[tutor] surrender

Two people three feet ([-])

There are huge floor-to-ceiling windows in the studio, and the dazzling sunlight that carries the entire wall.They sprinkled on my shoulders and face, but I only felt that my body was about to be corroded by the cold, and my teeth and fingers were trembling.

As Quinn said...

Ellen was indeed dead.

When I found Margaret and asked her for proof, her expression was as calm as a bowl of water.It's as if she knew I would have this kind of problem, maybe she already expected such a day.

Margaret gave me an affirmative answer almost without thinking.

- "He was right, Ellen is dead".

When her red lips uttered these words relentlessly... There was a brief blank in my mind.

Being sentenced to death by the most trusted woman, this feeling is as unreal as stepping on a cloud.

...that's not true.

"Impossible, if Ellen died ten years ago," I asked Margaret after a long pause, "then who am I?"

If I died at the age of nine, I would not be alive in this world.

I'm alive, so I'm not dead yet.

Doesn't this contradict their memory?

Margaret looked like a lonely shadow in her dark gray dress.She turned her back to me, silently facing the painting of four people on the wall, and I knew who she was looking at.

After a long time, she said, "Do you remember that photo?"

"What picture?"

"The summer festival in Japan in [-], a photo of you and Pengelie."

"Vongola...?"

"That boy with brown hair is the current leader of Pengo Lie."

"...It's not such a coincidence. But at that time, I—"

"It's you ten years later," she said. "You somehow went back in time and died there unexpectedly."

……

ha?

Ten years later—that is, I am now, back to ten years ago.

And died there.

……wrong.

There is a doubt that puzzles me.

"I'm still in this time and space, so things shouldn't have happened yet."

"I know... I don't understand either," she said, "but the you who appeared ten years ago are dead. And here you are. Caught in a space-time paradox."

... The space-time paradox, I seem to have heard Jack explain it a long time ago.

If A traveled through time and space and killed his father before he was born, then A would not exist. If A does not exist, it is impossible to kill his father, so his father will not die.

His father is not dead, A is going back in time to kill him.

I traveled through time and space and died in everyone's memory, while the young me of that era continued to grow, knowing nothing.Until one day ten years later, go back to the past and repeat this story.

Margaret said, I am dead.

So it means that in that time and space, the tragedy has already happened.

how can that be possible?This fucking sounds like a tragic sci-fi drama!

But Marguerite will not deceive me, because she also understands that I will admit what she says, just as I will do everything she tells.She has always been my belief.

Why this time, I am not willing to believe her?

"It's really cruel... Telling me this kind of thing is no different from telling a cancer patient the date of death. It's strange, you suddenly decided to do this, why don't you continue to hide it?" I whispered, and found a chair sit down.

Lifting the easel covering the canvas, I saw Jones's familiar but unfamiliar face, she was looking at me with a smile.

She really lives in Margaret's nostalgia everywhere...Maybe after I die, she will also appear on the canvas and on the tip of Margaret's pen.It's strange, it's obviously someone who has passed away, she has long since disappeared, and using paint to remember her is of no use except to add to the sadness.

"I'm afraid those things will happen again, so I want to tell you, but Jack refuses to agree. He thinks it's too much for you now. We have argued many times about this." She turned around, and the expression on her face appeared Clear sadness—something I've never seen before, "I'm sorry, Ellen...I want to tell you these things, even if they are too hard for you to take."

yes.

In fact, I don't want to know, and no one has asked my wishes, so who would be willing to know the date of my death?After New Years, I'll be 19 - and then they tell me I'm going to end my short life like a lame joke.

"I know you don't want to hear about John and Jones, but I still stubbornly tell you."

……

"I don't want you to die without knowing who your father is. You have the right to know him."

……

"Your death was too sudden."

……

"Jack and I, Andy, and John, everyone couldn't get over this..."

"Stop talking." I looked at Jones's face on the canvas and smiled wryly, "I don't want to hear it anymore, Margaret, I think I have the right to refuse."

"You'll find out sooner or later."

"Now I don't want to."

I turned away and lifted the covering from the other easel.

This time I saw Ellen Stoker, my young self.Standing in the garden, wearing a white shirt and a floral skirt—

I can't help but smile.

"Are you sad?" Margaret called to me.

I shrugged. "No, I just feel...unreal."

It was like telling another person's story—even Margaret's eyes seemed to pass through my soul, as if she was whispering to another Ellen Stoker.That dead Ellen Stoker...my future self.

I am not her, I am alive.So I couldn't really understand Margaret's grief and pain.And Quinn and I easily uncovered a certain answer and everyone's scars.

"Like what you're saying about John, I can't understand it at all because I haven't experienced it."

"But these things happen," she retorted.

"I know it's true, you won't lie to me."

Margaret seemed unable to speak any more, and looked at me quietly with complicated eyes.I saw pain and regret in her eyes.

And the expressionless me reflected in her eyes, as if it had nothing to do with me.

I feel oppressed and just want a quick change of subject, "Why do you have so many drawings of her?"

She is almost there in most of the portraits here.

"Because she didn't leave many images." Her tone was very tired, "Maybe you can't understand these, I miss her very much."

"I can understand."

I felt nostalgia, too, after Andy died.

"You know, I killed a woman before I came back," I began, telling Margaret what had happened in the Fordon End. "I killed that woman, and before that, she killed Jones."

"..."

"When I came back, I was thinking that if John insisted on taking her back, Jones would not have died."

"It's not that simple... She doesn't want to. You seem to hate John."

"I do not have."

"He didn't know how to love you. After she died, he had to put you by my side. He didn't abandon you."

