Chapter 200



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The next morning, Hayden woke up when the sky was already bright. A ray of sunshine from the window lit up his face. Unconsciously, he raised his hand to block the sunlight for a moment and then sat up.

A faint creaking sound was heard coming from outside the car.

“What are you doing?”

Hayden got out of the car and looked at Joseph, who was standing in front of the front tank of the car fiddling with a plastic tube. She was a little dazed.

Joseph looked at her.

“I’m refueling the car.”

A white tube connected the fuel tanks of the two cars and transmitted gasoline with a gulping sound.

Hayden’s car broke down while Joseph’s car ran out of fuel, so he could only use the resources temporarily.

“Huh? What the hell.” After Hayden understood what she was trying to do, she looked at him, “That’s pretty strange, these two cars were far away from each other, how come they are so close now?”.

Joseph looked at her again. “A pastor came by here in the morning and helped me push the car over here.”

“Really? The people here are very nice.”

“I gave him a thousand dollars.”

At his words, Hayden closed his mouth and couldn’t help but frown.

Why did she feel that Joseph was angry? It seemed like she was the one irritating him. had she done something?

Lowering his head, Joseph fixed the tube. He wiped his hands and straightened his waist.

“If we drive a little further, we’ll get to Sea View, where you were initially going. It’s not too far. Have something to eat before we leave, there are mooncakes and water in the car.”

“I’m not hungry.” Hayden shook his head, “It’s only fifty kilometers. Let me buy you breakfast when we get there. They say the fish congee there is very delicious.”

Joseph, who looked unhappy before, smiled, “Okay.”

Hayden felt a little confused about what had happened the night before. He only knew that he didn’t drink wine or anything else, maybe he became a little clumsy after feeling so much cold breeze.

She only knew that they had reconciled.

Since Joseph, who was president of a company, had already apologized to her, she wouldn’t bother with him.

After refueling the car, they set off down the road toward Sea View.

When they drove ten kilometers to the foot of the mountain, their phones finally got a signal.

“Shit, so many missed calls.”

Hayden looked at Alayna’s missed calls on her phone and felt a little nervous because he knew she was sure to scold her.

Then she saw that there were missed calls from Kevin and called him after a moment’s hesitation.

Before she could think of what she wanted to say, Kevin answered the phone instantly.

“Hello, is this Hayden?”

“Yes, this is…” Hayden couldn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the phone as Kevin, as it was hoarse as a duck whose neck had been stepped on, “Kevin, we’re all right now. Joseph is with me, I’m sorry to have bothered you…”.

“Alayna had depression before this?”.

Kevin’s abrupt voice interrupted Hayden’s directly.

Both ends of the phone were suddenly very quiet.

“What’s wrong, why would you ask that?” Hayden sounded serious and tried to make his tone sound calm.

The other end was silent for a few seconds, and heard Kevin’s voice in a sobbing tone.

“He passed out in front of me last night and when he woke up he looked like someone else. He said he was a gentleman, took the doctor’s stethoscope and said it was his sword…”.

Hearing Kevin’s intermittent description, Hayden was stunned. His mind went blank for a while before he regained consciousness, “His depression exploded.”

His pithy sentence answered Kevin’s initial doubt.

Alayna was suffering from severe depression.

This was the reason she had been playing games for so many years, the reason she sincerely devoted so much affection to others, but dared not keep them, and why she was madly in love with others, but would not advance any further. This was the side of her that was unknown and that no one understood or guessed.

After hanging up the phone, Hayden let out a long sigh.

She held her breath in her heart for a long time. When she let it out, she didn’t feel any more comfortable either.

She explained in a few words about her symptoms when her depression flared, and, finally, she told Kevin, “Please take care of her for two days. I’ll be back immediately after I finish fixing things here.”

Joseph didn’t ask her any questions. He just accelerated the speed of the car, but thirty kilometers was quite a distance and they wouldn’t get there instantly.

Hayden leaned back in his chair and was silent for a long time. “At first I thought this secret would be kept inside my heart for a long time, but now it seems it’s better to tell you and have you tell Kevin.”

“Yes.” Joseph held the steering wheel. His long, slender fingers were very pretty. His attitude was nonchalant and he looked like a stranger, as if he wasn’t curious to ask what he was talking about.

That’s why Hayden felt reassured as he told her the story.

“Alayna’s depression broke out twice before. The first time was when she was fifteen. She was in seventh grade then. Her parents divorced, and she followed her mother, who remarried a well-dressed college professor….”.

Alayna spent her childhood unhappily. Her parents argued all day long, and she spent more than a decade in such a life. That’s why she was in favor of her parents’ divorce, but she didn’t expect that divorce to push her out of a fire pit into an abyss.

Her stepfather was considered young and talented. He achieved his career grand slam in his forties. Yet he would enter her bedroom to rape her when his wife was not home.

“I have not seen Alayna’s depression break out. However, she has told me some of the symptoms of her depression. When it was severe, at first she fantasized that she was the brave warrior who fought the evil dragon to save the princess and that she had a sword to walk around with. She was also scared of everyone of the opposite sex in front of her and couldn’t sleep all night.”

When Hayden was telling Joseph everything, he deliberately left out part of the story. However, Joseph, who was smart, should be able to guess the root of Alayna’s depression, the unpleasant things she was experiencing.

“In the last stage, it would be the stage that every depressed patient would experience. She would want to commit suicide, as she would not feel that there was anything in this world that would make her want to live, only death could relieve her. At that time, she hears nothing else, but she needs someone to accompany her and watch over her throughout the day.”

Even a toothpaste could become a tool to commit suicide.

“There are quite a few tattoos on Alayna’s body, covering all the injuries prior to this.” Hayden said with a sobbing tone already, “She was a girl who rescued me so bravely when I was drunk in a bar abroad. Who would have thought that she would have such a disease?”.

“Is that the reason she turned Kevin down?”.

“Isn’t that reasonable enough?” Hayden closed his eyes and wiped away tears with his head down, “No one could endure what she has experienced.”

Joseph was a little saddened to hear her story and sighed. He gently pulled two tissues from the side and handed them to Hayden.

“Now it’s too late to say anything.”

In this situation, Hayden feared it would also be impossible for Kevin to let her go.

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