A chill ran from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. Hamish stood frozen, inch by inch, his eyes suddenly shrinking as his heart felt like it was being yanked.
Hamish’s eyes reddened as his gaze stiffly stopped on the “blood water” in the basin – the remnants from Elisa’s stomach? Undigested tissue paper she had chewed up? Tissue paper stained with her blood?
“Why would she eat something like this?”
Micah looked at him coldly, though tears stained the corners of his eyes: “I wanted to ask what exactly you did to her that made her eat tissue paper to fill her stomach!”
It was because he had locked her in the bedroom for four days, four days without food, that made her eat tissue paper. Hamish had a minor stomach condition – he knew how unbearable the pain of a stomach condition flare-up could feel, let alone for Elisa with late-stage stomach cancer.
Hamish was like a drowning man grasping for air – he reached out and clutched the plastic basin, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles turned white and the veins on the back of his hand protruded.
“I, I didn’t know she had a stomach condition.” He didn’t know it would be so serious. If he had known, he certainly wouldn’t have locked her in the bedroom and starved her for four days without food.
Hamish kept his head lowered, looking at the blood water in the basin. The pungent smell of blood assaulted his senses. It seemed that tears were falling from his eyes into the basin, causing brief ripples in the blood water before it stilled again.
For a moment, only the sound of Hamish’s breathing filled the air – heavy and suppressed. Micah did not sympathize with him; on the contrary, he was disgusted. It was Hamish who had harmed Elisa, who had taken the once healthy and happy Elisa and left her scarred and wounded!
Micah’s gaze was like a knife. Hamish didn’t dare meet his eyes directly, instead looking at the blood water before him. Unbidden, an image arose in his mind – of Elisa stuffing paper into her mouth and swallowing it down, vomiting blood even as she forced it into her stomach.
He couldn’t imagine how Elisa had endured those four days. He knew this woman feared suffering and pain.
It was as if Hamish’s soul had been sucked away. He glanced around dazedly, trying to find Elisa’s shadow.
“Elisa is in the ICU. After seeing her, if you really feel remorse, then divorce her – stop dragging her down.”
Finally Hamish reacted. He set down the basin he had been holding and looked directly at Micah. “Elisa will be my wife for the rest of her life. I won’t divorce her.”
He would make amends to her. Hamish suddenly understood his feelings for Elisa – it wasn’t love, just guilt and a man’s possessiveness.
“Even if she dies, she can only ever be Mrs. Burns, my Hamish’s wife.”
Hamish’s words meant he had no intention of letting Elisa go. Thinking of Elisa still lying in the ICU fighting for her life, Micah was filled with rage.
He rushed forward intending to punch and smash Hamish’s disgusting face, but before he could even touch him, the nearby medical staff quickly stopped him.
“Dr. Baker, calm down. This is a hospital. The operating rooms are narrow places full of fragile equipment. Injuring someone would be the least of it – we can’t risk damaging all that expensive medical equipment brought in from overseas.”
Micah took a deep breath, clenching his back teeth so hard it felt like they would shatter. “Hamish, you bastard. Hasn’t Elisa suffered enough because of you?”
“That’s between me and her. It’s not for an outsider like you to stick your nose in.”
Micah had never met anyone as shameless as Hamish. He felt even calling him an animal was an insult to actual animals.
The doctor who had stopped Micah was surprised to see the iron-like fury on his face. Anyone familiar with Micah knew he had a gentle temperament, like a lamb. No one had ever seen him lose his temper at the hospital. Seeing him so enraged and ready to fight was truly bizarre.