After Loving Her for Fourteen Years, I Finally Let Go

When the ship went down, I pushed my fiancée into the lifeboat with everything I had.

My strength was gone. Just as I tried to climb in after her, Luna Sutton shoved me back into the sea:

"You haven't saved Lucas yet and you want to climb up here? How can you be so selfish?"

Thrashing in the water, I choked down mouthful after mouthful, my eyes wide with shock.

My bleeding arm got even harder to lift.

We'd been childhood sweethearts for fourteen years, and I had been nothing but good to Luna.

When she had a fever, I carried her on my back for two miles down a mountain road.

When her father threw her out of the house, I gave her the only home I had.

When her company was on the verge of bankruptcy, I used the fund my mother left me to carry her through the three hardest years.

But after Lucas Lowell came back from overseas, she decided he was the one who had saved her in the fire all those years ago.

For Lucas,

she showed up late to our dates and left me waiting six hours in a downpour;

she started breaking her promises, pushing back our wedding again and again.

And today, for him, she had pushed me into the sea with her own hands, without caring at all whether I lived or died.

I finally gave up on her. I understood it wasn't that she hadn't figured out her own heart,

it was just that the person in it wasn't me.

Later, her father admitted it himself: from start to finish, Lucas had been taking credit for saving her life when it was me.

That day, she cried and asked if we could start over.

I looked at her pale face and said softly:

"Luna, I've already died once."

"And the dead don't come back."

……

By the time seawater was pouring into my lungs, I could no longer feel the pain in my left leg.

Thick smoke from the burning yacht hung low over the water, and flames licked their way along the deck toward us.

"Adrian Grant, save Lucas first!"

Luna was sprawled against the side of the lifeboat, half her body leaning out over the water, her voice shaking as the wind tore at it.

I glanced back.

Lucas was tangled in a snapped cable, only one hand still above the surface.

When I'd saved Luna a moment ago, a steel plate had pinned my knee, and my left leg had gone almost completely numb.

I had the strength to save one person at most.

"You get in first."

I pushed her toward the lifeboat.

Once she was in, she saw me climbing up too. Without warning, she pried my arm loose and shoved me back into the sea.

"Lucas can't swim, and he has severe asthma! Hurry up and save him!"

I stared at her frantic face, and for a moment I was lost.

In that fire fourteen years ago, she had grabbed the hem of my shirt just like this.

She'd been trapped in a corner of the warehouse, crying, asking if I would come back for her.

I said I would.

I carried her out of the fire on my back, and my shoulder blade was badly burned. But when I woke up, my name wasn't anywhere in the rescue records.

She always believed the one who saved her was another boy, one who had left with the rescue team that night.

His name was Lucas.

The water was ice-cold.

After swallowing several more mouthfuls, I fought my way to the surface.

Once I'd steadied myself, I grabbed Lucas, untangled the cable from around his ankle, and dragged him back toward the boat.

The moment his head broke the surface, he started coughing violently.

"Adrian, get him up here first!"

Luna knelt in the lifeboat, reaching for Lucas.

I pushed him right up to her.

Then a wave rocked the lifeboat sideways, and an oxygen tank rolled out.

Lucas clutched at it, and Luna immediately handed it to him.

"He needs this!"

I have a phobia of deep water. When it hits, I can barely breathe on my own.

I had just managed to save two people, and now I couldn't hold it back anymore.

It felt like a boulder was crushing my chest.

"Luna."

I raised my hand, wanting her to pass me the oxygen tank.

My left arm was broken, and my right hand was still seeping blood.

She saw it. All she did was frown.

"Aren't you the one who's best at saving people?"

She held on to Lucas, her voice trembling with worry.

"Hang on a little longer. The rescue ship will be here soon."

I looked at her.

The year I carried her out of the fire, she had cried and told me to hold on a little longer, that someone would come any minute.

I held on for fourteen years.

But this time, I was truly tired.

A huge wave crashed down hard.

My hand was torn from the lifeboat, and the sea dragged me down toward the black depths.

Before I sank, I saw Luna holding Lucas tight.

She never once looked back at me.

I woke up on the deck of the rescue ship.

My chest was wrapped in bandages, my left leg was strapped into a splint, and my arm was in a cast.

The doctor said I'd been in the water for over twenty minutes, and they had almost lost me.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I said was, "Where's Luna?"

The doctor paused.

"Miss Sutton wasn't hurt. Lucas just swallowed some water."

I closed my eyes and didn't ask anything else.

Luna didn't show up until after the rescue ship had docked.

Lucas followed behind her, his arm wrapped in gauze.

When he saw I was awake, a guilty look came over his face right away.

