?Chapter 1361:


    He let the words hang, and the unfinished sentence made Ste’s pulse skip.


    She parted her lips to demand an exnation, but he finished at his own pace. “I never told William anything.”


    Ste froze.


    She had assumed he lied about their ns or had dragged her somewhere she would rather avoid.


    The truth was far worse. Hadn’t he informed William at all?


    “What if he discovers it?”


    Betraying an old friend just to help someone he barely knew felt reckless.


    Jewell had only been back for a short while. Yet the night before, he caught up with the rest of William’s circle. Steven was there, and the two of them spent four or five hours talking about William.


    Steven painted a disturbing picture. He insisted the man they knew was gone. He said William’s body was like a shell being controlled by another presence, something foreign that had reced him entirely.


    He also spoke of Ste. ording to Steven, she once held William’s heart more than anyone else, and now he remembered none of it.


    If she was the person William treasured above all, then Jewell wanted to give William a chance to rediscover the memories that belonged to him.


    A quiet birthday celebration with Ste sounded more meaningful than dragging William to a noisy bar.


    Ste looked at Jewell’s face as the sunlight caught his features. The questions she wanted to throw at him dissolved before they could reach her tongue.


    Outside the mall, Jewell kept pace beside Ste and asked, “Do you know what you n to get William?”


    ｍ????ｅ ｕ??ｄ??ｔｅｓ ??ｎ ???ｌ????ｖ??ｌ??.??????


    She shook her head. She had spent nearly a month trapped in that vi, yet everything about William remained a nk space. He kept insisting she had forgotten their past and betrayed him.


    From where she stood, he was nothing more than a stranger. She had no insight into his likes or dislikes. She could not predict him. She could not evenprehend him.


    Inside the enormous mall, she wandered aimlessly, lost among aisles of disys without the faintest idea of what to choose.


    Jewell let her move at her own speed. He offered no push, no pressure. After a while, he spoke again. “Do you want me to tell you more about him?”


    A tremor passed through Ste’s chest at the thought of peeling back theyers of someone who had caused her so much hurt.


    Lowering her head, she murmured softly, “No, thanks.”


    She did not want to understand him, the man who had been so cruel to her and crushed all her dreams. What was there to learn?


    Jewell respected her answer and kept quiet. They walked in silence until a shop brimming with astronomy equipment came into view. Models ofs, star charts, and telescopes lined the disys.


    Ste drifted inside without any prompting. Her steps slowed when she reached a telescope, and she rested her fingers against its frame, almost reverent, as if she could already see the night sky stretching beyond it.


    .


    .


    .