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They'd shared their sweetest memories there.
After Emily passed away,the place turned lifeless.
I opened the surveillance app on my phone,catching Nathan's car screeching into the driveway,leaving a black tire mark in the yard.
He didn't even close the car door,rushing to uopen the door.
Inside,seeing furniture draped in white sheets,his look as if he was struck by lightning.
He took stairs three at a time,searching every room upstairs and down for even on living persom.
All he found was cold,dusty silence.
He raked his hair in frustration.
The next second,he grabbed his phone,hands shaking so badly it slipped from his grip again and again.
He called Emily's phone.
I answered.
"Where's your sister!"
On the screen,his whole body trembling.
I felt nothing in my heart.
"Didn't think a sharp guy like you,Mr.Brooks,could miss the point.Let me say it again."
"My sister died two years ago, on today.Check your call history—her last call to you was when she passed away."
In the surveillance footage,Nathan froze,sinking into a deathly stillness.
Did he remember that moment?
I myself would never forget.
Emily,with her last breath,called him.
He said he was busy with Vanessa's debut,no time for her"nonsense."
That night,Vanessa won first place,celebrated by all.
Nathan himself handed her the trophy.
Meanwhile,Emily was lying in a pool of blood,her final breath stolen by the cold wind.
Since then,I often dreamed of a child.
He looked exactly like Nathan when he was a child.
He always cried,saying he was abandoned.
I'd weep too,apologizing to him again and again.
Nathan scoffed at my words,calling them Emily's latest trick.
He told me no matter how she schemed,he wouldn't fall for it.
Yet,he was often caught distracted at events,eyes lighting up at a buzz from his phone,only to darken when he saw what was the screen.
Vanessa's usual red-carpet escort was him,but this time,it was someone else.
Even when standing side by side,he kept a person's distance from her.
Funnier still,when presenting her an award,he nearly dropped the trophy.
Netizens teased he'd partied too hard and attended the event when still half-asleep.
But when Vanessa's fans called him"her husband",he turned to the camera,dead serious.
"My wife is Emily Harper.Don't make those jokes again."
That day,he snapped to life.
He suddenly announced that Emily's private garden would be used for Vanessa's ad shoot,letting hordes of fans tour it.
The city was plastered with Vanessa's ads,her lounging on a bed of jasmine petals,posing as if they were hers.
Everyone knew that her perfumer Emily Harper cherished that garden like her life—no one could enter without her permission.
Every flower,every blade of grass in it,was her labor of love.
Now,it was trampled on like nothing.
Even netizens felt sorry for Emily.
Some said Nathan was trying to have her show up.
I agreed.
Once,Vanessa"accidentally"entered the garden.
Emily,hearing of it,dropped everything to rush over and kick her out.
This evening,when the dusk fell,I visited the garden.
Only the front yard was slightly damaged;the rest remained untouched.
The jasmines weren't Emily's—they'd been brought in.
The sunset bled red across half the sky.
Nathan was sitting alone on the steps,radiating decay.
Seeing me,he gave a low chuckle.
Then he said he would take people to the cemetery,dig up Emily's coffin,and check the body.
