Chapter 98: Grandma Was Right
She wrapped her arms tightly around her young cousin. A faint temperature was transmitted through the clothes to her body. Stella felt her nose sore, staring at the dust on the ground lit by the dim yellow light. She recalled what Grandma had said to her, and tears flowed down her cheeks.
“Grandma was right.” She murmured.
The first time she took Renz back home, her Grandma asked several questions about the details of their relationship. Smart and wise as she was, her questions, thinking back now, all had something to do with the conflicting qualities between her and Renz. A lot of their quarrels were related to the questions Grandma had raised. If it wasn’t her that introduced Renz to Grandma, Stella wouldn’t have believed that they had never met each other before.
A proficient office lady for so many years, Stella understood that those questions were more meaningful as reminders.
But as her first love, Renz had played the role of her life mentor in these years. She believed in what he said that the rough edges of them can be sanded off by time; although it had always been hers that was softened, she understood that love was like a career; it was just what it should be.
But now, thinking about it, love and work were related, but not quite the same.
In the workplace, you had to erase your edges and corners to adapt to your boss and colleagues. In love, both sides should erase their incompatible edges to develop a closer relationship.
She thought that she had traveled all over the world and opened her horizons. But In terms of love, she stayed undisturbed with Renz and was immersed in his world.
Now that she and Renz have been together for years, her edges and corners are almost gone, and they are having fewer and fewer quarrels. She thought that they finally found a way to get along with each other, and they could keep going like this for a hundred years.
She never realized that this kind of peace came from her endless compromises.
When Grandma was hospitalized, she observed how it was between Keith and Cathryn and started doubting her love. It has always been Keith that’s tending to Cathryn’s needs, while Cathryn tries to cooperate with him as well. They reminded her of her grandparents.
She didn’t feel right about it, so she wanted to have a serious talk about their relationship with Renz. But unexpectedly, she received the news of Grandma’s death. In despair, she asked him to send her to the hospital. Profound sadness, she was plunged, and through profound sadness, she saw who he really was.
He did not care if she was suffering. He cared about how to use Cathryn to get close to Keith and how to win Keith’s heart to guarantee him a career.
He was careless, after all, so much that he gave her chills.
She refused again and again, and he just insisted every time. At the funeral, she found the place where she used to play hide and seek with Cathryn, trying to make it clear to him.Têxt © NôvelDrama.Org.
Unexpectedly, it was Cathryn that heard them.
She had lived in the shadow of this beautiful cousin for over 20 years. Like a performing clown, she tried everything to insult, to embarrass her at the New Year dinner, but she never cared.
She hated Cathryn, not only because she was brilliant in everything, but because she killed her Grandpa.
But despite this, when Cathryn saw her at her weakest moment, she still wanted to break off in her arms. She wanted to go back to when they were little, holding tight to her arms, calling her name, and listening to her comfort.
Her eyes were red and swollen, and her pain of losing Renz, mixed with the pain of Grandma’s death, fell down in tears like a flood. She felt that she had lost her love and a dear family at the same time. The bitterness and heartbreak were combined into thundering devastation.
She felt grateful that Cathryn was there, who was holding her just the way she fell down when she was a child, holding her hand and cuddling her, saying, “Don’t cry, Stella.”
When you were a child, you felt that a physical wound was more hurtful than anything, and you couldn’t stand it, but only when you grew up did you know that there could be much more pain in your heart than any body part.
Stella’s voice went hoarse, she kept murmuring that he should have listened to Grandma. She muttered how she missed their grandfather and then how she felt sorry for her cousin… She was so helpless that Cathryn was heartbroken.
Cathryn’s heart was melted by her cry, holding Stella, her eyes were dry while soothing the younger girl in her arms. She held her to stand up when she was quieter and went to the restroom.
There were two rooms in Grandma’s old house. The living room was kept as a mourning hall, and the other was placed hastily in three beds. On top of them are the covers and sheets sent by Keith, and the sisters Victoria and Nancy were sitting on one bed, holding their hands and staring in silence, with tears on their faces.
Seeing the girls entering the room, Nancy Lee saw her daughter with worried eyes. She stood up from the bed, wiped her face, and looked up at Cathryn, who told her.
“Stella is tired. Let her rest a bit.”
“Yeah,” The mother answered and helped her daughter to lie down on the bed against the wall.
Stella was blocking her eyes with her arms, but her tears were running down her cheeks, making her mother unspeakably hurt.
Nancy observed her daughter, and Victoria observed hers. Unlike Stella, Cathryn still couldn’t cry. She knew that her pain was deep down in her heart. Victoria, understanding her daughter, didn’t say a word.
According to the custom, the closest relatives should hold Grandma’s vigil. But seeing her mother and aunts and uncle so exhausted, Cathryn took the initiative to do that. Her youngest aunt raised worried disapproval and met her big sister’s eyes and didn’t say anymore.