CHAPTER 126: IT SOUNDED ABSURD!

Seraphina’s POV

I stared at Emma as she went on, as her words were dizzying my head.

All I could see was the diary she’d just handed to me. I still didn’t know how to explain it to her.

"So, I don’t know what happened after that," Emma continued, her voice sharper now. "Since I came back from that hell hole..." Her jaw clenched. "But I can tell you how bad your brother Asher is! I almost fell for that frosty charm of his!"

My eyes fell on Emma. Did she really fall for Brother Asher?

"He really had me fooled for a second," she muttered, "with all that handsomeness and those I-don’t-care stares. But he’s terrifying."

I exhaled through my nose. In the past, I didn’t remember Brother Asher having any lovers?

Or did he?

"...And he looked like he’d burn the whole place down for you," Emma was still talking. "Honestly? I don’t even know what side he’s on."

Neither did I.

Because if Asher was not the monster as Emma had claimed. He was just a person with I-don’t-care attitude.

"So," Emma turned her head toward me, eyes narrowing as they landed on the diary that I was still clutching in my hand. "Care to explain what the hell you wrote in that?"

I looked down. My fingers were curled so tightly around the cover, my knuckles had gone white.

I pressed my lips into a thin line, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. How the hell was I supposed to explain something like that to her?

"And don’t you dare say it was all your imagination or some weird fantasy," Emma continued, barking at me in a sharp tone. "Because I saw your tears on the pages where you wrote about me. About how I—" she paused, "—how I died."

My breath caught.

"No!" I blurted out before I could stop myself. "This time, I won’t let you die. I swear I won’t. And if anyone even tries to—"

I stopped.

Shit.

The words hung in the air, and silence fell between us.

Emma stared at me, brows furrowed, confusion darkening her expression.

"What do you mean this time?" she asked slowly.

I looked away. I was exposed just like that!

How could I be so careless?

"Tell me. Were you really reincarnated?" Emma asked as her voice was firm but too calm, opposite to how her eyes had become serious.

I didn’t answer right away. How could I? I couldn’t come up with the right word to explain myself.

Because, as simple as it sounded, the idea alone of dying and waking up again in the same world was insane.

Just who would believe in such a thing?

"I..." I swallowed hard, my voice barely above a whisper. "Will you believe me if I told you that everything I wrote in this diary is nothing but the truth?"

I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. My gaze stayed locked on a chipped corner of the table.

I was afraid that the reality I had lived, the pain I had been through, would become nothing but a hoax for the person in front of me.

"I’m not asking you to understand it," I muttered and paused for a while, then added. "To be honest... I don’t even understand it myself most of the time. But it happened. And everything... that I wrote down is really true."

Emma was quiet.

She didn’t say anything at first, just sat there with her hands trembling slightly, staring at me as if she was trying to look for some words that could befit the situation.

I kept watching her as my heart beat turned faster, not knowing what she was thinking.

"I..." she finally spoke, her voice low and shaky as she looked at me with tears building in her eyes. "I knew something was different about you."

"What do you mean?" I asked softly, not sure what she was trying to say.

"You’ve never been this confident," she said, wiping at her eyes, but it kept falling out of her eyes. "You always struggled to speak, Seraphina. Even saying one full sentence was hard for you. I thought maybe you were finally getting better and you were changing... but now I see it."

She let out a breath and looked at me again. She sat beside me.

"Even if your autism was mild... something like that doesn’t just get cured out of the blue. But you... You speak clearly now, you look people in the eyes with confidence, and say things you never would’ve said before. You act like someone who’s lived longer than me!"

My lips parted slightly, but I didn’t know what to say!

Was Emma finally believing in me?

"You’re not the same person," she whispered. "I knew it the moment you showed up to pick me up in that fancy car that day. But what really hurt... was when you didn’t even want to interact with me in front of people."

"I... didn’t mean that," I said quickly trying to hold back my tears. "I wasn’t trying to hurt you."

"I know," Emma said softly, squeezing my hand like she was trying to hold herself together. "After reading everything in your diary, I finally get it. You weren’t pushing me away because you were rich now... You were trying to protect me."

She paused as her breath turned heavy and her eyes glistened with tears.

"But back then, I didn’t understand. I thought you were living this happy life now, and maybe... You didn’t need me anymore." Her voice cracked as the tears started falling again. "I was so damn sad, Sera... and angry too. I thought I’d lost you."

She continued between her sobs.

"I didn’t know you were hurting like that. That you were carrying so much pain. "You didn’t shut yourself off because you stopped loving us... You did it because you were scared of losing us again. You just wanted to protect everyone, even if you were left all alone in this world!"

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