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.

to her mother before her body hit the ground. Just as Jeslyn was about to catch

ribcage. What she saw in her dream scared her so

as she was about to get down from bed, her

was a delicacy she loved in her childhood. One that her mother stopped her from eating despite being

Sitting on the tip of the

this?‘

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

still; meaning no one

turned her gaze to the door, it was locked.

and opened the lids of the dishes. On some of

the bigger plate, in it was a chicken breast with spicy

looked yummy and

swallowed. When she was growing up, Ms. Alice hated for her to eat spicy food because Ms. Alice doesn’t

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

what she ate within the last three days, what she did, what she

and the woman would blow up, yelling at her to

understand why the same woman who kept giving her what the woman hated would still

food here? Who brought

and Pink walked

and closed

are here?” Jeslyn frowned slightly as

told me you were here, so I came to keep you company.” Seeing that Jeslyn was a little skeptical, she pointed at the food in

delicious.”

food and Pink. “Y- you