Dear Don, We Can Never Go Back to 18 Chapter 07
Cremation and urn ceremony?
Confusion numbed Enzo’s mind.
Ada? Dead?
He could not process the words he had just heard.
“What did you say?” He forced the question out through dry lips.
Sofia paused for a moment, her tone cold and unforgiving.
“I said Ada is dead.”
A sharp pain struck the back of Enzo’s head. His legs buckled, and cold sweat poured down his body
He could not remember how he got into his car, nor how he drove all the way to Ada’s Hometown.
He arrived at the Western Cemetery, the same graveyard he had visited with Ada not long before.
A brand new tombstone stood among the others.
Sofia stood beside the grave.
Enzo froze in his tracks.
This had to be a trick.
Ada hated him, so she was playing one final prank to torment him after the divorce.
There was no way she was truly dead.
Sofia turned around the second she heard his footsteps, her eyes blazing with pure hatred.
She marched forward and slapped him hard across the face.
“You bastard, Enzo!”
“Why aren’t you the one lying dead in the ground instead of her? It should be you and Elena!”
Enzo did not lift a hand to defend himself. A thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his
mouth, but he stared blankly ahead, unresponsive.
Slowly, his gaze drifted toward the new tombstone.
Ada Conti. Rest in Peace.
“No,” he whispered in denial.
Sharp agony pierced his eyes, and they turned bright red.
“This can’t be real!”
He threw himself forward and began digging frantically at the dirt covering the grave with his bare hands.
“I don’t believe it! This is a lie!”
Sofia lost all patience and struck him again, landing several more harsh slaps across his face.
“Stop this madness right now!”
“Her ashes are inside that urn beneath this dirt! They’re still warm from the cremation and burial process! I watched them put her body into the furnace myself!”
“Shut up,” Enzo mumbled, hanging his head.
Sofia let out a bitter laugh.
“You forced her to her death, and now you try to silence the truth?”
“Ada is dead! You and Elena killed her together!”
“Stop talking! I told you to stop!” Enzo screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Ada can’t be dead. She’s fine, she has to be fine.”
“She’s gone,” Sofia said, her voice heavy with sorrow.
“Enzo, she was diagnosed with end-stage stomach cancer three months ago. You were her husband. How could you never notice a thing?”
Enzo stood frozen in place.
Sofia tossed a medical report onto the ground in front of him.
The words End-Stage Gastric Cancer were printed clearly across the page. The diagnosis was dated three months prior.
Dazed and broken, Enzo finally understood everything.
He had been busy scheming with Elena back then, pretending to be his eighteen-year-old self to trick Ada into signing divorce papers.
He had even agreed to let her leave with nothing, proud of how clever his plan had been.
Now he knew why she had never exposed his lie.
The memory of the teenage Enzo had been her last remaining hope, her final wish. She had chosen to play along with the fake, just to hold onto that fleeting illusion a little longer.
Enzo dropped heavily to his knees. A bitter taste rose in his throat.
He wrapped his arms around the tombstone and broke down into loud, heart-wrenching sobs.
“Ada… I’m so sorry. Please don’t leave me.”
“I know I was wrong. Don’t leave me all alone.”
He wept uncontrollably.
“Why wouldn’t you let me see you one last time?”
