Chapter 3
William wasn’t always like this. We were childhood sweethearts for ten years. When other girls complained that he wouldn’t teach them but only taught me, he would seriously say I wasn’t just anyone. He would also punch the face of the boy who mocked me when I stained my pants during my period. But now, I can’t remember what that William who protected me at every turn looked like anymore. For me, he only had endless hatred. “Olivia, why didn’t you die with your mother?” This was what he said to me most often later. In our senior year, there was a sudden power outage at school. William and I went home early, only to witness an unspeakable scene between my mother and his father. The gossip about a single widow seducing a married man quickly spread among the neighbors. William’s parents had a big fight. But on their way to the civil affairs bureau to get a divorce, a large truck suddenly overturned. They didn’t even make it to the ambulance, passing away on the spot. On the day of the funeral, I waited outside William’s house all night with red eyes. When he walked out of the dim dawn light, looking haggard, the first thing he said to me was: “Olivia, I don’t have parents anymore. Are you happy?” He hugged me, his long fingers leaving red marks on my arms. Tears occasionally fell on my shoulder. I endured the pain, stammering my lips, apologizing to him over and over again. But in the end, William just shook his head and left with a tear-filled “I hate you.” He disappeared completely from my life, and my mother also suffered a stroke and became paralyzed due to the shock. But what I didn’t expect was that seven years later, when I was worried about medical expenses, William would appear again, casually helping me pay the rest of the hospital bills. “Olivia, she needs to live to see how you suffer.” Perhaps from that moment on, our ending was destined to be a tragedy.