Chapter 30
As sunlight yielded to moonlight, scattered stars pierced the darkening sky.
Scott couldn’t recall how he’d feigned composure at the hospital, insisting he was fine.
Perhaps his calmness convinced Rachel to let him return home while she went to Nathan’s hospital.
Scott knew she needed reassurance-to revisit his diagnosis.
Pausing at his doorstep, he murmured vacantly: “I’m not ill.”
“Pamela’s waiting for me inside…”
Yet his hand froze on the doorknob.
Opening it might cement a hopeless reality.
“Meow…”
A faint cry echoed from within.
The Ginger Tabby!
Real-meaning Pamela must be real too!
Scott’s dark eyes flashed with desperate hope as he flung the door open!
But the living room swallowed him in darkness.
No welcoming figure. No longed-for presence…
Scooping up the plump cat, Scott clenched his jaw against the gnawing agony.
“Come. We’ll wait in her room…’
་་
The bedroom door revealed no trace of Pamela.
Scott crumpled onto her bed, clutching the cat as broken sobs tore through him.
Days blurred into an impenetrable haze.
No comfort could draw him from that room.
Until the tabby dragged over a black wallet, playfully gnawing its corner,
A photo fluttered out, bearing tiny toothmarks…
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Chapter 30
Scott’s bloodshot eyes focused, red-rimmed and raw.
Trembling fingers lifted his sole photo with Pamela.
Tracing her familiar face, he ached with suffocating grief.
Beneath the chewed corner glinted a hidden slip-glued there.
His laughter cracked through tears.
This minuscule paper-her final memento-pierced deeper than any blade.
Unfolding it revealed her delicate script:
[Scott, my time was short.
But I need you to live fully.
Live well.
-Pamela.]
His thumb brushed her name.
A diamond ring tumbled against his hand-twin to his own.
He seized it, crushing the band into his palm till metal bit flesh.
The cavernous house echoed with solitary emptiness…
Forty years drifted by.
Scott’s life settled into predictable rhythm-work, routine, existence.
All perfectly ordinary, save his lifelong solitude.
The tabby they’d dreamed of raising together died peacefully a decade prior.
Rachel passed this year.
The vast world held only Scott alone.
After twenty years, he returned to Blood Pack’s derelict home.
He pulled out the dust-covered letter from the dilapidated mailbox.
Sender-Artisan Craft Center.
Scott’s thoughts instantly drifted to the past, but with acceptance rather than sorrow this time.
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Chapter 30
288 Vouchers
Opening the two envelopes: one blank, the other bearing Scott’s handwriting.
He had written-“Pamela, wait for me to find you.”
Scott carried the letter to that familiar bedroom.
Sitting against the bedframe, he cradled the porcelain urn holding Ginger Tabby’s ashes, clutching a lady’s diamond ring and that letter.
At his feet lay an empty bottle of antipsychotics meant to treat delusions.
On this ordinary, sunlit day, Scott ended his life with a smile.
As consciousness faded, he seemed to see Pamela in her school uniform waiting for him.
“Pamela, I can finally come to you.”
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