The Thirty-seven Proposal-The Turning Point of My Life

The mountainside loosened, and a tremendous force violently shoved me down.

My phone screen shattered, and as I dialed the number, his voice came through: "Leah? Where are you?"

"Henry..." My throat tightened, my voice trembling uncontrollably, "I'm trapped in a crevice below the viewing platform... I can't move... it hurts so much..."

"Don't be afraid, I'm coming right away. Stay right there, don't move. I'll save you."

He hung up.

I gripped the cold phone like clutching a piece of melting ice.

Waves of intense pain surged, cold sweat soaked my back.

He will come. He always comes.

Footsteps approached from afar, crunching on the gravel.

Henry! He really came.

With all my strength, I tried to make a sound, tried to raise my hand.

He stopped just a few steps away.

But he didn't look at me. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, outside the crevice.

There, Grace was leaning against another rock, sitting, using a handkerchief to lightly dab her forehead, where there wasn't even a scratch.

But she deliberately pressed the handkerchief tighter, her brows slightly furrowed, as if enduring some intense pain.

The next moment, Henry, like an enraged leopard, charged forward.

Not towards the crevice where I was trapped, the place he claimed he would "come to save" immediately.

But towards Grace.

He wrapped her tightly in his arms, followed by a sharpness I had never heard before: "Grace! Oh my god, are you okay? Where are you hurt? Tell me!"

"I... I'm fine, Henry, just scared..." Grace's voice, carrying just the right amount of tremor, wormed its way into my ears through the crevice.

"I'm here, no one can hurt you."

Henry's tone was resolute, his arms tightening even more.

His broad back completely blocked Grace, and also completely blocked the last sliver of hope in my gaze towards him.

From beginning to end, he did not look back. Not once.

Cold raindrops hit my face, mixing with the mud seeping from the rock wall, flowing into my dry eye sockets.

The blood in my body seemed to stop flowing in that instant.

Turns out, it only takes three minutes.

From the ignition of hope to its complete extinguishment, from unwavering belief to seeing the truth clearly, it only takes a brief three minutes.

Those memories I had carefully preserved, that had warmed me for a full three years.

The late-night lights, the soup when I was sick, the smile under the library sunlight...

The moment he charged towards Grace without hesitation, they became the palest, most ridiculous jokes.

They were weightless, not even worth a second of his instinctive obsession for his white moonlight.

I lay in the cold crevice, rainwater soaking my hair, clothes, merging me with the cold rock beneath me.

The chaotic sounds of the rescue team and the clanging of tools against stone seemed to come from another world.

They finally moved the rock and got me out.

As the stretcher was lifted, I took one last look in that direction.

Henry was half-supporting, half-embracing Grace, whispering comfort, carefully leading her away from the danger zone.

He didn't even know I had been rescued.

Or, he didn't care.

The ambulance's rooftop lights flashed glaringly, cutting red and blue, cold light tracks across the darkening sky.

I closed my eyes. That place in my heart was utterly hollow, filled with a chilling wind.

So, this was the answer.

The love I thought was so precious, in his eyes, probably wasn't even worth a speck of dust on Grace's skirt.