At that, I turn around. When I glance at July, I find his eyes widened, which means he indeed didn't know.

"And that's not even half of it." Rain sits down on the edge of the bed. "We are still Castletons. My real father, was actually my fake father's older brother. Which means we had been living with our uncle. I don't know the whole truth, but from what I deduced, my real parents were killed by them."

"Eh?" I frown. "But why?"

"All for property reasons. What else? People can do anything for money. But I of course couldn't find any proof of it. And the reason why we were brought under their care, was so that I could be raised to be the heir of the Castleton Hospital. Because they couldn't make a kid of their own with the amount of despise they held for each other. But that's also why they hated us. We looked too much like our parents. We were the walking reminder of their sins."

"Ju- Hale told me they loved you a lot. They gave you everything you asked and treated you like a prince, but did the complete opposite for him."

"That only started when we were around seven or eight years old. From our performance in school, it was obvious that I was a little smarter than the rest, and they wanted to nourish that. They wanted to use me in every way they could to get more money. I was an investment for them. And since Hale wasn't that promising, they didn't bother with him at all. All he did was draw. And they hated that. Artists can't make money. He had no value to them."

I begin to dig my fingers into my palm. My blood is boiling in my head. Is this how it feels like to hate someone? I thought I hated my mother, but that was nothing in comparison. The kind of hatred I feel right now . . . if I don't control it, I might end up doing things I'll regret.

"Another reason why they treated him like this, was because when we were kids, he had once come very close to figuring out that our parents were killed. They got so scared that they locked him in our basement for several days. When I tried to tell them to get him out of there because there are rats and he's scared of rats, that's when they started brainwashing me. They told me all sorts of things about him, how he is a devil child, how I need to always keep him under me, how one day he will surpass me in everything if I don't stay careful. I was seven years old. And what seven year old is capable of having an opinion of his own? I believed them. And I started doing what they told me. That's simply how my mind became shaped.

"It wasn't until several years later that I started to understand what I'm doing is wrong. When I started to develop my own conscience. But that's when he started to get good grades, and I got scared that I will lose the favour of my parents, that they'll replace me with him and start treating me like how they treated him. And I couldn't let that happen, so I didn't stop. But he still kept getting good grades. He had too much willpower. But that's when . . . that's when Moon came into the picture."

I glance at July once again. He was leaning against the opposite wall, exhausted. But at the sound of Moon's name, he stands straight, and a look of desperation floods his eyes. My heart clenches a little.

"Moon was a . . ." He sighs and shakes his head. "There was something seriously wrong with her. I don't know how to describe it. But she went through such terrible, terrible things, that her head was all fucked up. Hale mistook her phony kindness for love. And he fell in love with her without knowing any of those. I didn't know it back then either. I saw how his eyes would follow her everywhere, and how sometimes she would go talk to him though no one else in our class did. I knew they would start going out soon. I saw that as a chance for me to make sure his mental strength gets shattered. Even at that age, I was so fucking immature. So I went out with her instead, and that's when I found out what kind of person she is. I'm sure Hale must have told you why she is that way."

July doesn't meet my gaze. No, he didn't tell me anything much about her. And I know there is something about his relationship with her that he's hiding from me, especially about the day before her death. But I never gave it much importance because we simply do not have enough time to dwell on the negativities. And yet here we are.

"Regardless, it was through Moon that I started to find out about my family's secret. Moon's father was some sort of influential man of the underworld, and my fake parents had taken favours from him. To cover their tracks I suppose. And after I found out the whole truth, I realized how everything I have ever been told was a complete lie. They never loved me, they never wanted anything but to use me. The entire concept of love is commercialized to them. I realized what I did to my brother was too beyond repair. My mind was in a complete mess and I couldn't make sense of what to do."

"So you chose to run away," I say, making sure the spite is evident in my voice.

"Yes." He looks at his lap. "I was feeling suffocated, and that was the only thing left for me to do. I swear on God, trust me when I tell you that I truly wanted to bring Hale along with me. I truly, truly did. But I didn't have enough money. So I-"

"Then you should've waited for him!" I snap.

"Could you have done that?" He stands up, sounding defensive for the first time. "Could you have lived another second under that roof, knowing that you're living with the people who killed your parents? Knowing that you have been living with them for seventeen years, while all they wanted was to use you for money, after they killed your parents for the same? Or forget that. Could you have taken a rational decision after all that information was suddenly thrust upon you? Could you?"

At that, I lose my words. Because he is right. I couldn't stay in that house after receiving a slap. I'm no one to talk here.

