Chapter 874

The piping hot wontons chased away the late-autumn chill, bringing a comforting warmth to her body.

Seth paid the bill, covering her meal as well.

He then walked out of the eatery ahead of her.

Noreen didn’t rush to follow him. She finished her meal at her usual pace before leaving.

By the time she stepped outside, Seth was long gone.

She glanced up at the banyan tree again. Being an evergreen, it stood vibrant and full of life, even in late autumn when other trees had shed their leaves.

Behind her, the owner hurried out. “Miss! Miss! Your friend left something behind. Could you take it to him?”

It was a small notebook, about the size of a palm.

The cover was frayed and worn, clearly well-used.

The owner explained, “I think this is pretty important to him. Every time he comes in

for wontons, he takes it out and writes in it.”

Noreen hesitated before asking, “Does he come here often?”

“Oh, yes. At least once a week. He used to come a lot years ago too, then disappeared for about four or five years. Started coming back this April.”

Those four or five years… that must have been when he was in prison.

And he had been released in April.

But why had he come here so often five years ago?

A memory clicked into place. Five years ago, after a meeting at City Hall, Holt had offered to treat her to dinner, and she had mentioned wanting wontons from here. When she and Holt arrived, they had bumped into Seth and Bianca eating together. She had been devastated at the time, convinced he was bringing a new woman into the places of his past.

What about now?

There was no new woman.

Was he revisiting old haunts out of nostalgia?

Another customer walked in. The owner shoved the notebook into Noreen’s hand and hurried back inside to tend to them.

When Noreen returned to her apartment, Rosalind and Claire were still out.

The place remained quiet and still.

She sat at the kitchen island, staring at the notebook resting squarely in front of her.

After a long moment of hesitation, she opened it.

On the very first page, there was a title.

*Chasing Phantoms.*

Noreen recognized Seth’s handwriting immediately.

She just couldn’t understand why he had chosen that phrase.

Driven by a quiet, burning curiosity, she turned the page.

The second page contained two short paragraphs.

*I used to scoff at the idiom ‘chasing phantoms.’ I thought the fool who dropped his

sword in the moving river and marked the boat to find it later was an idiot.*

*Only later did understand. In the

river of time, how many of us keep returning to a specific point, desperately trying to recover what we’ve lost, only to find ourselves stranded, searching the same empty waters?*

*Revisiting old places, hoping to run into old ghosts-it is the very definition of chasing phantoms But the memories of that single year outshine all the years that followed.*

A heavy, suffocating ache began to swell in Noreen’s chest.

She kept reading.

A Polaroid was taped to the center of the next page, dated.

It was from this past April.

He had scribbled a single line beneath it.

*I wonder if Noreen misses the wontons here as much as I do.*

*I miss them so much.*

The following page held a photo of Southlake.

Also dated April.

He asked:

*What did she throw into this lake that night?*

The next page featured a May date at The Church, next to an amulet he had just acquired.

He wrote:

*So this is what it means to love someone. You slowly start to adopt their habits, becoming a reflection of them.*

Page four, page five, page six…

Almost every single entry was about her.

He had visited places they used to frequent, and places she had always wanted to

go.

Occasionally, he would write with

raw vulnerability: *I know she won’t be here But still keep I coming back

thousands of times, trying to

capture her phantom…*

The thick emotional walls Noreen had spent years building were instantly leveled by

a tidal wave of overwhelming emotion.