“I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure who I was apologizing to—Tristan, or myself.
Tristan had spent seven relentless days near the mountain, where the landslide had turned the once-familiar landscape into a graveyard of mud and rubble. At first, his expression was still full of hope, but as days passed by, the hope of finding me alive had long since faded. Despite that, Tristan didn’t want to stop—not until he found me, even if it meant recovering only my cold, lifeless body.
Every time his hands plunged into the mud, uncovering another body caked in dirt and suffocated by the weight of the earth, I could see the pain etched deeper in his expression. His mind tormented him with the thought of how I might have suffered, trapped beneath the suffocating ground, fighting for every breath until there was none left.
"Stop, Tristan. Please stop... I'm already dead..." My voice trembled, though I knew he couldn’t hear me. I reached out, trying to touch him, to soothe him, but my hand passed right through him. A bitter smile formed on my lips—how foolish of me to forget I was just a ghost now, unable to touch the living or stop Tristan from tearing himself apart in his desperate search.
Hours passed, and Tristan’s hands remained covered in dirt, his face streaked with a mixture of sweat, mud, and despair. Just when it seemed like his body would give out, his phone rang. He hesitated for a moment before accepting the call.
"Tristan, Maddy wants to see you. Can you come over?" Adrian’s voice was cold and indifferent on the other end of the line.
The moment I heard his words, I couldn’t help but clench my fists. Even now, with me buried somewhere beneath this rubble, Adrian's only concern was Madilyn.
If I hadn’t returned to the Monticello family, Tristan would have broken off his engagement with Madilyn. The Blake and Monticello families had always been close, and their engagement was an unspoken agreement arranged by their parents. Tristan, who excelled at everything, had no time to grow close to Maddy, despite their childhood friendship.