Twenty-Six receipts of betrayal Novel novel Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Nicholas had a very, very long dream

In it, he was four years old again. A new family had just moved in next door, and he met a little girl three months younger than him.

He adored this ponytailed girl who looked so quiet and gentle but was actually a whirlwind of energy.

She’d drag him to the swings downstairs, and no matter how hard he pushed, she’d demand he push harder–said she wanted to fly all the way

to the sky.

She’d secretly spend her allowance on snacks and share half with him, declaring them the most delicious things in the whole world.

When she got in trouble and the adults found out, she’d bravely step forward and take all the blame, never betraying him even when she got

punished.

Every single day, he followed her around. From one end of the street to the other, from innocent childhood to the bloom of adolescence, from promising to be best friends forever to walking hand in hand into marriage.

For him, she had given up a future full of infinite possibilities without a second thought.

And he, before all their friends and family, had vowed to love only her for the rest of his life.

Nicholas thought that was the happy ending.

After all, in every fictional story, childhood sweethearts who overcome all obstacles and become a couple–that’s where it ends.

But the world he lived in wasn’t a movie or a novel. It was the real, living world.

He wasn’t an all–powerful protagonist with some magical advantage.

His life kept moving forward.

That church filled with flowers and balloons, carrying blessings and love–in the next moment it transformed into a walled city.

A cage engraved with the nameplate of marriage, where no daylight could reach.

The love and adoration he thought would last a lifetime slowly wore away in the mundane, day after day routine of married life.

One thought dies, another is born–they rise and fall, replacing each other.

The guilt and pain that tormented him, that kept him awake at night, grew wild and unchecked alongside his wife’s increasingly listless

temperament.

He couldn’t stop the tragedy. Just like he couldn’t bring back Elara’s parents.

He couldn’t make Elara better, just as he had no way to go back to the moment of the accident and change the outcome.

His heart slowly rotted in the dark, damp reality, until finally it became nothing but mud–unrecognizable from what it once was.

The story wasn’t over.

But the dream was.

Nicholas opened his exhausted eyes and immediately saw his mother.

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Twenty Six Receipts of Betrayal: My Silence Was the Countdown to His Eternal Regret

Chapter 15

He didn’t know if he’d escaped that hellish nightmare or where he even was. Instinctively, he called out to her.

Just two simple syllables, but when he spoke them, his throat felt like it was being torn apart. The pain made him furrow his brow.

But his mother who had always been so gentle–hearing the grievance in his voice, she showed no tenderness at all.

She leaned down, and he saw her swollen eyes and the mist of tears gathering in them.

Then she asked the question.

“The police called. They said… they said Elara’s dead. Is it true?”

Elara.

Dead?

That little girl from his dream, the bride he’d promised to take care of forever–dead?

Nicholas felt dazed. Then, he shook his head.

“I–I don’t know, Mom.”

That broke her.

She grabbed his hand–hard–her voice cracking, almost a scream

“You don’t KNOW? How can you not know? She’s your WIFE! How dare you-how dare you say you don’t know…”

Her voice shattered completely, and with it came everything he’d been trying not to remember

He snapped fully awake.

The police station. The officer’s words. The death certificate. Switzerland Dignitas.

Before he’d passed out, that despair and suffocation that had made him wish for death–it came crawling back like ants covering his entire body.

Bite by bite, devouring him.

He felt with brutal clarity every ache radiating from his limbs, his torso, every nerve ending.

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