His tone becomes softer, almost reducing to a whisper. "I told him to wait for me. I told him I will come back to take him with me. I promised him. It's true, I underestimated the amount of time it will take me to do that. I lived in riches, I had no idea how fucking difficult the world out here is. But trust me, you can ask Hwiyoung- I mean Nova too- only a few days before I heard about his suicide, I was planning to go to Heilber and bring him with me. I was so devastated when I found out, I didn't even properly register that he died with my name. I had everything planned about my life with him. Though I wasn't in a financially good position, I thought I would figure it out the same way I did with Nova. He just needed to wait a few more days, and I would be there-"

"You're lying!" I scream. "You never told him to wait for you! You only apologized to him once and then you left, without even explaining why. Stop trying to show me your saviour complex-"

"Cedar."

I look at July, my lips trembling. He looks like he has just had a realization that he can't come to terms with. He tells me, "I think . . . he did tell me a lot of things before saying sorry. But I was in a half-asleep state. I couldn't properly process it . . ."

"I don't know what he told you, but I swear I told him to wait for me. Nothing I've told you so far is a lie. Please trust me. I-"

I feel a wire snap loudly inside my temple, and everything turns hot red. Before I know it, I'm grabbing him by the collar and pinning him down on the bed. My hand throws punches for the first time in my life, but it seems to know exactly how to do it, because everytime my knuckles hit his face, a burst of pain shoots up my arm. I'm so exhausted, I'm so angry. I'm going to kill him. I'm really going to kill this guy. So I keep hitting him, and I keep my eyes closed as I do. Because he looks exactly like the person I love so much, the person whose hair I gently combed yesterday because I love him so much. He looks exactly like him, but he's not him, he'll never be him. But he'll get to live while the one I love is dead. This is so unfair. Why does this keep happening to me? I'm sick of this. I can't take it anymore. I will kill him. I really will.

I am pulled out of my trance only when my hand suddenly stops moving. I register July's voice as if from underwater. He is screaming at me to stop. He sounds like he is begging me. But why? This bastard doesn't deserve to live. I don't care about anything else. I try to move my hand to hit him again, but I can't. July's own hand is on my wrist, and he's so much stronger than me. I turn my head back and find his face smeared with tears. And that's when my vision clears, the volcano inside dying down immediately.

"Please stop, I don't want this," July says, sounding like he is on the edge of it all.

I look back ahead. Rain didn't struggle at all under me. He took every single punch quietly. His face is almost unrecognizable now. It's swollen, and parts of it is bleeding. He doesn't look like my July anymore. Instead of feeling pity and guilt, all I feel is relief. Does hatred turn humans into animals, or is there always an animal sleeping inside everyone, waiting for a prey? How strong of an animal is it, that it can even eat out the humanity? I have never felt less human before.

Nova doesn't get up from her chair. My eyes are fully dry. I bring my hand down, and July finally lets my wrist go.

"Don't. Ever. Come in front of my eyes again," I say, before getting off of him.

------------------------

Only when I become sure that I'm far enough from that person do I stop walking. And as soon as I do, the pain in my thighs hits me with a sudden clarity, and I almost drop to my knees. But July quickly holds me up and steadies me against a tree.

I keep my eyes closed as I heave out breaths. My head is spinning for some reason, and my whole body is aching. July takes my hand, the same hand I used to hit Rain, and only then do I realize that it's burning. My knuckles are all red, and there are scratches all over the back of my hand. You can't hurt someone without getting hurt yourself.

July presses my hand between his cold ones, which provides a little comfort. "We need to get this bandaged after going home," he says.

"July I- if there wasn't anyone else there, I really might have killed him-"

"No you wouldn't, hush." He brushes something off my hair.

"I'm really sorry."

He shakes his head.

"I wasn't thinking properly."

"Cedar. You don't know how happy it makes me, that there is someone out there in this world who can turn into a ballistic supervillain just to avenge me."

I laugh a little. He smiles while gently rubbing my hand.

The forest all around us is empty, but not quiet. The sound of birds and the rustling of leaves fill in the silence. I am overcome with a sudden wave of sadness. Something tells me there is more misery waiting for me ahead.

----------------------

When I wake up from my nap, a deep orange glow filled the room. For one intense moment, I think that the room might be on fire.

But I blink my eyes clear and find out it's the sunset hour, and the sky today is especially vibrant. I turn my head backwards to look at the window, and as I expected, July is sitting in front of it, gazing out. It's his favourite sky. For a while, I watch him like that, his silhouette against the lonely forest peeking in through the window. A few days later, I won't be able to watch him like this whenever I want.

I slowly sit up and move to him. Then I rest my head against his back.

"Oh? You're awake?"

"Hmm."

"You slept like a dead person for four hours." He laughs, his back trembling.

"I earned the right to."

"Sure you did. Does your hand hurt?"

I shake my head. "It's fine. How are you feeling?"

"Me . . ."

I sit straight and follow his gaze to the forest. Amidst the canopy of the trees, the orange canvas peeks through. It is an unusual sky. The green leaves and the grass all look a shade of light brown. There is a strange ominousity within the scene.

"I think I've finally found closure."

"Really?"