"Adrian, I'm sorry. If I hadn't been feeling sick, Luna would have noticed the sea pulling you away..."

I turned my face away.

Luna walked up to the bed, and her eyes landed on the cast on my arm.

Her gaze lingered there for a moment.

Then Lucas started coughing.

She turned at once to steady him.

"The doctor said you can't get cold. Why are you still dressed so lightly?"

She pulled his jacket closed around him before she looked back at me.

"I heard you let go of the lifeboat out there. Was it because you saw me give the oxygen tank to Lucas?"

I didn't answer.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, her voice softening.

"Don't sulk."

I looked down at my bandaged hands.

"I almost died."

Her fingertips went stiff, and a trace of weariness showed in her eyes.

"Lucas has asthma. If he doesn't get enough oxygen, he could die."

"And what about me?"

She was quiet for a few seconds.

"You survived, didn't you?"

She said it softly, but it went into me like a needle, straight to the deepest part of my chest.

Suddenly I remembered the year I was sixteen, when she'd come down with a fever and collapsed on a mountain trail.

I carried her on my back for two miles. When she woke up, she threw her arms around my neck and cried, saying, Adrian, you can never die.

So it turned out those words had only held true before she met Lucas.

Luna took a document out of her bag.

"Let's postpone the wedding. We'll talk about it again once Lucas's health is stable."

She said it calmly, as if she were only rescheduling a meeting.

I looked at her.

"What if I don't agree?"

She frowned.

"Adrian, can you not push me on this?"

It hit me then that she wasn't discussing it with me.

She was just informing me.

Beside her, Lucas spoke quietly.

"Luna, I'm feeling a little dizzy."

Luna got up at once and helped him toward the door without looking at me again.

I called after her, my throat tight.

"Have you ever really trusted me?"

Her eyes faltered.

But Lucas called her name again.

In the end, all she said was, "You need to rest right now."

The door closed.

Lying in the hospital bed, I opened a message from the wedding planner.

[Miss Sutton just let us know that the venue and the guest list are both canceled.]

I stared at that line for a long time.

Then I replied:

[No need to reschedule.]

The day I was discharged, it was her assistant who came to pick me up.

The assistant glanced at my cast.

"Ms. Sutton wants you to come by the office."

"Mr. Lowell's medical project needs startup funding. Ms. Sutton wants you to hand over the power of attorney for the fund account."

That money was the last thing my mother left me.

It was also all the capital I had used to carry Luna through three years of near-bankruptcy.

I didn't take the documents.

I looked at my reflection in the car window.

My face was pale, and the stitches above my brow bone still hadn't come out.

"What does her project have to do with me?"

The assistant said quietly, "Ms. Sutton said the two of you are about to be married."

I laughed.

She had just canceled the wedding, yet she still remembered I was her fiancé.

But only when she needed money.

In the company conference room, Luna sat at the head of the table.

Lucas stood in front of the projector screen, presenting his overseas medical project.

He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and he looked clean-cut and gentle.

I walked in on my crutch, and everyone in the room turned to look at me at once.

Luna didn't get up. She just pointed to the chair beside her.

Then she pushed the documents over.

"Sign it."

I opened the file.

It spelled everything out clearly: the fund would be injected into Lucas's project free of charge, and all profits would belong to Lucas's team.

I looked up at her.

"You want to take my mother's money and use it to fund his project?"

"It's just a loan. You'll get it back once the project turns a profit."

Lucas spoke up right away. "Luna, if it's not convenient for Adrian, don't force him."

As he said it, he reached to take the documents back.

Luna pressed her hand over his instead.

Her tone turned cold.

"Didn't you used to say you'd support anything I wanted to do?"

I gripped my crutch, the veins on the back of my hand standing out one by one.

All these years, I had let her manage the fund my mother left me. I had bought her first office for her and paid off her debts to suppliers.

Yet she treated all of it as my obligation to her.

"Luna, I can give you money. But not to Lucas."

The conference room went silent.

Lucas's face went pale for a moment, and he said quietly:

"Forget it, Luna. I don't want you two fighting because of me."

Luna turned to him at once.

"It's not your fault."

When she looked at me again, her eyes had gone completely cold.

I looked down at the power of attorney on the table, and suddenly the injury in my leg started to hurt again.

I used to believe that if I held on long enough, she would eventually see me.

And now she did.

It was just that after seeing me, she still chose someone else.

I pushed the documents back.

"I won't sign."

Luna shot to her feet.

"Adrian, what exactly do you want?"

"I want you to stop using marriage and feelings to hold me hostage."

Her expression turned ugly.

Lucas gently took hold of her arm.

"Luna, don't push Adrian. He just got out of the hospital."

