Chapter 5
After a moment of stunned silence, he yelled, “How much did. Gianna pay you? Why all this drama?
“Trying to manipulate me by faking her death? That’s just low!”
A sharp slap from John silenced him.
“Go in and see who’s lying there!”
Frank appeared hesitant, almost unwilling, to step into the
morgue.
But John practically compelled him to enter.
The eerie atmosphere sent a shiver down his spine.
He approached the bed hesitantly.
Henry, who had stood vigil by my side, gently lifted the white cloth.
My pallid face, drained of all color, was revealed.
The unexpected sight shocked Frank.
He gazed directly at my face, unblinking.
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After staring at me for two minutes, realization dawned on Frank, and he let out a horrified scream.
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“Gianna! I have to admit, your makeup is flawless! You scared.
me!
“Enough! Stop it! I won’t argue with you anymore!
As he yelled, Frank attempted to push me away.
Henry, by now, was numb with sorrow.
Seeing Frank’s obstinacy, Henry felt his patience snapping; he rushed over and pushed Frank to the floor.
“You monster! Don’t touch my daughter! You’re not worthy!”
Frank fell but sprang back up in an instant.
He dashed to my side, frantically reaching out.
“This isn’t Gianna! It can’t be!
“Gianna has a scar on her arm. She…”
He let out a shout as his hand reached out to clutch mine.
His words trailed off suddenly.
When Frank first started at the hospital, he was caught in a medical dispute.
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I was the one who shielded him, taking a knife meant for him.
From that moment on, an unsightly scar blemished my once. flawless wrist.
Frank used to tenderly kiss that scar, vowing solemnly, “Gianna, if not for me, you wouldn’t be hurt.
“I’ll treat you well in the future, I promise, never letting your down.”
Those sweet promises still whispered in my cars.
I had come to believe that Frank had long forgotten the depth of his feelings for me.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been so heartless, leaving me there to meet such a wretched end.
Frank gazed at the scar, his eyes reddening.
“No, it’s impossible. Gianna, you can’t be dead. You’ve got to be faking it to trick me…”
Upon hearing this, Henry charged at Frank again, knocking him down with a single punch.
“You murderer! You killed my daughter! It was you!”
Frank gazed at me in a trance. His lips trembled slightly.
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“It’s not on me. This has nothing to do with me.
“She fell down the stairs on her own. She did it herself.”
As he stumbled over his words, the morgue staff member tried to explain, “By the time the ambulance arrived, it was too late.
“Dr. Cullen, if you had stayed with Ms. Wells, helped her stop the bleeding, or rushed her to the nearest hospital immediately, she likely wouldn’t have died.
“Her uterus ruptured, and she was hemorrhaging; she missed. the critical rescue window. Plus, she herself had a weak will to
survive.”
Once the staff member had finished his explanation, he turned towards my body with heartfelt sympathy.
His eyes, clouded with melancholy, seemed to mourn my demise in my youth.
What a pity.
Upon hearing the staff’s words, John seemed to recall something.
He marched out of the morgue, fixing his gaze on Mable, who
stood silent.
“The medical staff told me my son was the one operating on you that day? He turned his back on Gianna’s life and death for you?”
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Confronted by John, Mable promptly burst into tears.
Frank, who had been on the floor, now rushed forward.
“Dad! None of this has anything to do with Mable! Don’t be hard on her!”
I couldn’t believe that even now, Frank was protecting Mable.
Neither did John expect this.
Furious, he tried to strike Frank again.
But this time, Mable stepped in front of Frank.
“Mr. John Cullen, it’s my fault. Don’t blame Frank.
“I’m the one who upset Gianna. We argued, and that’s why this happened.”
Her words, soaked in vulnerability, tugged mercilessly at Frank’s heartstrings.
He embraced her.
“If you hadn’t opposed it back then, I would’ve been with Mable. long ago!
“Now, I’m just looking after her as a brother. It’s Gianna who’s always jealous! Always targeting Mable!”
