Lila hid upstairs all morning without coming down. Elisa watched some TV downstairs and felt a little tired. She looked up towards Lila’s room.
Like a little schoolgirl who just tattled and then hid in her room like a shrinking turtle.
Elisa hoped her slaps would teach Lila a lesson to bother her less in the future, but knowing Lila’s scheming nature, she didn’t seem like the type to avoid trouble.
She had already been falsely accused yesterday. Who knows what lies and exaggerations Lila would cook up today to turn nothing into something.
Elisa returned to her room and looked at the wedding photo hanging on the wall. A nameless fire burned in her chest. Her eyes scanned around and finally landed on a chair on the balcony.
Without any hesitation, she picked it up and smashed it towards the wedding photo on the wall. With a loud bang, the wedding photo shook but didn’t shatter.
Elisa threw down the chair and grabbed the photo frame corners with both hands, forcibly prying it off the wall and throwing it to the ground.
She didn’t know what material the glass was made of originally. Even with her smashing, it didn’t break.
With raging fury, Elisa looked at Hamish’s face in the photo. She stomped on it, treating the photo as if it was Hamish himself, smashing and stomping until the glass cracked and splintered outwards.
Seeing this, Elisa bent down, picked up the photo and flung it against the wall with a swing of her arm. After a chorus of crashing sounds, the wedding photo finally shattered.
The corners of Elisa’s mouth pulled up into a satisfied smile, but her eyes brimmed with tears.
She and Hamish were like this broken photo – even if the pieces were picked up and reframed, it could never be like it was originally.
Elisa suddenly covered her mouth as a fit of coughing overtook her. She couldn’t stop coughing, the intense spasms making her stomach hurt. Not only were tears coughed out, but blood too.
It had been a long time since she coughed up blood after leaving the hospital half a month ago. Her hands were stained red with blood. Her right hand was sticky and uncomfortable. Elisa went into the bathroom to rinse her hands, squeezing out soap and washing thoroughly inside and out until clean. She even brushed her teeth to rinse away the bloody foam.
After taking her medication and drinking some warm water, her stomach felt a little better. She had already taken most of the pills, and the remaining medicine would only last a few more days.
With the money she had left, she feared she wouldn’t even be able to afford medicine for her cancer treatment soon.
She needed regular checkups for her stomach cancer, but Hamish wouldn’t let her go to Micah’s hospital. And she worried her secret would be discovered at other hospitals.
Elisa threw the medication into the drawer and bundled herself in a blanket to nap for a while.
She had barely fallen asleep when Hamish returned before noon, the parking noise outside stirring her awake. Elisa sat up and looked out the window, only catching a fleeting hurried figure downstairs.
Elisa had never been one to sit around passively waiting for death. She opened her door and leaned against the wall. Soon, she saw Hamish coming upstairs, glancing at her coldly as he passed by on his way to Lila’s room.
Elisa was startled. She had assumed Hamish rushed back to stand up for Lila, but seeing his tense expression, it didn’t seem to be what she thought.
Elisa didn’t move, only following him with her eyes. A premonition faintly rose in her heart.
Lila’s door wasn’t locked. Pushing it open gently, Elisa saw Lila lying on the bed with an empty bottle of sleeping pills on the floor.
She had already passed out. Hamish called her name twice but got no response. He picked her up in a panic and rushed her urgently to the hospital.
Through the whole process, Elisa watched on indifferently like an outsider.
Lila’s complexion was unhealthily pale from her chronic illness, which made the slaps and hits from this morning very conspicuous.
As Hamish carried Lila past Elisa, his gaze cut into her like knives. If looks could kill, she would have been sliced to death already.
“If anything happens to Lila, I’ll have your life!”
Watching Hamish’s retreating back, Elisa silently mouthed, “I’ll be waiting.”
Lila was an ambitious woman. If she didn’t get what she wanted, how could she possibly die?
Also, Hamish found out about Lila’s suicide attempt and rushed back so quickly. Clearly, Lila had gambled with half her life, deliberately revealing it at the right time to the right people.
Dying from sleeping pills was a slow process. If someone really wanted to die, they would quietly find a place where no one knew, or jump off a building directly, just like her father did.
An hour after Lila took the sleeping pills, she was rushed to the hospital in time. After having her stomach pumped, she awoke but said nothing, only looking at Hamish silently as tears fell.
Hamish was helpless against a woman’s tears. He only asked, “Did Elisa say something to you?”
With that, the floodgates opened as Lila cried even harder.