Chapter 8
Marques struggled to keep his balance, as if his energy had been drained in a heartbeat.
In the blink of an eye, he abandoned all pride and dropped to his knees before me.
“Maddie, I’m pleading with you, please, could you give me another chance?”
His voice shook intensely, almost incoherent.
I gazed at him silently, lost in a reverie as memories from years past surged forth.
Back then, when others bullied him, he knelt in the same way, but his back remained as straight as a rod.
He kept his head bowed, his lips pressed tightly together, filled with a sense of unwillingness.
The two versions of him began to blend, but he was no longer the man he
once was.
I met his gaze directly, speaking in a very gentle voice.
“I saw everything.
“That day at the office, I saw it all. She was hiding under your desk.
“I overheard everything at the hospital, too. You didn’t only give her a child. You gave her the title of Mrs. Cruz. And me? I was merely a mistress you had at home.
“Shall I go on?”
Marques’s face turned pale, and he seemed on the verge of collapsing.
In that moment, he understood clearly that returning was not an option for
- us.
I pushed the stroller and walked away, never once looking back at him.
We had become like this–our paths intersecting only briefly before diverging even more.
Marques remained kneeling there for a long while. Not even heavy rain could make him move.
He was only taken to the hospital after he fainted and lost consciousness.
I closed the curtains and then brought my daughter into the room.
From that moment on, Marques was never in my life again.
At times, I felt eyes watching me from behind.
But I never t
turned to see, not even a single time.
I stayed by my daughter’s side as she grew up, day by day. Our days were simple, yet overflowed with joy.
Six months later, I heard about Marques’s passing on the news.
He had experienced a depressive episode and overdosed on sleeping pills to end his life.
By the time he passed away, he had become extremely emaciated.
Chronic stomach issues and prolonged insomnia had left his eyes deeply sunken, making him appear over a decade older.
It took ten days before anyone discovered his body.
The news footage quickly passed, but I still recognized that familiar ring.
And there was a photo–worn with age, yet undeniably recognizable.
I drifted off for a brief moment before switching off my phone.
The versions of Madeline and Marques from when we were 20 were now just memories.
Marques, at 28, would remain frozen in this year forever.
Soon after, a substantial sum of assets was transferred to me from my home country.
This was the inheritance Marques had left for us.
I donated a portion of it and saved the rest in an account for my daughter.
The sun shone brightly as I took my daughter’s hand and walked toward it, leaving a radiant glow in our wake.
