After the Last Tear: Rising from the Ashes of a Broken Marriage
Chapter 43

A few days later, Jackson's parents found me. They said Jackson was missing. I then learned that after Jackson returned home that day, he had flown into a rage and destroyed everything in the house. He claimed it was all his parents' fault. If they hadn't pressured Joseph, he wouldn't have gone to Congo (Kinshasa), wouldn't have met me, and wouldn't have died. He also wouldn't have suppressed his emotions so much, mistakenly thinking he loved Sara and missing out on me.

He then resigned from the hospital and disappeared without a trace.

"Zoey! How could you blame us for this?" Jackson's mother pleaded urgently. "As parents, all we wanted was for our son to make more money. Is that wrong? If we had let him stay at the hospital, none of this would have happened. He wouldn't have left, and everything would have been fine!"

"How can Jackson be angry at us for this? We're his parents! We've already lost one son; we can't lose another!" Jackson's father begged.

I couldn't take it anymore and threw my phone down. "Leave! You don't deserve to be parents!"

My heart felt heavy, and I wandered aimlessly until I returned to the same forest. I sat under a large tree, gazing at the dappled light on the ground, hugging my knees. Though Congo (Kinshasa) had only spoken to me once, I could sense how repressed Jackson had been in that family. The emergency contact he listed when he joined Doctors Without Borders had originally been his partner, but later, it had become me. He didn't want his family to know anything. In that broken family, a kind, gentle person like him had emerged.

A gust of wind blew, and a hard object fell from the tree, hitting me on the forehead. I looked down and saw a nameplate. Many people working in war zones carry such nameplates to help identify them in case of accidental death. I assumed it must have been left behind by a soldier. But when I turned it over, I saw the name "Joseph" engraved on it.

I froze, my heart racing. How could his nameplate be here?

Suddenly, I understood. I frantically dug into the soil with my hands, dirt and blood filling my fingernails. I kept digging until a bone appeared. In that moment, I broke down in uncontrollable tears.

I found tools and carefully unearthed the remains tangled in the tree roots. In the soil, I also found fragments of the white coat he had been wearing that day.

It was Joseph. I found him! I finally found him!

It was as though he saw me grieving for him and gently knocked my head, as if saying, "Don't be angry at people who aren't worth it. It's all in the past."

I held his skull tightly and whispered, "Okay, let's go home. We're going home."

I applied for a leave of absence, brought his ashes back to my country, and buried him next to my mother.

On the day of the burial, Jackson appeared before me. He had lost a lot of weight, his face pale, and he looked exhausted. He held two white chrysanthemums, which he placed at my mother's and Joseph's graves. He told me he had figured everything out.

He showed me an apology video on his Instagram. In the video, Sara apologized to me and everyone else she had deceived. She confessed that she hadn't traveled the world as she claimed. Instead, she had fabricated that persona to make Jackson long for her, and she had been cruel to me out of jealousy that I was about to marry Jackson.

After watching the video, Jackson immediately called Sara in front of me. Her voice was full of regret. "Jackson, I've apologized as you asked! You said we would get married, will that really happen?"

Jackson coldly replied, "No, I won't marry you. You lied to me, and I lied to you. We owe each other nothing. I only made you apologize because you hurt Zoey. From now on, we should never meet again."

He hung up, blocked her, and apologized to me. "About the camera, I'm sorry. I didn't know it was your mother's keepsake."

I shook my head. "You don't have to apologize. I will never forgive you."

Jackson lowered his head, his expression heavy. "I'm also sorry for my brother... He contacted me many times after he left, but I always scolded him, blamed him... I knew it wasn't his fault that our parents forced me to break up with Sara, but I didn't have the courage to escape. I was jealous of him."

He stared at Joseph's gravestone. "If I hadn't been so cowardly and had gone with him... maybe I would have met you, at least had a fair chance to compete with him."

I replied calmly, "There's no such thing as regret pills. Hypotheticals don't matter. I loved Joseph, and that's all."

Jackson sighed softly. "Maybe in the future, I'll become a doctor with Doctors Without Borders... I want to be closer to you, to make up for my regrets."

I suddenly remembered something. "Someone once said that your brother didn't seem to want to become a doctor. He's always thinking about you, hoping you'll really think about what kind of person you want to be. Don't let yourself regret it again."

Jackson froze. His eyes reddened, as if lost in past memories.

I picked up the two bouquets of flowers. "They both didn't like white chrysanthemums. Don't bring them again." I handed the flowers back to him and turned to leave.