"It's crazy, isn't it? When we meet someone we know unexpectedly in a completely different place, we say the world is small and laugh it off. But in reality, everything that happens, happens for a reason. All that we went through, everything that contributed to bringing us here today, it's like it all happened just so we can somehow bump into him, and I can finally find answers to all my questions. And that's exactly what happened." He puts his elbow on the window sill and rests his chin on his palm. "The world works in strange ways. But I'm happy with the way things have turned out. It's not that I will ever forgive him, but there is peace in my heart knowing that at least towards the end, he thought of me as a brother. He wanted to take care of me. That's all that matters at this point."

"You are unreal, July." I let out a snort. "Totally unreal."

"Does that enchant you?"

"Enchant is a . . . big word."

"You know what else is big?" He wiggles his brows.

"Shut the fuck up!"

"I meant my heart! What's big is my heart."

"Uff." I slap his back and he giggles.

"Ah right, you're not gonna check your messages? Heide said you've got important ones."

"Oh, yeah. Totally forgot about that." I reach beside the pillow and take my phone. The phone showed zero notifications at first, but after I connect it to the internet, it begins to vibrate like a . . . never mind.

And of course, July says, "This phone could be used for some other purposes too now."

"You want to go to hell so bad."

He bursts into laughter. I only shake my head and enter Instagram. Much to my surprise, the chat icon shows the number 21.

"Woah, little Cedar is a celebrity."

"No way that many people messaged me." When I swipe to the right, I see Edgar, Alex, Louis, and Daisy's unread messages only. The remaining 17 are all Message Requests. When I click on them, I find it to be messages from a bunch of classmates. Some of them I recognize because we are mutuals, but others I don't.

"Seems like your classmates are worried about you," July says with a smile.

The sight makes me feel warm inside.  My classmates have always been kind to me. But this little sign of worry truly makes me feel happy. I will reply to them all soon. I only click on Edgar's chat. He has sent hundreds of messages over the past two weeks. Most of them were from before I talked to him on the phone for the first time. Just a thread of "where r u", "dude", "the fuck dude", "PICK UP THE PHONE", "oh im gonna fcking kill you", "dude!!!!", "?????" and "jesus christ im losing my shit". There was also one message calling me "Chromosomal bastard", and another that said "I FOUND A WHITE HAIR ON MY HEAD AND ITS ALL UR FAULT".

I can't help but laugh reading all these. "Edgar's really one of a kind," July says, and I agree.

I exit Instagram and go to WhatsApp, where I usually talk with my family. My heart skips a beat when I see messages from mom. But they're not messages. They're all missed calls. More than 30 of them. And they were all made within the first two days of my coming to Greenwoods.

"Maybe this was after she read your letter," he says.

"Maybe . . ." I wonder what she wanted to tell me so bad. I really do have to call her and talk to her properly as soon as possible.

I go to Dale next, but all I find are 5 deleted messages and a single "When are you coming back?" which was sent a day before he called me and found out my phone was stolen. Wonder what he deleted. I type the word "Soon" and send it.

"That's it, I guess."

"So she didn't sell your phone simply because of these messages?" July tilts his head. "But you could have logged in to Instagram from any device. And the WhatsApp messages aren't anything extraordinary."

"Hmm, you're right." I go through my list of apps. "But I don't really use any other social media. Or even if I do, I don't get messages there. Like on Reddit or Goodreads."

"Hmm . . . what about your Messages? I mean, SMS."

"Phone messages?"

"Yep yep."

"Nah I don't talk with anyone there. It's really just all those internet offers and messages from the government." But as I'm talking, I still enter there. As I thought, it's just hundreds of unread messages from those places. I do clean them every few months normally, but it slipped from my mind in the past year, so there is a lot accumulated. I swipe up fast once and the list scrolls down to several months back, and I see the same types of messages. "Mhm, nothing here," I say, and was about to exit, when my eyes suddenly catch something.

For a second, my heart stops.

I scroll down again, slowly this time, hoping what I saw was actually something else. But when I see an unread message sent to me on 17 November, 2018 at 1:03AM from Dawn's phone number, the words “Cedar, I know that you're probably . . . ” showing on the display view, my breath gets caught on my throat and the phone drops from my hand.

"What?" July asks, but I barely manage to process it. Every single object in my line of vision begins to tremble and warp into meaningless jumbles of images, while my heart throbs loudly in my ears. This was what Nova was talking about. I'm going to go insane.

Dawn sent me a message on the night of his death, and I never saw it.

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05-01-2022

I promise this is going to be the last time Cedar suffers in this book. That is, of course, leaving the ending.

Next chapter will be side stories showing Hale and Rain. I've skipped a few side stories that were supposed to come somewhere between the previous chapters, but this one is important for the plot.

Thank you for reading. I'll most likely not be updating anytime soon, but if I do, that will be great. Tiara's Cabin arc is almost at the end.

— love, Poma