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John was so enraged that he could barely keep calm.
le bellowed, “You’re no son of mine! You’re a beast!”
John appeared on the verge of collapsing from anger.
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Julia Cullen, having just arrived, along with the doctor, hurried over and swiftly supported John.
Seeing Frank still stubbornly holding Mable, Julia was also filled with grief and anger.
“Son, why can’t you see Mable for who she really is?
“When we found out about your relationship with Mable, your father and I felt worried and secretly followed her several times.
“We were so vehemently against you and Mable because we saw her at the bar with those thugs!”
Julia, with no other option, unveiled the truth of the past.
“Mable was dating three guys at once but acted all innocent in front of us. She spent every dime you gave her on other men!
“To spare you the heartache, we went along with her demands, paid her off, and sent her on her way.
“She twisted the whole story around, made it look like we were the ones who forced you two apart, and you’ve been holding it against us all this time. We just took it, never said a word.”
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Julia burst into tears as she spoke of the sorrows of motherhood.
The sight of her, so aggrieved and angry, tugged at my heartstrings.
Over the years, Frank had grown distant and cold towards me.
Yet, his parents had wrapped me in their arms as if I were their own daughter. Their affection for me never once faltered.
In disbelief, Frank gazed at his mother, whose eyes turned red from weeping.
But the doubts that surfaced in his mind prompted him to release Mable’s arm.
He looked from Mable, whose eyes darted away, to his parents.
“Mable, is what my mother’s saying true?”
Mable stumbled back in panic and pointed at Julia accusingly.
“Mrs. Julia Cullen, I know you prefer Gianna over me.
“But you can’t just slander me because you’re biased!”
John scoffed.
‘Slander? I’ve got photos of you making out with other guys outside bars!
“I kept it under wraps because we’re neighbors, and I didn’t
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want to hurt my son!
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“But you’ve got no right to mess with my son’s relationship with Gianna!”
John’s conviction was bolstered by the evidence in hist possession.
His anger still flared as he barked at Frank, “I’ve told Giannat everything Mable’s been up to.
“Gianna’s not jealous of Mable. She’s just worried about you. She loves you. She’s scared you’re being played!”
The shock on Frank’s face prompted a soft sigh from me.
In truth, I’d known about these matters for a long while.
It was my knowledge of Mable’s true nature that compelled me to constantly thwart their meetings.
I couldn’t bear the thought of Frank being deceived again, nor could I stand the idea of Mable wounding John and Julia. further.
Yet, all I could do was watch helplessly as this family descended into misery.
Frank, unable to process the revelations, stumbled and collapsed.
“Impossible. But…
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“But even so, Gianna wouldn’t have tried to kill Mable by pushing her down the stairs.”
Amidst Frank’s murmurs, Henry approached, tossing a cell phone at his feet.
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“Frank, listen closely to who pushed whom down the stairs!”
Having been framed by Mable once before, I had prepared a miniature camera hidden in my watch, intending to record our meeting.
After my accident, Henry, in his desperation, collected every piece of information about me before my death.
Discovering my purchase of the mini camera, he dug the watch out from among my belongings.
With the help of professionals, he extracted the footage, learning the entire truth.
He saved it on his phone, determined to vindicate me.
Frank, with trembling hands, played the video.
Despite the awkward angle, it was clear the person across from
me was Mable.
Before I could speak, Mable began to cry.
“Frank and I are innocent. I never reached out to him; he was
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the one who kept seeking me out.
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“Gianna, whatever’s going on between you and Frank, you two need to sort it out. Stop dragging me into it all the time.”
I was so infuriated by her performance that I laughed bitterly.
Before I could respond, Mable suddenly shrieked.
“Gianna, why did you hit me?”
The video plainly showed Mable raising her arm and slapping herself.
Then, she started crying again.
“It hurts. Gianna, why did you kick me.”
Anticipating her tactics, I sneered.
