The servant shook her head, confusion written all over her face. “I don’t know… I didn’t dare look.”
Hearing this, Tristan became even more anxious. Without a second thought, he rushed upstairs and knocked on the bedroom door. When there was no answer, he kicked the door open. He and Eleanor stormed in together.
What they found made them freeze.
Samuel was unmoved by the loud commotion. His back was to them as he sat at the desk, mechanically repeating the motion of writing on the paper. Beside him was a stack of filled notebooks.
Tristan and Eleanor moved closer to him, and both were shocked.
Samuel had written over and over again: “Bella, I was wrong.”
The words were densely packed on the pages, as if he were trying to release the pain and regret from deep within his heart through this endless apology.
Eleanor was heartbroken for her son, and she tried to console him through her tears. “Bella is gone. No matter how much you torture yourself, she won’t come back. Who told you to do such a shameless thing?”
Tristan sighed. “You made your choice, and now you have to face the consequences. If you’d realized your mistake sooner, we wouldn’t have reached this point.”
They both knew the fault lay with Samuel, but he was still their son. With everything that had happened, they could only hope he would eventually move on.
But Samuel clearly wasn’t ready to accept reality. He looked up, his eyes bloodshot, and spoke firmly. “Mom, Dad, believe me. Bella isn’t dead. She’s just hiding from me. As long as I sincerely finish writing these, she will forgive me and come back to me!”
With those words, he lowered his head again, continuing to write the apology letters that Isabella would never see.
Seeing how stubborn Samuel had become, Eleanor cried out and turned to Tristan. “You have to do something! If this goes on, he might end up losing his mind.”
“He’s just… well, he’s clearly been through something,” Tristan started, about to mention how Samuel looked so shaken, but then paused, considering his wife’s feelings. “But if he just wants to see Bella one more time, let’s let him have that.”
“But the police already confirmed that Bella fell from a cliff, and her body couldn’t be recovered. How can we let him see her?”
“We have to give him some hope. If we force him to accept that she’s gone, I fear he won’t survive that.”
To help lift his son’s spirits, Tristan took matters into his own hands and signed him up for à missing person TV
show.
Samuel even reached out to the production team himself, offering additional funds with one condition–they had to add a public apology segment for him.
The production team was more than happy to accept it–it meant more money and more buzz to generate. They quickly rearranged their schedule and made Samuel the guest for the next episode.
On the day of the live broadcast, Samuel left his home without any fanfare. He showered and changed his clothes, but didn’t try to hide his weary appearance or fragile state. The man who once cared so much about appearances now appeared before the cameras in his rawest form.
Chapter 19
