His shoulders stiffened, his eyes flicking away from mine. “I didn’t have a choice. Anya… She was drugged. I couldn’t let anyone else touch her—”
“So you touched her yourself?” I stepped closer, right in front of him, my voice shaking but every word sharp and clear. “Erving, look at my mom’s grave and tell me—did you or did you not touch Anya?”
The reporters kept snapping photos, the bodyguards were shouting to hold them back, but I only had eyes for him.
I waited for him to deny it; even a lie would have been enough.
I just wanted, in front of my mother, to give her a little dignity.
But Erving’s lips parted. His throat moved as he swallowed hard, then he muttered, “Mandy, I’m sorry. I… I have to take responsibility for her.”
I froze. The words hit like a hammer, shattering my heart.
I remembered the scar he got saving me years ago.
I remembered him promising, “From now on, no matter what happens, I’ll come running to you without any hesitation.”
I remembered him holding my hand at my mom’s sickbed, promising to care for me for life.
All those memories, the ones that once made my heart race, now felt like the cruelest joke.
I shoved him away, pointing at my mom’s grave. I couldn’t stop the tears in my eyes, but I managed to firmly say, “Erving. You’ve tainted my mom’s funeral and destroyed everything we ever had! From today on, it’s over between us!”
With that, I turned and walked away.
From the day of my mom’s funeral, I had moved into a hotel—anything to keep Erving completely out of my life.
I blocked every way he could reach me, thinking that would finally sever the ties between us. But no matter how many times I cut him off, he always found new numbers to text me from. And every message carried the same pleading words.
[Mandy, I know I messed up. Please come back. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Just forgive me this once, okay?]
I didn’t even have the energy to open them. I would just glance at the preview, then turn off my phone.
Those delayed apologies had long since lost their meaning—buried along with my mom under the cold gravestone, scattered across countless sleepless nights when I tossed and turned, wondering how everything had gone so wrong.
A few days later, it was finally time for me to leave.