Chapter 2
The system showed me the hospital room from my world.
Only a small lamp was glowing in the room.
My brother, Will Finch, was leaning over my bedside, still holding my hand. A thermos sat nearby, filled with the chicken soup he'd promised me.
Time didn't flow the same in both worlds.
I'd spent ten years here, while Will had been waiting for me at my bedside for three years.
The system warned me: [The mission reward has been revoked.
[After you return, there's no guarantee your real-world body will survive.]
I stared at the fresh streaks of gray at Will's temples.
"One day would be enough," I said.
It was enough for me to open my eyes, call his name once, and let him know how much I'd missed home these ten years.
The seawater lapped at my ankles.
Eric didn't chase after me.
Later, I found out he'd stayed at the stadium, cut off the live stream, sealed off the outfield, and sent security to search along the coast.
He still thought I was hiding out somewhere.
When the seawater reached my knees, I felt a wave of relief.
A bit further, and I'd finally get to see Will again.
A wave crashed over me.
The wave swept me further into the depths of the cave.
At the same time, the distant roar of a helicopter suddenly echoed through the air.
A blinding beam of light sliced through the wind and rain, landing right on me.
That helicopter wasn't supposed to take off.
After the crash three years ago, Frank Hayden's leg was seriously injured. Since then, he hadn't been allowed to go out for rescues in weather like this.
But right now, he was hanging from the rescue rope, making his way toward me through the towering waves.
When I saw who it was, my first reaction wasn't relief.
Instead, a pang of disappointment hit me.
I was a step away from finally going home.
Frank saw the disappointment in my eyes.
The next second, the rescue rope was violently tossed by the howling wind.
"Look at me!" Frank shouted.
He grabbed my waist and strapped me in tight to the rescue rope.
A wave crashed over us, slamming us both against the rocks. Frank lifted his arm to shield my head, grunting as the rocks ripped open the back of his hand.
But he acted like he couldn't feel a thing, checking again and again to make sure I was strapped in tight.
"Don't close your eyes," Frank said.
His voice trembled, barely audible over the roar of the helicopter.
"I'm here to get you," he said.
Those words sounded so familiar.
Back then, he told me that as long as I hit the emergency signal, no matter where I was, he'd come and get me.
If this were before, I might've been touched. But all I felt at this moment was regret.
I was so close to seeing Will again.
The helicopter door swung open, and a few people hauled me inside.
Frank scrambled in right after, dropping to his knees beside me and reaching to check if I was still breathing.
His hand was freezing and shaking badly.
He shouted, "Get her some oxygen.
"Make it warmer in here.
"Emilia, open your eyes."
I coughed up the seawater that had flooded my lungs, my body instinctively curling up.
The medical staff tried to take me, but Frank kept me wrapped tightly in a blanket, refusing to let go.
He held on until the numbers on the monitor finally stopped dropping, and then slowly loosened his grip.
At the same time, the system's voice rang out. [You've been saved. You couldn't leave.]
The door that had been barely ajar slammed shut in front of me.
I looked at Frank through the oxygen mask.
After the air crash three years ago, he had an old injury on his left leg, and he wasn't supposed to go out for rescues in storms anymore.
But tonight, he broke the rules and flew the helicopter, then handed the controls to someone else and came down the rope himself to find me.
Frank took off his blood-stained headset and looked down at me.
"So, now that you see it wasn't Eric who came to save you, you're disappointed, huh?" Frank asked.
I nodded, too tired to explain.
"Yeah. Pretty disappointed," I admitted.
Frank paused for a moment as he wiped the blood from the back of his hand.
His face smoothed out, calm again.
"Guess what? You still made it. Too bad, huh?" Frank said.
I looked at him. "No."
"One step away, and I would have made it," I said.
Frank said, "Now, nobody cares who Eric proposed to, or whose name is on the deed.
"All anyone will remember is that you nearly drowned in the ocean, all because Leila took a rose."
I opened my mouth, my voice so raspy that it was almost inaudible.
"I wasn't doing it for them," I said.
Frank leaned in to adjust my oxygen mask, his movements gentle as ever, but his words cut like a knife.
He said, "You walked past three cameras and ended up on the easiest part of the coast for us to find someone.
"If you didn't want to be rescued, you wouldn't have put yourself right under our noses."
I didn't know how to explain it to him.
Only if I let myself die where our story ended could I finally go back to where I belonged.
My silence made me look more exposed, like he'd seen right through me and left me standing there awkward and vulnerable.
"It's not that you can't handle Eric moving on." Frank stared at me, like he was sizing up someone he'd figured out.
"You can't stand being the one nobody chooses, again."
My chest tightened painfully.