All But a Dream

“I understand. Thank you, doctor.”

Claudia lowered her eyes and acknowledged the doctor softly. After that, the doctor advised her on several matters before leaving the ward.

When he reached the door, he brushed shoulders with Brett who was standing by the doorway.

Brett proceeded to step into the ward and sat down beside the bed. Then he looked at Claudia without saying a word.

Claudia felt her heart skip a beat upon seeing him. She wondered if he had overheard her conversation with the doctor.

She looked at him silently for what seemed like forever until he started, “Fione is my wife. I had to save her first.”

When she heard this, she breathed a sigh of relief. He had not heard the conversation after all.

She was otherwise unbothered by his claim about having to save Fione first. “It was right of you to do that, my dear brother-in-law.”

Brett felt a sudden wave of panic at her words. “Didn’t you refuse to address me as brother-in-law in the past?”

“I have come to accept the truth.” She paused briefly before continuing without sparing a glance at him, “I accepted the fact that no one will love me.”

She spoke in a very calm voice, so much so that Brett felt a dry retch in his throat. He remarked in a drab voice, “Don’t forget about Brett. He loved you.”

Claudia smiled.

She smiled until her eyes began to fray with red before saying, “He's dead.”

She wanted to tell him that the moment Brett had decided to fake his death, he was dead to her.

When Brett observed the still look in her eyes, he could no longer muster a word.

He felt a wave of guilt washing over him. Then he got up and decided he could no longer stay by her bedside.

“I’m going to Fione.”

Claudia followed the doctor's advice and stayed in the hospital for a few more days to recover.

On the day she was discharged, Phillip gathered Claudia, Brett and Fione and instructed Claudia to sit beside him.

“Claudia, they’re going to visit Brett at the cemetery today so you can see him one last time.”

He sighed with a mixture of sadness and regret pooling inside his eyes. After briefly speaking to Brett and Fione, he let them leave.

Just as they were about to depart, Fione suddenly remembered she had forgotten something and had to head back into the house.

Around the same time, Claudia was just about to open the door to the car when she felt Brett grab her wrist.

“What did Grandpa mean when he said you would be seeing Brett for the last time? Are you hiding something from us?”

Claudia looked at his iron grip on her wrist and proceeded to shrug him off, “Nothing. He only said that because he hoped I would stop grieving over someone who is gone.”

With that, she got into the car and slammed the door shut.

Brett stared at his hand and had an ill feeling that things were spiraling out of his control, but he could not figure out what it was. When he tried to speak, Fione came running back to the car.

“Honey, let's go!”

He swallowed whatever he was about to say.

As soon as they arrived at the cemetery, Brett’s phone suddenly rang. He snuck a glance at the screen and proceeded to motion for Claudia and Fione to go ahead while he answered the call.

Claudia placed a large bouquet in front of the gravestone. The picture etched onto the gravestone looked just like Brett.

In the past, she would sob uncontrollably whenever she saw the picture and become filled with so much pain she thought she would die right then and there. But now, she hardly felt anything.

Suddenly, Fione produced a letter and began to wave it wildly in front of Claudia while wearing a smug grin.

“Claudia, you sure are lucky to survive falling into the ocean considering nobody in our family tried to save you.

“I have been very upset recently until I found something very interesting. Do you want to know what it is?

“As it turns out, I was wrong last time. Remember when I said that Brett would still love you even if nobody else did? Well, I happened to find a love letter he addressed to me, it turns out this entire time I was the one he had a crush on.

“I just found out that he was the one who had been preparing breakfast for me all the time when I was young. It’s not a coincidence that he was always the first person who came to me whenever I was in a bad mood!

“I know why he wanted to marry you now, it’s because he was worried you would get in between me and Arthur. Hahaha! You are such a walking and living joke…”