The Rain won't Last Forever

I locked myself up.

I forced myself to forget Emma's painful tears that day. Her expression was so broken.

Just like when she woke up after losing her child to a miscarriage three years ago.

It was early autumn when that happened. Thought coldness might be normal during that time, I felt the chill crawled up and spread to all over my body. It caused me to dream every night, dreaming of Emma.

A few days later, I received a call from Jack.

“If you want to know the truth about three years ago, come to Sunset Funeral Home.”

The phone call had been abrupt and disjointed, but I couldn’t shake off the growing unease.

The truth? What truth could there have been?

Emma had loved Hudson. Even if I had forced her to marry me, her heart would still have belonged to Hudson.

She would have gone so far as to endanger the lives of our child and my mother, all for the sake of revenge against me.

That chill of dread had spread through my entire body again, making me tremble uncontrollably.

I couldn’t restrain myself. I had stumbled and run to my car, speeding all the way, but it had still been too late.

The incinerator at the crematorium had already been activated and the flames had danced across Jack’s sorrowful face.

“Emmy is gone.”

His words struck like a needle, piercing my heart and causing my legs to buckle. I had to lean against the wall to keep from collapsing.

I must have looked a sight at that moment—neither crying nor smiling.

Doubts in my heart grew larger with the mounting anxiety and I could only open my mouth, trembling.

“Gone? Gone where? Where else could she go?”

His gaze silently shifted to the burning incinerator. The crackling and hissing noises inside constantly jangled my nerves.

Could he be implying that Emmy was in there?

That was impossible!

Absolutely impossible!

I went frantic, lunging at him and grabbing his collar tightly.

“Jack, I don’t have time for your games. Get Emma out here! Now!”

His face remained eerily calm, unnervingly so.

“She’s already dead. Late-stage cancer. There's no saving her.”

I let out a cold laugh.

“Late-stage cancer? What late-stage cancer? The day you picked her up from the hospital, you kept telling the doctor it was just her stomach ulcer problem! You must be lying to me!”

She had been perfectly fine just five days ago—how could she have suddenly died?

I felt all my strength drain away in an instant, my entire body wracked with a crushing pain that felt like countless needles were being pulled out and driven in.

Tears finally fell uncontrollably after he handed me a pile of Emmy's medical reports.

“Oliver, I don’t want to lie to you. Just look for yourself.”

Shaking, I took the stack of medical records, as thick as a pile of overdue paperwork and began to read each page carefully.

“Late-stage liver cancer, late-stage liver cancer, late-stage liver cancer…”

These words repeated relentlessly, burning into my eyes.

“This can’t be… How could this happen?”

I didn’t want to believe it, couldn’t believe it. I lost all my strength and collapsed to the floor.

Jack carefully pulled out a yellowed notebook from his bag and handed it to me.

“Oliver, I found this diary among Emmy's belongings. It might hold the truth about what happened three years ago.”

“But the choice to know the truth is up to you.”

He extended the diary towards me, but I hesitated to take it.

The truth? What truth?

What if the truth was entirely my fault, if she spent her last moments resenting me for destroying the life she might have been happy with?

What then?

I could no longer distinguish what it was that I really wanted to know.

My hands hung at my sides for a long moment, but I finally gathered the courage to take the old, worn diary.

I flipped through a few pages in haste and the handwriting was unmistakably Emmy's.

Tears had already filled my eyes and as I looked at the familiar words, they kept dripping onto the pages.