7
35%
Meanwhile, I sat behind the counter of a small seaside shop, my fingers flying across the calculator. “That’ll be 128 dollars.” I looked up at the customer and smiled.
This small seaside souvenir shop was something I took over six months ago, and business was pretty good.
My phone vibrated. It was a message from Mark Davis:
[What do you want for dinner tonight? I just caught two rock cod.]
A smile unconsciously formed on my lips. I replied: [Steamed, but remember to go easy on the soy sauce.]
Mark was a fisherman, five years older than me, and divorced once. We met when I fainted on the beach; he carried me to the clinic, and later he started coming to my shop often to buy cigarettes. Simple, direct, no complicated twists and turns.
“Excuse me, shop owner, how much is this shell wind chimes?” A girl held up a wind chime, shaking it gently.
“35 dollars. Do you want me to wrap it for you?”
The girl nodded, then suddenly stared at my face. “Shop owner, you look just like someone I once saw in a finance magazine…”
My hand paused, then I smiled. “Maybe I just have a similar face. I’ve always lived here.”
The girl paid and left. I watched her retreating back for a while, lost in thought. It had been a year already. Julian Hayes must have long forgotten about me.
Julian Hayes sat in his darkened bedroom, clutching the hair tie Claire Reynolds had left behind. It was the only thing she hadn’t taken, a few strands of her long hair still tangled in it. On the bedside table sat a dozen empty liquor bottles, the ashtray piled high with cigarette butts.
“Mr. Hayes, Thorne Corp. has completely gone bankrupt,” his assistant reported over the phone. “Vivian Thorne in Africa…”
13:36 Mon, 4 Aug
r
35%
“Shut up,” Julian’s voice was hoarse. “What about the person I asked you to find?”
The assistant fell silent. For the past year, they had searched almost the entire country,
but Claire Reynolds had vanished as if into thin air.
Julian hung up directly. His phone rang again. It was his psychologist.
“Mr. Hayes, you missed your follow–up appointment again.”
Julian sneered. “What’s the use of more medicine? Can it bring her back?”
The doctor sighed. “You can’t go on like this. Your suicidal ideation…”
“Get lost.” He hung up again, then took a gun from his drawer. The gun was left to him by his father. Now, the barrel was pressed against his temple. His finger trembled slightly on the trigger.
“Claire…” he whispered, and the image of the first time he saw Claire Reynolds flashed
before his eyes. She was eighteen then, wearing a white dress, playing the piano at her
father’s birthday party. He stood in the corner, and saw her in an instant.
The trigger slowly depressed…
*Bang!*
The bullet grazed his ear and embedded itself in the wall.
Julian collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath. He hadn’t died, not because he was afraid to die, but because he suddenly realized that if he died, he would truly never see
Claire Reynolds again.
