Just a few days later, Rose came crying back home. She coughed incessantly the moment she walked in, eventually coughing up blood.
Mom handed her a bottle of cough syrup, which Rose slapped away.
“Sweetheart, you can’t just ignore this sickness,” Mom pleaded, her voice thick with worry. “You have to value your life.”
But Mom didn’t understand. Her love-obsessed younger daughter had already died once. Hunter had merely shown up at her funeral and sent a generic floral arrangement, which Rose took as absolute proof of his eternal regret.
Our souls had floated together at that funeral. She excitedly pointed toward the casket. “He regrets it! He really does! I knew he’d spend his life in agony after I died.”
What I saw was our mother, who had lost two daughters in one day, her hair turning white overnight. She wandered, ghost-like, near my old office and Rose’s college campus, asking strangers, “Have you seen my daughter? She’s so pretty, tall and slim…”
Dad couldn’t handle her grief-induced breakdown. He divorced her and abandoned her.
“Ugh, Mom, you’re just an extra too! Stop bothering me!” Rose snapped.
Mom didn’t understand Rose’s bizarre jargon. She just silently took the syrup away, still begging Rose to see a doctor.
But Rose was deaf to her pleas. She was only concerned with why Hunter was still seeing that socialite, Bianca. Enraged, she threw her phone across the room, only to later clutch a photo of them together, sobbing hysterically.
Between coughs and cries, Rose lay瘫软 (slumped) on the sofa, weakly murmuring, “Does he even know… I’m dying? When he finds out, his heart will shatter with regret for hurting me.”
But, as the rules of the genre dictated, the female lead could never speak her truth. She couldn’t just tell the male lead she was sick. He had to discover her tragic state on his own.
So, she grabbed my arm, shaking me violently. “Tell me! When will he find out I’m dying?!”
I rolled my eyes. “He’ll know soon enough.”
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