Luna glanced at him, and her voice softened immediately.

"You should go home and rest first."

I turned on my crutch.

When I reached the door, I heard her say behind me:

"Adrian, if you don't sign, I'll pull you off every Sutton Group project."

I paused.

"Suit yourself."

After I left the company, I received an email from the manager my mother had appointed to run the fund.

Attached was the complete rescue record from the fire fourteen years ago.

One note at the very bottom stood out:

[The identity of the person who entered the fire and rescued Miss Sutton that year was never made public.]

I stared at that line, and an absurd suspicion suddenly took shape in my mind.

I didn't open the rescue record right away.

I remembered what happened fourteen years ago better than anyone.

That night, the Suttons' old warehouse caught fire.

Luna Sutton was trapped deep inside. I got through two burning steel doors and dragged her out from beside a window.

She was already unconscious by then. I covered her face with my wet jacket and carried her out on my back.

The flames burned straight through my shoulder.

When she woke up, all she remembered was the outline of someone in a gas mask.

Later, the Suttons found a rescue list that had been partly burned.

According to the list, the last person to go into the warehouse was Lucas Lowell.

From then on, Luna was convinced Lucas was the one who had saved her life.

I'd tried to explain once.

But her father told me not to upset her any further.

So I swallowed the truth for fourteen years.

Now, at last, I opened the file.

Inside was a piece of restored surveillance footage.

The image was blurry, but I could still make out the person running out of the fire with Luna on his back.

On his right wrist was a black mechanical watch.

It was the gift my mother gave me when I turned eighteen.

At the end of the video was a statement from the rescue team captain back then.

"The one who actually went into the fire and saved her was Adrian Grant."

I stared at the screen and didn't move for a long time.

So it had never been a misunderstanding.

Someone had erased my name on purpose.

I copied the files and was about to leave when my phone rang.

It was Luna.

"Lucas was in a car accident."

Her voice was shaking.

"He was hit by a car yesterday. They're trying to save him right now. The police say it was your car."

I froze.

My car had been parked in the hospital's underground garage the whole time, and only my driver and I had the keys.

Luna sounded like she was holding her emotions back.

"Did you go looking for Lucas last night? The cameras caught you."

I went quiet.

Last night, I had gone to the Sutton Group.

But I hadn't seen Lucas.

I'd only gone to pick up some documents I'd left at the office.

"Luna, I didn't hit him."

"Then come to the police station now."

She hung up as soon as she finished.

When I rushed to the hospital, the doctors were still working on Lucas.

Luna was standing outside the emergency room, her eyes bloodshot.

The moment she saw me, she strode over and slapped me across the face.

My head snapped to the side, and my ear rang.

"Adrian, why would you do this?"

I looked up at her.

"I didn't."

She glared at me.

"Your car, your fingerprints, and the figure on the security footage. Everything points to you."

"Do you believe them, or do you believe me?"

For a split second, hesitation flickered in her eyes.

Then a shrill alarm went off from the equipment inside the emergency room.

Lucas's assistant ran out, shouting, "Dr. Lowell's heart has stopped!"

Luna immediately turned and ran toward him.

I stood where I was, my cheek burning.

The police arrived soon after and took me in for questioning.

In the interrogation room, they played the surveillance video over and over.

On the screen, a man in a black jacket just like mine walked into the underground garage.

But a crucial ten minutes had been deliberately cut out of the footage.

Watching the screen, I suddenly remembered the message Lucas had sent me that morning.

[Adrian, don't think nobody knows the secret you're hiding.]

I hadn't replied at the time.

Now it was clear he'd been setting this up all along.

At one in the morning, my lawyer finally arrived.

He set a document on the table, his expression grim.

"Mr. Grant, the police found Lucas's bloodstained clothes in the trunk of your car."

I closed my eyes.

Luna's voice came from outside.

She stood at the door of the interrogation room, looking at me through the glass.

"Adrian, if you just admit it, I'll get you the best lawyer there is."

I looked up at her.

"You think I should admit it?"

Her lips had gone pale. "I just don't want you making this any worse."

I looked at her and suddenly laughed.

"Luna, I'm asking you one last time."

"Do you believe me or not?"

She didn't answer.

A few seconds later, she said quietly:

"The evidence is all right here."

I leaned back in my chair and slowly closed my eyes.

In fourteen years, I had saved her twice.

The first time, she forgot.

The second time, she chose someone else.

This time, I decided to give up.

I opened my eyes and pushed a document over to my lawyer.

"Tell the police I refuse to confess."

"And one more thing," I said, turning to look at her, my voice firm,

"Luna, our engagement is off."

On the other side of the door, her head jerked up.