Contract Marriage: The Replacement Groom

306 Jeslyn’s heartbreak

Jeslyn was seen in her room, standing by the floor–to–ceiling window as she stared at space, lost in thought. 1

The thunderstorm from the horizon, coupled with the rain that was slapping against her window jolted Jeslyn back to reality. At that moment, the rainborite stone on her finger shone brightly, but this time, it was a pink light that shrouded Jeslyn for a fleeting second before it disappeared again. Jeslyn looked at the ring for a long time. She realized yesterday that the rainborite stone does not only shine when the temperature changes but also does that when her mood changes. Another thing she observed was that, when the stone shines, she starts to feel relaxed and dizzy. Jeslyn yawned and returned to bed. In no time, she fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Pink entered Jeslyn’s room and sat beside the head of her bed. Looking at her daughter who was sleeping peacefully, Pink took Jeslyn’s hand in hers and slowly started to massage it while talking to herself.

“Child. I’m so sorry for everything I’ve made you go through for so long. I’m also very sorry

for not telling you the truth a little earlier. I tried to speak to you, but I couldn’t. It was too much for me to tell you… I’m scared you’ll get angry and run away from me. I’m deeply sorry, child.”

The next morning…

Jeslyn saw her mother smiling and running towards her with her hands spread out to hug her.

“Mom?”

“Child, Mom is back!”

As her mother was running over, before she could close the distance between them, a gunshot was heard, causing both of them to freeze.

The next thing Jeslyn saw was a line of blood trailing down from her mother’s lips.

hit the ground. Just as Jeslyn was about to catch her mother’s body, she jolted awake.

so much that even though she knew it was just a nightmare, she still couldn’t calm down.

down from bed, her nose took in a whiff

a delicacy she loved in her childhood. One that her mother stopped her from eating despite being the one who taught her how to eat it.

froze and slowly turned her head to the side of the bed. Sitting on the tip of the small drawer closer to the bed was a tray

made this?‘ she

glanced at the floor–to–ceiling window- it

still; meaning no one left

the door,

the lids of the dishes. On some of the

opened the bigger plate, in it was a chicken breast

yummy

growing up, Ms. Alice hated for her to eat spicy food because Ms. Alice

the same woman who doesn’t eat spicy food and never lets her go close to it would make her spicy chicken breast and sweet

the

Alice everything and the woman would blow up, yelling at her to stop eating spicy food because of her health.

the same woman who kept giving her what the woman

same food here? Who brought the food here?

clicked open and Pink walked in with a bottle of wine

and closed

frowned slightly as she squinted her eyes at

keep you company.” Seeing that Jeslyn

delicious.”

between the food and