Return to 18 Chapter 10

But I didn't dare approach rashly, just tried to ease my emotions and asked: "Marcus, how did you get here?"

He lowered his head and pulled a lollipop from his pocket, tilting his head and smiling at me: "Lily eat candy, happy."

"Marcus, how old are you?"

Marcus frowned, counting on his fingers. After a long time still couldn't figure it out, looking up at me aggrievedly: "Forgot."

He quickly became happy again, stuffing the candy into my arms: "Lily eat candy."

I helplessly rubbed my forehead, secretly suspecting Marcus had been stimulated and gone crazy again.

My hand quietly called the police from my pocket.

When the police arrived, Marcus fearfully clutched my sleeve and hid behind me: "Lily, I'm scared..."

Seeing this scene, the police already understood.

He told me Marcus had mental problems before, split personality into two people, sometimes lucid, sometimes confused.

After a month, he'd gone completely mad.

"Lily, let's go home, okay?"

Looking at Marcus who now had the intelligence of a seven or eight-year-old child, I sighed in my heart, feeling it was karma.

But I still hardened my heart and sent him to a psychiatric hospital.

This is fate, isn't it?

Marcus refused to leave, kneeling on the ground desperately begging me to take him away.

I bent down, pinched his chin, showing an extremely cruel smile: "Marcus, people who make mistakes must be punished, right?"

He nodded as if understanding but not.

Only after I left did he react, chasing me while crying and running.

A nearly six-foot-three man was truly pitiful.

Later I accidentally overheard the psychologist's chat. The year I was pregnant, Marcus couldn't resist temptation and did things to betray me, tormented day and night.

On one hand feeling sorry for me, on the other hand unable to control Sophie's temptation.

Every time he had relations with Sophie, he'd fiercely despise himself, while doubling his kindness to me.

But when temptation came, his body sank again.

Over time, morality and conscience constantly condemned him, making him constantly struggle and repeat between desire and principles.

His mind was already somewhat abnormal then.

The car accident happened during his mental breakdown.

He thought he'd lost his memory. The him who loved me most was the eighteen-year-old him.

Actually not—it was moral condemnation that split his personality into the one who loved me most.

None of it mattered anymore.

Later I heard Marcus came to his senses and escaped from the psychiatric hospital.

But for me at the time, with both son and daughter, it was all past clouds and smoke.

I was playing in the park with my two children. My daughter pulled my sleeve, leaning to my ear: "Mommy, there's a strange uncle behind us looking at us."

I turned around.

Marcus wore a clean white shirt, simple jeans below.

In a trance, it was like seeing the eighteen-year-old youth standing in the sunlight.

Marcus saw me looking, smiled at me from afar.

Then turned and left.

That night, a news report: "Man accidentally fell into North River, died despite resuscitation efforts."

I turned off the TV, seriously educating my children: "Did you hear? Stay away from the riverbank to prevent drowning."

"Got it, Mom, you're so naggy."

Life would still have many changes, but my future would still be good.

Completely bidding farewell to the past.

And to our eighteen-year-old selves—him, me, and us.