Charlie’s POV

After we confirmed that we really did want to be married the next night, I left.

The journey was exhausting - I had taken long trips before, but I wasn’t as fit as I used to be.

The staff at this other hospital were quite kind, and my treatment began two days later. I did let my family know that I was here, but the fact was that I was a good ways away from them even if they wanted to visit, though I knew they would insist on visiting anyway.

I couldn’t even remember the name of what regimen they were trying to give me - it was a bunch of letters and whatnot. For five days, I got infusions of a drug, and after that was told that I could now just take a pill for a while before having to come back for infusions once a week. It was extremely inconvenient to have to go all the way back there, but I wanted to spend as much time with Charlotte in person as I could.

A part of me knew that it was high time that I told my family about Charlotte, but something or the other always came up, and another part of me knew that I did not have the mental fortitude to deal with the fallout of something like that.

But, I told myself that if I survived this, the first thing I would do would be to introduce them to Charlotte.

It didn’t seem things would be working out that way, however, as three weeks into this new treatment I had a bad reaction to the oral pill I was taking, and it manifested itself in the form of one of the worst rashes I had ever had. My skin began to peel in places before it spread to nearly all over my body, and the worst part was that it not just itched, but burnt like crazy.

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They stopped this new treatment regimen after that, and it was clear that it was not working based on their tests anyway. It had successfully made me quite weak though, and as per the tests, had damaged my liver - though they assured me that it would recover so long as I stopped taking the medication. I still had to be hospitalized for three days in a burn unit because of the rash while they had to make sure that these new skin lesions didn’t get infected.

I felt absolutely exhausted when I came back home, but there was one last thing I had to do.

One last thing that I had to ask of Charlotte, no matter how selfish it was.

But, it was still noon when I got back home. I wanted her to respond to me. And so, I had to wait.

And while I waited, perhaps as a side effect of the medication I had taken, my mind began to drift. And as I nearly fell asleep, I suddenly woke up.

“Only a madman would choose such a fate,”- that was what Charlotte had said to me earlier.

I went to go find that book. There was nothing more I could gain from it, or so I had thought before.

But, someone had kept it there, in that hiding place for a reason. They had really gone out of their way to make sure that it was not discovered.

Why though? There must have been something about it that was special.

I examined the book - not any of the pages, but the book itself. It was bound - yes, it was bound in a cover without a title or author. That was very unusual for a book, not to mention the title page had been torn off, it seemed.

But what if it did have a title? It was bound up in a cover, after all. I got a pair of scissors and delicately removed the cover.

The book was hardcover, though disappointingly, the cover did not have a title or author on it.

I did find something of value though. Four pages - two in the front, and two in the back, that had been removed from the book and instead kept hidden within the cover.

No, looking at them, and the handwriting on them, these were not from the same book. And, I thought I recognized the handwriting from somewhere…