His eyes lit up as he listened and said, “I’ll wait for you in the next life, Mommy!”
I hugged him tightly. “I promise I’ll find you there.”
The next day, I handed him over to the spirit guide who would take him to the next life. While holding the guide’s hand, Toby kept
turning back to wave goodbye to me.
I watched him leave until he disappeared completely.
It felt as though my heart had been hollowed out, leaving me indifferent to everything else.
I followed Samuel numbly, watching him repeat the same routine every day. He went to a cemetery and selected three adjacent
burial plots. The location was quite good as it was perched on a hill overlooking the city.
He buried my and Toby’s ashes there and murmured softly, “Kristen, after all these years, I still love you the most. I brought the
other women home just to spite you.
“There was nothing going on between Violet and me, either. I just grew tired of the scheming women, and keeping her around to
vex you seemed like a good idea.
“I hated you for betraying me that day, so I worked tirelessly to make money. But why is it that when I finally made enough, I lost
you?”
His face was streaked with tears.
He sold his company to Glorious Group. Daniel took over after slashing his selling price ruthlessly. Samuel didn’t argue or
bargain. He signed the transfer agreement without hesitation.
After that, he donated all his remaining assets to charity.
While he was doing these things, Violet had fallen into a deep coma twice due to her leukemia. However, a suitable bone marrow
1/2
Chapter 1
+15 BONUS
donor still hadn’t been found for her.
It seemed her time had finally run out. She appeared to have made peace with her fate. When she was awake, she watched her
favorite shows or chatted with friends. During painful chemotherapy sessions, she bit down on a towel and endured in silence.
After settling everything, Samuel went to the funeral home to arrange his own affairs. He scheduled a text message asking the
staff to collect his corpse and deal with it.
He then drew his own outline next to the ones of me and Toby and lay down in it.
Samuel swallowed two entire bottles of black–market sleeping pills and reached out as if to hold me and Toby in his arms. He
whispered, “Kristen, Toby, here I come. We’ll finally be together again.”
When his soul left his body, I felt an incredible lightness. It was as though I had been freed from all burdens. So this was what it
felt like to die without regrets.
I floated toward the light.
Behind me, I heard Samuel’s overjoyed and desperate voice, “Don’t go, Kristen. Wait for me…”
But I continued toward the light and didn’t look back.
