hapter 10
When I opened my eyes, the first face I saw was Alaric’s.
He had heavy dark circles under his eyes, looking extremely haggard, his usually crisp shirt wrinkled and creased.
Alaric was keeping vigil by my bedside. Seeing me open my eyes, he immediately stood up in delight: “Selene? Selene, you’re awake!”
Two people who had been dozing on the sofa nearby also immediately got up and walked over.
I really thought I’d gotten up too quickly–I was actually seeing Beckett and Cassian.
The most ironic part was that among all the people in this hospital room, my father wasn’t there, but the people I usually despised most were.
“Selene?”
Alaric’s face drew closer, full of anxiety.
But I looked at him with complete bewilderment: “Who… are you?”
The glass in Alaric’s hand immediately fell, and the room fell silent.
His expression was stunned, incredulous: “Selene…. you’re lying to me, right… How could you not remember me? How could you not remember!”
“Come on, remember that you pushed her?” Cassian sauntered over carelessly. “Hey, do you still remember who I am?”
I sneered inwardly but continued looking bewildered on the surface, shaking my head.
Beckett: “No way, she really has amnesia?”
As he reached out to touch my head, I avoided him in disgust, staring out the window in a daze.
But Alaric seemed to go crazy.
“This is impossible! Selene–Selene, do you really not remember me? Selene!”
His voice was impossibly hoarse, his tone on the verge of collapse.
Alaric grabbed my shoulders with trembling hands, forcing me to look at him.
“Selene… look at me, I’m Alaric.” His voice sounded like he was about to cry.
But I only looked at him with the gaze one gives a stranger–bewildered and unmoved.
When Alaric met my cold, indifferent eyes, he seemed stimulated, frantically shaking my shoulders.
“Alaric!! What’s wrong with you? She just woke up!”
Beckett yanked Alaric away, but his fingers were gripping so tightly that I was pulled along too.
I was getting annoyed.
I immediately clutched my head, acting as if I was in extreme pain: “It hurts, my head hurts so much…”
Alaric immediately let go. “Selene-” Before he could finish, Beckett and Cassian dragged him away.
In the hospital room, within just two hours, I’d already said the same thing to countless people:
“Who are you? I don’t remember you.”
Chapter 10
Including my father–1 acted like I didn’t recognize him at all, and when he said he was my dad, I looked completely unable to accept it.
I listened from inside as the doctor explained to them outside that I might have lost my memory due to damage to parts of my brain.
“The patient’s amnesia could be temporary or permanent. But I need to give you a heads up–we need to observe other issues, and you should prepare for the possibility that she may not recover to her pre–injury state.”
As my dad listened, he immediately sensed something wrong: “Doctor, are you saying my daughter might be mentally impaired?”
Doctor: “We can’t rule out that possibility-”
“My poor daughter!” He started wailing again. “What will you do in the future! If you’re mentally impaired, who would want you…”
The Everhart parents‘ faces also became awkward hearing this–the implication was so obvious, they were definitely expecting their son to take responsibility.
Mrs. Everhart wanted to call Alaric, but saw him sitting in the corner, covering his face in despair.
I found it annoying and acted distressed, having the nurses drive them farther away.
It was quite lively after I woke up.
People came in waves–none I wanted to see, but some I didn’t want to see that the hospital couldn’t stop from entering.
Mr. and Mrs. Everhart came, their fake concern actually probing how my recovery was going
My father came, hinting between the lines that whether I was mentally impaired or not, I should act impaired, preferably unable to care for myself.
Preferably clinging desperately to Alaric, acting like I couldn’t live without him.
He’d just been appointed general manager yesterday–beneath his surface grief was barely concealed smugness.
“You two have been childhood sweethearts. If not for that slut seducing Alaric, you should have been his fiancée originally.
Would Dad hurt you? You must do exactly as Dad says!”
I nodded obediently.
Delilah also came, under the banner of apologizing for Alaric, but actually twisting the events of that day.
She said I had sabotaged things out of jealousy that Alaric liked her.
“I don’t blame you anymore, Selene.”
Delilah’s expression was pitying, as if I really had done something to hurt her.
She looked down at me from above as I lay on the hospital bed with a cold expression:
“But could you please stop forcing Alaric?”
“He doesn’t like you. If he liked you, how could he have pushed you like that—ah, sorry.”
“Alaric feels very guilty and self–reproachful now. He’s already suffering. If you use this to threaten him, you’ll only get his guilt and compensation.
But what will happen over time? He’ll hate you, Selene. Because you forced him to marry you.”
I made a sound of acknowledgment. “So what are you trying to say with all this? I don’t recognize you, and I can’t tell you people apart.”
Delilah was taken aback, her gentle expression almost cracking.
“What I mean is, whatever compensation you want, we can give it to you.”
I nodded: “Then I don’t want to see you all. Can you get lost?”
Delilah left in anger, and Alaric came again.
He looked even more haggard, his expression very hurt as he looked at me: “Selene-”
I kept my father’s words in mind at all times.
As soon as he said one word, I immediately threw a pillow at him!
Then I immediately clutched my head, screaming and going crazy, continuously pressing the bedside bell calling for nurses.
Alaric stood there stunned, letting me throw anything I could grab at him.
As if aging several years in an instant, his eyes red as he kept calling “Selene,” until the doctors and nurses dragged him away.
