Chapter 10
I’d used up too much energy interacting with Michelle. So, I just lay in bed and slowly drifted off to sleep.
There was a commotion at the door, and I woke up again at the noise.
I heard a mess of footsteps in the hospital corridor. A while later, the door to my ward was pushed open.
Herbert pushed Michelle, who was in his path, away and hurried toward me. He looked like he was in great pain. His face was as pale as a ghost, with cold sweat running down his face. He walked slower than a disabled snail.
He looked at me and reached out with his hand. Then, he dropped it. His eyes were completely bloodshot as he continued looking at me.
“You’re finally up, Lyanna.”
The young nurse told me that I had passed out due to fright and lack of oxygen. I’d then
been in a coma for three days and three nights.
I turned my head around, not wanting to face him. However, he still thrust the cut bracelet
in my face.
“Lyanna, why don’t you want this bracelet? Is it because you don’t like the color? But this
was the only one they had. Maybe you don’t like it because it doesn’t match your skin color.
Next time, we can go together-”
“Herbert, it wasn’t because of the color,” I said, interrupting him. “I don’t like it because it’s from you.”
Herbert took a step back, his complexion paling even more. Michelle hurriedly came up to steady him.
I asked, “Is it true that you hiked five hours up a mountain for this?”
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Chapter 10
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He lowered his head, casting a shadow across his face. “I did no such thing. I just happened to pass by. Don’t listen to the nonsense they’re telling you.”
I looked at Herbert and thought that he’d changed a lot. He was a businessman, after all. Everything he did was calculated to the very last digit. Every action he took held a purpose.
Ever since we started dating, he would often tell me about everything he’d done and sacrificed for me. I even remember him guilt–tripping me into cooking for him one night because he’d gotten me a bouquet of flowers during the day.
He would always take credit for all the tiny things he did and exchange them for my love and affection. But now, he was starting to hide them. He’d finally understood what love
meant.
Love wasn’t an endless barter of things, expressions, or emotions. To love meant to give unceasingly and unconditionally.
I told Herbert, “Don’t do anything else that’s useless. Focus on nursing yourself back to health. Don’t make the people who love you worry about you.”
Yet, he still refused to leave after that. He just stood there in his patient gown and kept
looking at me.
He had always appeared refined and elegant around me, every hair perfectly in place. ways graceful and well–mannered, I had never seen him look so vulnerable before.
I blinked away the sting in my eyes and repeated myself, stressing, “Herbert, we’ve already broken up.”
Michelle walked up to him but didn’t touch him. She just called out softly to him and said, “Mandy’s going to be even more worried if you keep this up. She might even cry. She just had a terrible migraine yesterday, and the doctor said that she shouldn’t get triggered
anymore.”
It was only then that Herbert seemingly woke up from his daze and shifted. He still called out beseechingly to me. “Lyanna.”
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I looked away and glanced out of the window instead.
He stared at me for the longest time. Finally, he turned stiffly and slowly wobbled out of my
ward.
His grip on the bracelet loosened, and it fell through his fingers to the ground.
I suddenly remembered that line he’d thrown at me back at the restaurant.
“You were just splashed with hot stew. It’s not like you’d die from that.”
Yet, when I was close to death, he threw all his principles aside and climbed countless steps to reach the church and pray for me. Maybe that was his payback.
a
After two days of being on the IV drip, I was discharged from the hospital.
I had initially lost the trophy I brought back from Dayris in the plane cabin, but they found it and sent it back to me.
I told my colleagues in my studio about it and instructed them to place the trophy carefully.
While packing up my suitcase at the hospital, ready to leave, I heard the door click softly behind me.
I didn’t turn around, but the scent of “Forever Love” immediately filled the air.
“Lyanna…” Herbert called out to me in his soft voice. “Can I at least see you off?”
I’d already changed out of my hospital gown, but he was still wearing his. I wheeled my suitcase right past him, ignoring his outstretched hand.
“We’re headed in two different directions,” I said while walking past him.
There was a loud crash after that. Herbert grabbed at his stomach and crouched on the ground in severe pain. The nurses hurried over to help him up.
But my footsteps never ceased.
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