"She loved you," Aron continued. "That shine in her eyes—it wasn’t a lie. Whatever answers you’re looking for, don’t forget that."
Ray closed his eyes, his free hand gripping the edge of the shelf for support. Aron’s words hit him harder than he cared to admit, but they only fueled his need to uncover the truth. "Tell , Aron," he said, his voice firm despite the turmoil in his chest. "What happened on that day?"
Aron hesitated, his breath audible over the line. "January 15, 2017," he said finally, his voice carrying the weight of the answer Ray had been dreading. "...was the day Es proposed to Cain."
Hearing Aron’s words, Ray continued to stare at the trophy, his eyes unwavering. The air around him felt dense, thick with the weight of his thoughts. His lips parted after a long, heavy pause, his voice low, but filled with the kind of intensity that could pierce through any uncertainty. "Aron... how do you rember all of these things with such detail?"
There was no childlike curiosity in his voice—Ray had grown beyond that. He wasn’t a fool, nor was he soone to cling to idealistic notions of love and loss. He had lived through too much, seen too much, and he wasn’t blind. He wasn’t blind to the fact that Es hadn’t been mourning Cain like a woman who had lost her true love. The months they had spent together had shown him that much. The tis Es had ntioned Cain—or even hinted at missing him—could be counted on a single hand. When she did speak of him, it was not with a passionate longing, but with a faint, almost imperceptible sadness.
It wasn’t the kind of mourning one would expect from soone who had lost their beloved. Ray had always doubted, wondering if Es’s detachnt had been a result of the deep, unspoken pain that still lingered from Cain’s death. Maybe she couldn’t bring herself to express the depth of her grief. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized there had to be another reason.
The mont she saved him from the second ambush ca to his mind. The expression on her face had been sothing entirely different from soone suppressing anguish. There was no trace of helplessness, no struggle to endure pain. Instead, her features had been alive with a fierce rage—an anger that boiled within her, threatening to spill over. The way she had killed the second aunt in cold blood—it wasn’t the act of soone who was silently drowning in sorrow.
If Es had truly loved Cain as much as everyone believed, why would she have left the Florence family alive? They were the ones responsible for his death, after all. Surely, if her love for Cain had been as strong as Aron seed to think, she would have had no rcy for them. But Es’s actions never aligned with that idea. She didn’t seem to care about revenge.
Ray’s mind couldn’t make sense of it. And that’s when the truth hit him: after Es died, when everyone expected the mories of her to bring him nothing but pain, it had done the opposite. Thinking about her brought him happiness—an unexpected sense of peace and strength. So, how could Es have loved Cain so deeply, so overwhelmingly, and still agreed to marry them so easily?
Aron remained silent on the other end, his thoughts heavy, before he spoke up. His voice was tinged with the weight of the past, and Ray could feel the shift in the air between them. "Es asked to note down all of these things when she was dating Cain. She told that no matter what, I had to have these docunts at any cost... She also asked for it when my wedding with Helga was coming up, as she played matchmaker."
Ray’s mind raced. The pieces were slowly starting to co together, but there was still so much he didn’t understand. He shut his eyes, running his fingers through his hair as he processed the information. His voice was softer this ti, more cautious. "Does... does she have more docunts like that? Sothing she told you to keep together, maybe as gifts or... sothing else?"
On the other side of the line, Aron let out a quiet sigh. He turned his gaze toward the window, staring out into the distance as if trying to anchor himself in the present. He seed to take a long ti before responding. "I’m sending all of that to you," Aron said, his voice steady but laced with sothing Ray couldn’t quite place.
He didn’t know why Ray needed this information, but as he recalled Es’s words, he rembered sothing else. Sothing that had once seed trivial, but now felt like a cryptic puzzle.
"Ray... I’m not sure if you rember, but Es once asked to do sothing strange. She said, ’If soday I might not be in this world, and soone asks you for these docunts, please give them to them.’"
At the ti, Aron hadn’t thought much of it. Es was always so pragmatic, even when it ca to matters of the heart. But now, hearing Ray’s request, sothing clicked. Maybe, just maybe, Es had been preparing for sothing even she couldn’t control, sothing beyond her understanding.
Ray’s grip on his phone tightened as he listened to Aron’s words. A chill ran down his spine as he tried to piece everything together. Es had known sothing. She had always known sothing. Even when her actions seed distant or detached, she had planned for the future in ways no one could have anticipated. She had prepared for this mont, for the questions that Ray was asking now.
Aron’s voice broke through his thoughts once more. "I didn’t understand why she asked to keep those records, Ray. But now... I think maybe she knew this day would co. Maybe she knew you’d be the one asking for them."
Ray was silent for a mont, the weight of the revelation settling in his chest. Es had never been the kind of person to act without reason. She had always been careful, calculating even in her relationships.
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