was afraid that Stella was pretending to be fine on the surface but secretly devouring all the pain alone. She feared that, in the end, Stella wouldn’t be able to bear it and might do something foolish. So she quickly got out of bed, threw on some clothes, and went to find Stella.
Andrew also came. He leaned back in the car seal, his face slightly turned, gazing at the knocking Rosalyn. She knocked for a while, but the door still hadn’t opened. Under her stunning face, a hint of unease could be seen…
He raised his slender finger, about to get out of the car and push the door open, when the door opened. Stella, soaked and dripping wet, appeared under the streetlight. Her face was pale, devoid of color, as if she had just experienced a life-or-death battle. She looked sickly…
Stella came out wrapped in a towel. Andrew had some doubts, but he didn’t delve into it. He simply looked away, not glancing at her, and stared straight ahead at the car…
Rosalyn saw that Stella finally opened the door and quickly reached out to hold her hand. “Stella, you look so pale, are you sick?”
Stella had initially thought about dying, but she realized that there were still many things left unsaid. At the very least, she needed to let the people who loved her know not to worry about her, instead of silently leaving like this. So she got out of the bathtub…
She held Rosalyn’s hand and smiled, shaking her head. “I was just taking a bath in the bathroom. I probably soaked my face too long…”
After speaking, she patted Rosalyn’s hand. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”
Rosalyn could long, I thought…”
Stella smirked. “You didn’t think I would do something foolish, did you?”
