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.

ground. Just as Jeslyn was

scared her so much that even though she knew

was about to get down from bed, her nose took in a whiff of something familiar.

stopped her from eating despite being the one

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 with a few

made this?‘ she

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

no one left through there.

gaze to the door, it was locked.

opened the lids of the dishes. On

it was

looked yummy

growing up, Ms. Alice hated for her to eat spicy food because Ms. Alice doesn’t like spicy food

close to it

the

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

what the woman hated would still be

same food here? Who brought the

open and Pink walked in with a bottle

awake“, Pink smiled and closed the door.

slightly as she squinted her eyes

“Mn… Your husband told me you were here, so I came to keep you company.” Seeing that Jeslyn was

delicious.”

food and Pink.