The lights at Sunset Care Center burned all night.
At 3 a.m., the corridor lay silent except for faint paper rustling at the nurses‘ station.
Andrew sat in Emerie’s hospital room, manuscripts and storyboard sketches spread before him alongside the hard drive storing her final wishes.
He hadn’t gone home.
Couldn’t bring himself to leave.
Her letter was their last conversation.
Page by page, he traced the water–stained script on yellowed paper, reading painfully slow.
Each page revealed how she’d clawed her way back to life.
Not a single accusation, yet every word laid bare her suffocated emotions.
One page held just a line:
“If there’s another life, don’t mistake me for someone else.”
That shattered him completely.
He thudded to his knees, clutching the paper as sobs tore through him.
Gathering letters and photos to his chest, he clung to them like a drowning man seizing driftwood.
When he first confessed years ago, she’d asked: “Are you sure it’s me?
Not some misguided gratitude?”
He’d laughed: “You’re nobody’s replacement.”
Yet in truth, he’d made her exit like a stand–in all along.
She left too quietly, leaving him no emotional trail.
The silence itself became the loudest indictment.
Flipping open her director’s journal, he found the final entry:
“Death isn’t terrifying, nor is loneliness.
The real pity is I’ll never tell you-
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Chapter 7
I truly, honestly never hated you.”
7 a.m.
Andrew hadn’t slept, papers strewn across the floor.
A nurse knocked: “Mr. Andrew, you were up all night?”
His voice rasped: “Can I keep her things one more day?”
“Of course.”
She said softly, “She designated you sole recipient of her trust documents.”
“Did she mention any unfinished wishes?”
“She said if you came… that alone fulfilled her final request.”
Andrew’s fingers trembled as he choked out: “That’s all she wanted?”
The nurse nodded. “No grand funeral, no ceremonies.
Just asked… if possible, visit Heritage Coast for her.”
He shut his eyes, tears returning. “Why was she always so meek?”
The nurse offered no answer.
None existed.
That evening, Andrew drove to Heritage Coast.
He’d once promised: “After this project, I’ll take you to the sea.”
That year he broke his promise.
She waited all night. He never came. Never explained.
Now he finally arrived.
Kicking off shoes, he waded into shallows until cold water swallowed his ankles.
Sea wind slapped his face–the world enveloping him yet leaving him utterly alone.
He shouted: “Emerie!”
“Can you hear me?
I’m here at the sea!”
“You said you’d forgive me if I came!”
“I’m here!”
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Chapter 7
Only wind answered.
Waves rolled onto sand and retreated. Again. Again.
He collapsed onto the beach, burying his face in his arms as violent sobs wracked his body.
“Sorry Emerie, I’m too late.”
“Were you alone when you left?”
“Were you scared?”
“Why couldn’t you wait one more day?”
“Why didn’t you wait for me to say goodbye?”
Wind whispered through the air, carrying a voice so faint it barely existed:
“You came.”
Andrew sat on the beach all night.
No phone, no lights, just him and the sea she loved most.
At dawn, he finally stood, gazing at the faintly lit horizon, murmuring:
“If there’s an afterlife.”
“I’ll recognize you at first sight.”
“This time, I won’t mistake you again.”
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