A Second Chance at Forever ( Eleanor Shultz )
Chapter 1514

Staring at the darkened screen, Chase's heart was trembling with an uncontrollable pain, blood trickling from his mouth as tears rolled down his cheeks...

His entire body was in agony, and although he had thought the pain from cancer could overshadow the ache in his heart, as death drew near, he realized that the heartache was the one that was truly lethal... The doctors had given him three days, but since he had removed his tubes, wanting to see Sigrid one last time, his life expectancy had dwindled to just one day...

He desperately wanted to see Sigrid before passing, but it was clear she wasn't coming back. With no expectations left, Chase gathered his last bit of strength, picked up his phone, and tried to send her a message...

Blood from his fingers smeared the phone, blurring the screen. Perhaps it was his confused state of mind that made it hard to see, but he managed to locate Sigrid's number and, with trembling hands, he typed out three words...

He didn't know if he had hit the send button, only aware that suddenly his chest was constricted, choking his breath away. Uncontrollably, a surge of blood rushed to his throat and burst forth from his lips... The blood splattered across the screen...

Chase looked at his blood-soaked phone with a sense of despair, managed a weak smile, and lay back on the couch without any more consciousness...

As his vision faded, Chase saw a younger Sigrid running towards him with a smile...

"Chase, will you marry me after you graduate?"

Chase wanted to say 'yes', but he couldn't utter a word. He could only mouth silently, over and over: Yes, I'll marry you after I graduate...

He didn't know when the illusion in front of him faded, only that at the moment it did, he whispered softly towards the empty space, "Sigrid, I can't marry you in this life... maybe in the next one, okay?"

No one answered him. In the empty living room, he was alone, as if abandoned by the whole world, alone in his arrival and alone in his death...

After her shower, Sigrid checked her phone and saw a message from Chase, just three short words: [I love you]

Without another word, Sigrid stared at the message before walking to the bay window, looking across to the living room that was always dark...

After hesitating, she replied with a message of her own, 'Is your stomach-ache better?' In the past, Chase would have responded immediately, or he would have come knocking at her door, but after a long silence, there was no reply.

Thinking he had fallen asleep, Sigrid

didn't bother any further, put away her phone, and went to bed. Two days later, the sound of police sirens filled the complex, and Sigrid felt a sense se of unease. She descended with everyone else to see what had happened, just in time to see two police officers pushing a gurney with a body covered by a white sheet out of the elevator across from her apartment...

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She hadn't initially thought of Chase, but then she saw a hand slip from under the sheet, and she froze...

After their breakup, Chase had carved a ring mark around his finger with a knife to make up for not being able to marry her. Bleeding, he had asked her for another chance to make up for his past mistakes. Sigrid, having crawled out of her emotional quagmire, had coldly rejected him. She couldn't remember the look in his bloodshot eyes as he watched her leave, but even after so many years, she remembered that finger he had carved for her...

Unable to believe it, she pushed through the crowd, crossed the police tape, and approached the covered body. She tried to lift the sheet with trembling fingers but lacked the courage until she forced herself to slowly reveal the face beneath...

A pallid face, devoid of any color, appeared before her. Sigrid's grip on the sheet stiffened, and her blood seemed to turn to ice, sending shivers down her spine...

She stared at the face for a long time and then, in disbelief, asked the nearby officer, "Who is he?"

The officer looked at her with a surprised gaze as she asked the question and tears began to fall, "If you don't recognize him, why uncover the sheet and disturb the peace?"

Sigrid shook her head in a daze, "I... I can't tell. The person I knew wouldn't..."

The officer explained, "This is the well-known Mr. Chase. He didn't take his own life, he died of terminal

cancer. It's a pity, he was dead anet

home for two days. If it wasn't for his student replaceing him and calling the police, nobody would have come to claim his body..."

Dead at home for two days...

Hearing these words, Sigrid stood frozen in place as if struck by lightning. She remembered the call from Chase two days ago, telling her he had a stomach-ache and asking if she could come to see him. She had angrily refused because she thought he was spying on her.

If she had gone to see him that night, maybe Chase wouldn't have died. Maybe he could have been saved. But she didn't go, even after receiving his message, she hadn't cared to check on him...