“Mable, beating yourself up isn’t going to solve everything.”
Mable might have been slightly irked by my composure because she saw how unmoved I was.
“Really?
“What if another way?”
She glanced up at the clock on the wall.
Then, with a peculiar smile, she began to slowly back away from
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the stairs.
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I suspected she was trying to stage a fall, making it seem like I had pushed her.
But tumbling down those stairs was no trivial matter.
I never thought she would go through with it, but she did, and in her reckless act, she dragged me down with her.
As the picture tilted and swayed, I hit the floor with a thud. A sharp cry escaped my lips from the heavy impact.
Mable pursued me as I rolled, reaching the bottom few steps.
Seizing the moment, she steeled herself and deliberately missed
a step.
Two thuds were captured on the video.
The first, heavy, was mine.
The second, lighter, was Mable’s.
Frank, arriving then, couldn’t discern the truth.
He only saw Mable black out as her eyes closed.
After the commotion, Frank’s harsh voice echoed.
“Gianna! Can’t you be a bit more compassionate? Don’t you see Mable is unconscious? I’ll deal with you later for pushing her
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down the stairs!”
Silence followed.
The camera silently recorded my lonely, desperate final
moments.
It was the last time in my life.
After the video ended, everyone present was stunned.
Finally, Henry, weeping, handed Frank a bloodstained pregnancy test. “My daughter was pregnant. You beast! You killed her and the baby!”
Frank accepted the pregnancy test report from Henry with hands that shook. His eyes fixed intently on the tiny indication of life represented on that piece of paper.
He said hoarsely, “Now that Gianna was pregnant, why didn’t
she tell me…”
“She tried to tell you, but you didn’t care! You only cared about that bitch Mable!” Henry scolded.
Frank remembered the moment I pleaded for his help, my hand desperately reaching into my pocket, as if there was something crucial I needed to retrieve.
But he was too preoccupied with Mable to even glance at me.
After sitting on the ground for what felt like an eternity, Frank
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sprang up like a madman and seized Mable’s neck.
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He gripped her like a lunatic, ignoring her pleas, and slammed her against the wall.
“Gianna begged me to save her, too. She begged me! Do you know that?”
His eyes turned a terrifying shade of red.
“But I didn’t save her. For you, for a murderer, I abandoned her. I left her there.”
In the end, it was John who called the police, asking them to pull Frank off Mable.
The shocking truth that Mable had deliberately planned to kill me was laid bare for everyone to see.
My father took her to court. Frank was there on the day of the trial; Mable was sentenced to thirty years in prison.
After the trial, Frank wandered back to our home, clearly distracted.
Since our last argument, he hadn’t come back in over two months.
His gaze drifted, lost somewhere beyond the here and now, leaving me adrift in a sea of uncertainty.
He tore through the house like a man possessed, tossing
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furniture aside and rifling through my belongings in a desperate frenzy.
Amidst the chaos, he clutched my clothes and sank to his knees.
“Gianna, you’ve always been so understanding and tolerant of me, right?
“Please, just think of it as a small gesture of understanding. Come back. Let me make it up to you. Let me alone for what I’ve done.”
He held my clothes, kneeling, muttering to himself.
Suddenly, something caught his eye.
He crawled forward and retrieved an exquisite notebook from under the bookcase.
It was the love journal I kept for Frank and me.
The diary chronicled every date we had.
I meticulously saved every movie ticket.
But as time went back, the entries grew sparse.
Frank had stopped dating me.
Later, the notebook only held my own musings.
[I went to the hospital alone today for an IV drip. Four bottles.
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My hand is swollen. It really hurts.]
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[I can’t have Frank bothered with these trivial matters. He has his promotion this month, and I want him completely focused on that. I’ll get him that luxury watch. That’ll really put him on cloud nine!]
[Mrs. Julia Cullen was admitted to the hospital today with a terrible bout of cholecystitis. Seeing her in so much pain. just broke my heart. Thankfully, she’s scheduled for surgery tomorrow! I’m sending all my positive vibes her way and praying everything goes smoothly.]
