Aoife stared out the window, the doctor said she needed to look at the green more to improve her eyes.
The cherry blossoms outside bloomed one night and withered the next, coming quietly and leaving quietly, as if they had never appeared.
The morning sunlight shone through the window at ten o’clock, casting a beam of light on the bed. Aoife reached out her hand, trying to grasp that beam of light, but light… how could one catch it?
Aoife didn’t like the night, but only at night did that beam of light seem so dazzling. But if light was just light, offering hope without redemption, was that light sinful?
Now Aoife no longer anticipated light, she was born in darkness, accustomed to despair.
Finn’s forehead wound had been patched up at the hospital before he came to see Aoife.
He deliberately exposed the bandage on his head, hoping to get Aoife’s attention, but Aoife hadn’t looked at him directly since he entered.
Approaching noon, the sunlight outside became more glaring, reflecting through the glass window. Aoife was still staring out the window, worried about hurting her eyes. Finn went over and drew the curtains.
“Aoife, I know you can’t forgive me for anything I do now, but you have to know, no parent doesn’t love their child. If I had known that child was mine, I wouldn’t have… Finn knelt by the bed, reaching out to hold Aoife’s cold hand, his voice almost pleading.
“I was really out of my mind at the time. When I saw you doing so much for Ethan, I was so upset and bitter. When I held you unconscious, do you know what Ethan said? He said the child you were carrying wasn’t mine!”
He was naturally suspicious. Knowing that Aoife and Ethan were living together, engaged, even called husband and wife, how could he not have any suspicions? Plus, Ethan’s ambiguous statement.
-“Finn, what if I told you the child in Aoife’s belly isn’t yours?”
Hearing such words, his already confused mind became even more agitated, no time to think calmly. When they got to the hospital, the doctor changed the diagnosis to five months instead of six.
Combined with the doctor’s constant emphasis on the danger of trying to save the baby, it could be a lose-lose situation.
Anger and anxiety made him frantic, he was at his wits’ end, unable to pay attention to details.
Actually, if Finn were given another choice, considering the possibility of a lose-lose situation, he would still choose to save the adult and lose the child. He didn’t regret aborting the child, he regretted not believing Aoife and having their child turned into a specimen, examined against Aoife’s will.
Suspicion is a disease, a disease even the Virgin Mary can’t cure. What else could Aoife say? She couldn’t even breathe, feeling a suffocating discomfort, as if she was about to die.
Closing her eyes for a moment, Aoife looked at her flat stomach, “Finn, you didn’t expect to shirk responsibility at this time, you don’t even dare to admit your mistakes, why should I forgive you?”
“I admitted my mistake and apologized.” Finn’s eyes reddened, he took a couple of heavy breaths, and reluctantly spoke, “But I’m not the only one who’s wrong. I want to make it up to you. I’m making sure that doctor who operated on you can’t live in this world anymore. How do you feel about that?”
He asked the last few words cautiously, his eyes fixed on Aoife, hoping to see a different emotion on her face.
But Aoife didn’t react at all, she looked at Finn with his disfigured face for a moment before saying coldly, “Damn you, if you want to make amends, then go die.”
Finn was taken aback by her indifferent gaze, stumbling back a few steps.
“I won’t die, our future is long, I won’t die at this time.” They hadn’t even started, how could it end like this?
Finn felt sad, the saddest part was that he couldn’t express this sadness.
Future? Did she still have a future?
“Aoife, I don’t want to see you anymore.”
Finn’s eyes started to fill with tears again as he turned to the door. He intended to briefly leave and come back after Aoife calmed down, his hand on the doorknob, but found himself unable to open the door.
Finn didn’t want to leave. After a few seconds with his hand on the doorknob, he suddenly turned back, walked two or three steps to Aoife, lifted her chin and kissed her forcefully on the lips.
Aoife’s lips were dry, so dry that they were cracked. He kissed her too roughly, tasting blood.
He couldn’t bear to leave Aoife, he didn’t want to leave, he wanted to stay by her side and watch over her.
During the past two weeks at the hospital, he had been the one accompanying her, staying by her side, rubbing her hands and feet when needed, appearing close but actually very far.
He was afraid that Aoife wouldn’t wake up again. Now that she had finally awakened, the first thing she did was tell him to leave.
How could Aoife be so heartless? They had been together for so long.
He remembered that it was Aoife who first fell in love with him. How could she say she no longer loved him after so long? And want to marry another man?
After a brief moment of confusion, Aoife’s eyes filled with disgust. She bit down on Finn’s lips, the taste of blood becoming stronger.
Finn didn’t want to let go even after being bitten, he was worried about hurting Aoife’s face. He carefully held the back of her head with both hands, deepening the kiss.
It had been so long since he had kissed Aoife, he almost forgot how intimate they used to be.
Finn wanted to devour her whole, bit by bit, swallow her alive, so she would never try to leave him again.
Aoife slapped Finn hard, using all her strength to strike his face, but for Finn it was just a tickle.
However, this slap made Finn come to his senses. He looked at Aoife and for a moment, he couldn’t recognize her.
The once “red-eyed bunny” now looked like a bloodstained wolf.
“Finn, you’re crazy!”
Finn wanted to tell her that he had been crazy for a long time. For her, he had agreed with his grandfather to abandon the Burns family and give up the goal he had been striving for twenty years.
But in the end, Finn didn’t say a word. He just smiled casually, “During the time you were unconscious, I said I would take you to see Dr. Mason in prison. Do you want to see him?”
“What do you want from me now?” In Aoife’s mind, Finn wouldn’t be nice to her for no reason. Every time he did something good for her, he wanted something in return. Aoife thought about what Finn could possibly want from her, and realized she had nothing left to give except her life. But the last thing Finn wanted was her death.
“I said I want your heart, will you give it to me?”
“If you want it, use a knife to cut it out.”
Finn tried to explain, “You know I didn’t mean it that way…”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”
Finn was speechless after being scolded, feeling like a student being reprimanded by the headmaster.
Aoife didn’t even bother to look at him, she found him disgusting even with a glance. She felt restless and hot-eyed, wanted to cry but couldn’t shed a tear, as if all her tears had dried up.
“What about my child?”
“I had someone bring them over.”
After Finn found out the child was his, he had someone retrieve the child from the specimen sections, brought back to be cremated, reduced to ashes.
Aoife’s malnutrition during pregnancy had affected the child’s development, the six-month-old fetus looked like a five-month one, floating tiny in a glass container.
After cremation, the ashes were just a small amount. Aoife never imagined that when she would see the child again, all that remained was a pinch of ashes, stored in a small porcelain bottle.
Aoife touched the bottle gently, her voice hoarse, “Baby, Mom finally received you.”
During her time at the hospital, Aoife had always held onto the ashes, taking them wherever she went, even sleeping with them. It seemed eerie no matter how you looked at it.