Contract Marriage: The Replacement Groom

67 Opening up

“Jeslyn, you. are. my, father’s. wife!” He spelled it out for her. “You are almost like those girls running after my father and we both know the reason.” He smirked, hoping to see her raging like usual. 1 However, Jeslyn smiled bitterly and brushed his hair with her fingers, careful enough not to ruin it. “Your father and I are in this marriage for a reason and…” she thought against telling him. “I don’t necessarily have to be your blood sister for you to see me as one. Besides, how many stepmothers do you see running around the house with their stepson? How many stepmothers and stepsons can you point out do what we both do?”

She watched as his brows furrowed. “None,” she answered herself.

“That’s because I don’t see you as a stepson. You are like a little brother I don’t have…”

The thought of Christine swept through her mind. How they used to play when they were kids, how she protected Christine like a mother hen when they grew up, how she went out of her way to make Christine feel among, and also the times she spoke to her grandfather to try harder than he already was, to make his heart accept Christine.

The memories were too deep that a tear leaked from her left eye. (1)

Jeslyn smiled embarrassingly at Valen and slowly wiped her tear with the back of her index finger. “You see, that’s the difference between you and me. You don’t shed your tears, but I do and that’s why I can be whatever character I want to be in public without anyone knowing that I’m hurt.

But in your case, you are not your father who can conceal his pain extremely well. Putting your personality together, I can say that you hide your pain by hurting others.

Valen… that’s wrong…” she pulled his left hand and placed it on her palm.

“You are still very young. What character do you want your mother to see when she returns?… I heard she’s not dea-”

“She left me!” Valen screamed in his cute childish voice.

open up to her. The pain he was hiding

she expect to see.” Valen bit

that.

he felt her pain, but the boy tried to fight against himself. He tried all he could to not open

happened, she might have been in a very compromising situation-” Jeslyn tried to

the Country. What could she possibly be scared of?

when he felt a wet liquid running down his cheek.

the hand and shook her

it would help lighten your heart.”

you more than I hate

had been holding back for so

fountain.

“Oh, child,”

cry without resolve. Hearing the child’s crying voice made Jeslyn’s eyes tear up, but it wasn’t right for her to also be crying when

months of hardship, and on the day she gave birth to you, she saw hell. I

let their infants go. Even demons feel an attachment to their little ones. Your

called ‘conscience’. It follows the bad people and haunts

tell you, child, they do. Just that they choose to not be bothered by it. And when it gets too much, they

of those without a conscience. She’ll return to you and explain everything.”

more Jeslyn talked, the louder Valen cried.

doesn’t want me,”

dear, she must also be suffering right now,” Jeslyn said while stroking