"..."

I don't understand why she's suddenly defending John, and to be honest, I don't mean to blame him.

"I don't feel that way about him at all. To me it's just a king, a chief, or a powerful guy."

The word father is meaningless from the beginning to the end, because he has never appeared—whether it was before or after Jones died, and even the person who took me away later was not him, but Margaret special.

"It's so indifferent, you've always been thinking like this."

Margaret lowered her head and held Jones's painting in her hands. I could feel her fragility and sadness at this moment... like a thick fog wrapped around her body.

"Otherwise?" I shrugged with a wry smile, "Do you want me to hold him and cry bitterly, reminiscing about the lost Jones and time?"

"You hate him?"

"No, even after learning that John is my father, my life and opinion of him are the same as before"

I don't want to hear her say John's name any more, "Please, please don't say any more."

"Don't you want to hear their stories?"

"No interest at all."

Young and beautiful guardians, childhood sweethearts, maybe they love and express their love for each other.Later he drives her mad and dies.There may be some deviations, but I am too lazy to listen to the same stories that are repeated in TV dramas.

Her tone suddenly became agitated, and she turned her back to me and said, "You're always not about yourself. You don't care about anything. Whether it's the singing anchorwoman, or Jones and John, or even about your death—your The attitude is always the same, uncaring. You just wait for someone else to tell you, for someone else to be the bad guy."

Margaret approached me, her eyes filled with pity and confusion, looking over my shoulder to somewhere behind me.He whispered, "Why do you have no interest at all, why do you always face these with a smile?"

Rather than talking to herself, she seemed to be questioning me.

why?

I also want to ask why.Whether it's the female anchor, me or Jones, it turns out that I'm the only one who didn't realize that I didn't take it to heart at all.

why?I also want to know.

"What do you care about? I always don't understand you, and your heart."

I don't understand her sadness, strange, I have no interest in my own heart.What if the psychiatrist uses hypnosis to analyze my heart, and find out the morbidity or some monster in my heart?But as before, the pills and treatments the doctor gave me didn't cure me.Instead, they made Margaret even more sad now.

"I thought something was wrong with my education because I've been stubborn the way I was with you."

I saw that under the sunlight, Margaret's expression gradually dimmed.

Like a slowly withering flower.

"it's not your fault."

I can only take the mistakes on me so bluntly, when in fact they should be borne by me.

Not Margaret, she has done enough for me.

But Margaret ignored me and went straight on. Her face looked sad and haggard. In my impression, she was always resolute and strong, and she would not shrink back even when she encountered iron walls.But it was me—her favorite foster daughter—that aged her.

"Every time I look at you, I always think of Jones's face many years ago." She said, lowering her head.

I suddenly felt dry and itchy in my throat, and something struggled to crawl out of my lips.

"It's my fault, Margaret." I panicked.

"...At that time, I said I wanted to adopt you, but you didn't refuse, let alone ask why. At the age of 13, I sent you to study in Washington——I asked you to leave me, but you just nodded and agreed. Later... I sent you to a mental nursing home, and you never asked me why, neither the reason nor your condition. Even after you saw that photo, it was not you who came to ask me the reason, but Quinn. These confusions Stacked so much that I had to care."

I can't understand her confusion:

"Am I doing something wrong?"

"You didn't do anything wrong." That's all she said.

I don't think I'm wrong either.

Obviously, I have always followed the track designed by Margaret, because she is Margaret, so I am willing to trust her blindly.Is there any dissatisfaction with this?Why be sad, Margaret.

I feel lost.

"I'm sorry, Margaret." I apologized to her. "I don't know what's wrong. If necessary, call a doctor..."

"Even Thomas can't tell if there's something really inside of you, and he has a similar mental problem himself," she cut me off abruptly, as if she didn't want to hear any more, "he thinks that something spiritual, or something that you act Hallucinations from illusion users... are difficult to discern."

"..."

"I have nothing else to say, Ellen, you go."

I am very surprised.

Why is she so abnormal?

Because my death nearly broke her?

When I left the studio, I immediately saw Mr. Jack standing furtively at the door.

What are you doing here.

I'm waiting for you, are you okay?

What can I do, you might as well comfort Margaret... I think I broke her heart.

Jack touched the top of my head and didn't ask me anything.

Because he knows why.

"I seem to be denied by her, I let her feel disappointed... This is probably the first time in my life that I feel confused." I looked down at the scar on my palm, "I'm very sad...It's my fault."

Jack said: "She was denying herself. Margaret thought it was her fault that you became like this. She felt guilty and felt sorry for Jones because she didn't take good care of you. And she once told me that she felt You disrespect Jones."

"Why do you say that?"

"You'd be offended if my son didn't ask and didn't care about me. Jones and her have been the best of friends. Just like you and me."

I don't really want to talk about it.

jones...

My mother—about her memories, due to the effects of drugs and time, there is only a freeze-frame picture of her sluggish expression and beauty sitting on a chair, and when she was pushed off the balcony.In my memory, I was even afraid of her. Other than that, it was almost a blank picture, maybe it was forgotten, and I couldn't even feel her feelings for me.

"Why is Margaret so abnormal? In my heart and memory, she has always been indestructible." Finally, I asked Jack, "Is it just because of me?"

I looked out the window, the blue-gray sky pierced by the steeple church had just crossed the shadow of the bird, and then disappeared quickly, as if it had never been there.I feel lonely for no reason.

Jack pointed to the calendar on the table and said:

"That's because... Christmas is three days away, and after Christmas, the new year is here."

a new Year……

It turned out to be the case.

This is the last year we have been together in this era.

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