Chapter 10
1564words
"If you were going to lie, why didn't you keep lying a little longer?
"Why does it have to be this place, why did I have to become friends with her?"
He opened his mouth, but finally just lowered his head dejectedly: "Megan, I'm sorry."
I couldn't help but laugh, my laughter mixed with sobs:
"When you were having dinner with her in this room, did you ever think about me waiting for you downstairs?"
His shoulders suddenly trembled, and he finally looked up, his eyes bloodshot: "Yes, I was wrong, but do you think I'm feeling good about this?"
He suddenly became agitated: "My mother remarried, I've been living like an orphan. Every time I see other families together, I desperately wish to have a child with you, to have a complete family."
I was stunned, having never seen him lose control like this before.
"Every time relatives ask about children, I can only avoid the topic. When colleagues show photos of their kids, I have to pretend I don't care. You've always been so strong-willed, you never knew how much I wanted a complete family."
His voice suddenly lowered, carrying a sobbing tone: "I do love you, those were all accidents. I made an arrangement with Serena that after the baby is born, she'll leave, and the child will be raised by you. We can still be like before."
"Like before?" I looked at him, suddenly feeling incredibly unfamiliar.
"Yuri, you make me feel like these seven years of marriage were just a joke."
I slowly stood up, blood from my temple sliding down my cheek.
"You not only betrayed me, but you also attempted to make me raise your child with someone else." My voice was surprisingly calm. "You truly don't deserve the love I've given you for so many years."
Serena came to find me once more after that, kneeling and begging me not to take her child away, looking quite pitiful.
I questioned her why she kept addressing me so familiarly.
Why she had agreed to live upstairs in my home so submissively.
She cried, saying through tears: "I'm sorry, at first I really wanted you two to divorce, but later I thought you were a good person, and thought perhaps we could all live together like this."
I was shocked by her absurdity and left decisively.
After that, Yuri came looking for me three more times.
The first time
One evening, just as I had returned home from work, Yuri intercepted me at the entrance of my apartment building.
He had lost so much weight that he was barely recognizable, with a wrinkled shirt hanging loosely on his body, holding an infant in his arms.
What alarmed me most was his eyes - murky, obsessive, as if covered by a layer of fog.
His voice was hoarse, "This is your child, hold him."
I stepped back, feeling my stomach churn violently.
The infant in his arms was unnaturally quiet, its small face showing an unhealthy pallor.
"Yuri," I suppressed my anger, "What kind of show are you putting on, bringing your and Serena's child to me?"
He seemed not to hear me, insistently trying to push the child into my arms: "Look at him, he looks like you..."
"Enough!" I finally exploded. "You've destroyed all my trust in marriage, and now you want to disgust me with this child? Look at yourself! You're a delusional madman, carrying a child that shouldn't exist to harass your ex-wife!"
Neighbors began to peek out curiously.
Yuri was stunned by my fierce reaction, the wild look in his eyes subsiding somewhat, replaced by bewilderment.
He looked down at the child in his arms, then staggered away.
Later, I vaguely learned from mutual friends that the child Serena gave birth to was born with deficiencies and died before reaching one month old.
The shock affected her mentally; she became unstable and was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Yuri married her out of guilt, but after the wedding, she had been secretly drugging him, causing his mental state to deteriorate.
The Second Time
A month later, Yuri came again.
This time he had shaved his beard, was dressed neatly, and his eyes looked much clearer.
"I'm sorry." He stood at the door, with no intention of coming in. "Last time... I was confused."
I looked at him in silence.
"About the child, perhaps it's karma." He smiled bitterly, taking out a bank card from his pocket. "There's half of my savings in here, which you deserve. If it weren't for you working so hard to support me through graduate school, I wouldn't be where I am today."
I took the card, but this wasn't forgiveness.
"Take care," I said.
He nodded, his shoulders slumping as he turned away.
The Third Time
Just a week before I was to leave the country, Yuri came again.
This time his condition was clearly not right, his gaze unfocused, pacing back and forth at the doorway.
I watched him through the peephole, remembering what his mother had said when she came to see me a few days ago:
"Yuri has been getting worse lately, with fewer and fewer lucid moments. My dear, could you..."
I interrupted her then:
"I'm taking a position at the international headquarters next week. I won't be coming back."
Outside the door, Yuri suddenly spoke, his voice carrying the awkwardness of a young boy: "Why did you move? Are you angry with me?"
I was stunned; he had completely forgotten.
He rambled on:
"The cake shop by the school gate is closing down. I bought your favorite cake... Also, I planted tulips on the balcony. I know you'll love them when you see them."
My eyes suddenly grew hot.
That old shop by the school gate had witnessed so many of our naive moments together.
He would always buy me a piece of cake with his saved pocket money after school, and then we would sit side by side on the bench outside the shop, watching the sunset slowly descend.
"Last month while organizing the study, I found a note you wrote," his voice choked with emotion.
"Yuri's stomach medicine is in the left drawer. The handwriting had faded. I still remember when you wrote this note at three in the morning when my stomach hurt so badly I couldn't sleep. You were scolding me for not eating regularly while your eyes were red as you looked for medicine for me."
His delirious mumbling came in fits and starts, like flipping through a yellowed photo album, each page carrying memories we shared.
I leaned against the inside of the door, tears sliding down silently.
Those memories, worn blurry by time, became incredibly clear in this moment.
Until a neighbor woke up and came out cursing to chase him away.
"What kind of madness is this in the middle of the night! Can't people get some sleep!"
I heard the sound of him stumbling to his feet, and those words floating in the rainy night: "I'm sorry for disturbing you."
On the day I left,
In the airport terminal, the boarding announcement played over the speakers.
It was raining outside, the entire city shrouded in a gray mist.
I recalled how Yuri and I first arrived here seven years ago.
We dragged our suitcases, standing on unfamiliar streets, both anxious and hopeful about the future.
Back then, he said he would make a home for us here.
How things change while objects remain the same.
Three years later, because of an important collaboration project, I had to return to this city.
When the plane landed, it was early spring, with fine rain threads floating in the sky. After finishing my business, I drove to the cemetery in the west part of the city.
The taxi driver enthusiastically asked: "Do you have relatives here?"
I looked at the streetscape flashing by outside the window and said softly: "I'm visiting an old friend."
The cemetery was quiet, with only the rustling sound of rain hitting the leaves.
On a simple tombstone, Yuri's photo was still of him at seventeen, with a clean and bright smile—it was taken with my first camera.
"I've come to see you," I said.
In fact, on that rainy day when I left, Yuri somehow obtained my flight information and insisted on going to the airport to see me off.
On the way, the medication took effect, and the car lost control and crashed into a guardrail.
28-year-old Yuri died that day.
I placed a bouquet of white chrysanthemums in front of the tomb; as the wind passed, the petals trembled gently.
At night, I dozed off in a daze at my desk.
I dreamed of high school that carried our seventeen-year-old selves.
Yuri was wearing his school uniform, his forehead covered with a thin layer of sweat from exercising, as he pushed an ice-cold soda into my hand.
Suddenly, his smile faded and his gaze became unusually serious:
"If one day I do something that hurts you, you must walk away without looking back, okay?"
"Why?"
"Because..." he blinked, his smile showing the unique stubbornness of youth,
"I don't want you to see me when I'm regretful."
When the morning light filtered through the curtains, I felt a damp coolness on my pillow.
