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.

and ran to her mother before her body hit the ground. Just as Jeslyn was about to catch her mother’s

dream scared her so much that even though she knew it

from bed, her nose took in a whiff of something

childhood. One that her mother stopped her from eating despite being the one who taught her how to

side of the bed. Sitting on the tip of the small drawer closer to the bed was a tray with

this?‘

glanced at the floor–to–ceiling window- it was closed

one left through

turned her gaze to the door, it

the lids of the dishes. On some of

of mouth–watering desserts. She opened the bigger plate, in it was a chicken

looked yummy and

swallowed. When she was growing up, Ms. Alice hated for her to eat

close to it would make her spicy chicken breast and sweet desserts sometimes and

three days, Ms. Alice would start asking her what she ate within the last three days, what she did, what she didn’t do, and so

tell Ms. Alice everything and the woman would blow up, yelling

who kept giving her what the woman hated would still be

the same food here? Who brought the

Jeslyn was thinking, the door clicked open and Pink walked in with a bottle of wine

and closed

are here?” Jeslyn frowned slightly as she

I came to keep you company.” Seeing that Jeslyn was a little skeptical, she pointed at the food in the tray. “I

delicious.”

shifted her gaze between the food and Pink. “Y-