[Last night, while I was accompanying Mrs. Julia Cullen, she reached out and touched my hair. It was such a tender moment. She said that even her own son wouldn’t help her with the more personal aspects of her care. She said she wished I were her daughter.]
[I’m pregnant. Frank and I are having a baby. I’m wondering if I should tell him. Would he be happy?]
[Mr. John Cullen told me about Frank and Mable today. He sobbed as he spoke. I felt awful, too. I don’t want to upset them any further, so I’m going to do everything I can to.]
Frank had been calmly reading through the journal.
But upon seeing my musings, he suddenly fell apart.
He lay upon my clothes, kowtowing and wailing.
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“Gianna, come back to me! I don’t want anything else. I just want you to be back here with me!
“I understand if you can’t forgive me. But please, just come back. Let me hold you. That’s all I ask.
“Gianna, you can hear me, right? You love me so much, so you must be able to hear me.”
I was acutely aware that Frank and I were no longer together.
Yet, seeing him in such despair, I yearned to embrace him.
But it was all too late.
Why did people only learn to cherish something after they lost
it?
I sat silently beside him, watching as he cried his heart out.
Frank wept through the night until he finally succumbed to sleep.
When his eyes finally opened, I saw a chilling emptiness. The light that had always been in his eyes was gone.
He had become a walking dead.
His daily routine now consisted solely of tidying the house.
He meticulously folded my clothes, arranged them, and stood before the closet, staring at them for ages.
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More often, he would be in the bedroom, leafing through the notebook I had made.
As he read, he’d grin or suddenly burst into tears.
Every night, he’d clutch the notebook and my pajamas, falling asleep in his clothes.
Without these, he couldn’t find rest.
Housework, something he rarely did before, had become his obsession.
He picked up the rag and began to clean, wiping down surfaces with meticulous care until the entire house sparkled, spotlessly clean.
He mopped the tiles until they shone.
He took over the care of my flowers and plants, tending to them with a surprising gentleness. He watered them just the right amount and fertilized them with a practiced hand.
He obsessively cleaned my personal items, polishing them over and over and mumbling to himself.
“Gianna, see how clean I’ve made it?
“I’m so good at this now. When we get married, I’ll make you so happy.”
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The Frank reflected in the mirror was gaunt, yet his smile was strangely joyful.
I felt no pleasure from this revenge, nor did I pity Frank.
I only felt a deep sorrow for him.
Like a man possessed, he was lost in a world of his own making. He moved through the days with an almost unsettling quietness, neglecting to eat.
When hunger struck, he would grab bread or snacks to keep himself alive.
After he forced down the last bite, he gulped down water, filling the emptiness in his stomach.
Even though he himself barely touched food, he filled the kitchen with groceries, spending hours tinkering with pots and
pans.
“Roast chicken! Yes, you love those the most.
“I can make your favorite roast chicken. Come back and try it. Tell me if it’s as good as you remember.”
Frank often left the kitchen in disarray, ending up in tears over charred dishes.
“I’m such a failure. I can’t even cook roast chicken right.”
After his tears, he would wipe his eyes and clean the kitchen.
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On a sunny morning, he turned his head towards me, speaking softly, “Gianna, I miss you. I really want to see you.”
With those words, he leaped from the window.
From the twelfth floor, a dizzying height, he fell. He passed away
in an instant.
When the police arrived, the sight that met their eyes was gut–wrenching; Frank’s body was reduced to a pulp.
My father finally found a sliver of solace.
Yet, this calamity struck yet another devastating blow to John and Julia, who were already navigating the depths of profound
sorrow.
Seeing them weep so bitterly in the morgue, all I could do was bow helplessly.
I murmured, “In the next life, I beg the fates to let me return as your daughter, so I might have the chance to show you the devotion and filial piety you so deserve.”
The end.
