Chapter 3
Frank said, "So you want everyone to see you.
"You want Eric to remember forever that his proposal almost killed you. And you want Leila to feel, every time she steps into that house, that she took it from you."
I stared at Frank for a long time before asking, "Do you think I'm trying to get revenge on her?"
"Isn't that what you're doing?" Frank's voice turned cold. "She survived a terrible plane crash. She's terrified of seeing someone die in front of her.
"You knew about her trauma, but you deliberately went into the sea after she got that rose.
"She only took a rose.
"But you almost made her live with the guilt of someone's death."
Suddenly, the oxygen mask felt suffocating.
Leila took the rose, the baseball, and the home I'd dreamed of for ten years. Yet somehow, she was still the one everyone felt sorry for.
After the helicopter landed, Frank took me to his hospital.
Eric showed up with his people, but they were stopped outside the ward. All the footage the reporters had taken was deleted, and Frank even took the video from the beach.
Someone outside asked how to explain it to the public.
Frank glanced at me.
"Say she was disoriented from the cold and accidentally fell into the sea," he said.
His subordinate hesitated. "But some people at the scene said she went in on purpose"
"Don't mention suicide or anything about wanting to die," Frank said.
His tone was calm, but nobody dared to argue.
"She lost control for a moment," he added.
The door closed.
Those words Frank chose for me made me think of the first time I met him.
I was twenty-two, eight months after breaking up with Harold.
The system unlocked Frank after confirming my last relationship was over.
That year, I was volunteering at his flight base. When an expensive commemorative badge went missing, everyone thought it was me, the girl with no connections, wearing hand-me-down clothes, who stole it.
They insisted on searching my locker.
Frank took off his headset and blocked the locker with his body.
"If she says she didn't take it, keep your hands off," he said.
Frank was five years older than me, already the youngest and most famous rescue pilot at the base.
The sunlight from the hangar reflected off his shoulder insignia, and that was the first time someone trusted me without asking why. I finally knew what that felt like.
Later, his plane got hit by a flock of birds and nearly crashed.
After he recovered, every time an alarm went off, the memory of that crash would hit him. He couldn't bring himself to take off anymore.
Everyone told him to give up flying. But I was the only one who sat with him in the simulator every day, calling out his name again and again through the headset.
I said, "Don't pay attention to those intimidating numbers. Listen to my voice.
"If you feel lost, listen to me. I'll guide you."
The day Frank finally took to the skies again, he pressed a locator beacon into my palm.
"If you get lost, turn it on," he said. "No matter how far you are, I'll come for you."
That was the day we became a couple.
But after Leila's plane flew into a storm, Frank repeated every comforting word I'd once said to him, but this time, he said them all to Leila.
The media painted them as "the hero pilot and the girl he rescued." Leila, trying to cover up the fact that she changed the flight path without permission, told everyone it was my faulty weather report that caused it.
That was the first time Frank had saved someone since his accident.
Leila made it through, and Frank was back in the spotlight as the hero everyone admired.
I got my hands on the flight records that could clear my name, but Frank hid the evidence.
"She almost died. If we make the truth public now, it'll destroy the whole rescue team," he said.
I asked, "What about my innocence?"
He replied, "Isn't it enough that I know you didn't do it?"
It wasn't enough.
He once shielded me from everyone because I said, "I didn't do it."
But later, even though he kept believing me behind closed doors, he let the whole world tear me apart.
Admitting Leila lied would mean admitting that his first legendary rescue after getting back in the air was chasing the wrong lead from the very start.
The day the investigation wrapped up, I told Frank it was over.
He didn't try to win me back. He said, "Let's talk again when you've cooled off."
But the system knew better than he did. [Frank didn't choose you.
[This relationship has failed. There's no second chance.]
Frank never took back the locator beacon, but from the day I turned twenty-five, we stopped being lovers.
The night I was admitted to Frank's hospital, I heard something shatter in the room next door.
Leila was crying, saying she couldn't close her eyes without seeing me get swallowed by the sea.
Frank was there, trying to calm her down.
I could hear his deep, steady voice through the door.
"Don't look at the sea," Frank said. "Look at me.
"Follow my voice, breathe with me. I'll bring you back."
I listened quietly.
The courage I once gave him, he used to save Leila.
The promise he made to bring me home, he gave to her.
I asked the system, "Is there any other way out?"