Chapter 243: Chapter Two Hundred And Forty Three
The air in the dining room was thick with a new, terrible silence. The shattered glass on the floor seemed to reflect the fractured trust between them. Eric quickly pulled his hand back, trying to hide it behind his back as if that could undo what she had seen.
"What is that on your wrist?" Delia asked, her voice a low, trembling whisper.
Eric forced a nervous smile, a stark contrast to the sheer panic that had taken hold of his eyes. "What? What do you mean?" he asked, trying to sound casual, but his voice was strained.
Her shock was quickly being consumed by a cold, rising anger. She would not be dismissed. She lunged forward and grabbed his wrist again, pulling his hand from behind his back. Her grip was surprisingly strong. The rose bud tattoo was there, stark and undeniable against his skin.
With her other hand, she fumbled with the clasp of her glove, pulling it off with a sharp tug. She thrust her own wrist next to his. There, on her skin, was the identical mark. Two dwindling rose buds, side-by-side, a secret symbol of a life lived twice.
"Can you see this?" she demanded, her voice shaking with a storm of betrayal and fury. She looked up at him, her eyes searching his for an answer, for anything other than this suffocating silence.
Eric could not meet her gaze. He was silent. He used his free hand to cover his wrist, a futile gesture to hide a truth that was already exposed. His eyes were glued to the floorboards, as if they held the answers he could not bring himself to speak.
"You can see it, right?" she pressed, her voice cracking.
Still, silence.
"So you pretended not to know?" she continued, her words tumbling out, each one laced with more pain than the last. "All this time? You knew we were the same, and you said nothing? You watched me, let me think I was alone in this... while hiding yours from me?"
A choked sob escaped her. Delia covered her mouth with her hand, a desperate attempt to stop herself from screaming. The betrayal was a physical ache in her chest. Everything felt like a lie. Every shared look, every moment of understanding—was it all a performance?
"What is this?" she whispered, tears beginning to blur her vision. "Did you also come back to life like me?"
That was the question that finally broke him. The shame was too much to bear. Eric pulled his hand from her grasp and, without a word, turned and walked out of the dining area. He walked with his shoulders slumped, a man running from his own shadow.
Delia stood frozen for a second before the anger surged again. "No!" she cried, following him into the hallway. "You don’t get to walk away!" She hurried after him, her steps echoing in the silent house.
"Why can’t you talk to me? Why can’t you answer my questions?" she demanded, her voice rising with each word.
Eric paused in his tracks at the bottom of the grand staircase. His back was to her, but she could see that his entire body was trembling. He took a long, shuddering breath, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, as if gathering the last of his courage.
When he finally turned to face her, he saw the tears falling freely from her eyes, carving silent paths down her pale cheeks. The sight of her crying, knowing that he was the reason for her pain, made his heart ache with a guilt so profound it felt like it would tear him apart.
He gave a slow, defeated nod. His voice was raw when he spoke. "Yes," he said, the word heavy with everything he had hidden. "You’re right. I also came back. Like you."
The confession, though she had suspected it, still hit her. Her mind raced. "How?" she asked, taking a step closer. "What happened to you? When did you come back?"
Eric looked at the floor again, unable to bear the hurt in her eyes. "That day," he began, his voice barely above a whisper. "The day you... the day of the accident. Your carriage and mine were in a collision."
Delia’s breath hitched. "What?" She paused, her mind trying to piece together the impossible. She searched her fragmented memories of that day—the sound of splintering wood, the screams, the sudden darkness. "Your carriage... and mine?" she repeated slowly. "You died the same day I died?"
Eric looked up, his face a mask of torment. "To be precise..." he paused, struggling to get the words out. The next sentence was the heaviest burden he had ever carried. "...my carriage collided with yours."
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Delia stumbled back a step, her hand flying to her mouth in utter shock. Her thoughts were a chaotic whirl. His carriage? He was the other driver? The person I have come to love... is the person who killed me? The horror of it was too immense to comprehend. She put herself together, needing to know everything.
"And then?" she asked, her voice hollow.
Eric continued, his gaze distant as he relived the memory. "There was so much chaos. I was thrown from my carriage. I saw you... you were thrown out of yours, unconscious on the floor but you were still breathing. I... I tried to get to you. I tried to save you." His voice broke. "But my injuries were too severe. The last thing I remember is crawling to reach your carriage, to at least hold on. Then my breath left my lungs." He took another shaky breath.
"When I woke up, it was a year ago. I was in a ship on my way back from a business negotiation. It was as if no time had passed, but a whole lifetime had. I thought I had to find you somehow, to see if you... but I didn’t know how. Then you came to me first. At the garden, hovering over me as you took my cigar from my lips."
It all clicked into place—his recognition of her, his intense protection, his strange comments. It was all a lie of omission. A lie that had shaped their entire relationship.
"Why?" she asked, the single word filled with all her pain and confusion. "Why didn’t you tell me that day? The moment you knew I came back, why didn’t you tell me that you came back too?"
Eric was silent, his jaw clenched, his face a portrait of guilt and self-loathing.
Her patience, her composure, everything shattered. The hurt was too great. "SAY SOMETHING, ANYTHING!" she shouted, the scream tearing from her throat, echoing through the silent, grand house.
He finally looked at her, his eyes filled with a despair so deep it seemed endless. His voice was quiet, broken, and utterly destroyed.
"How could I have told you," he whispered, the words costing him everything, "that I’m the one who killed you?"