Don'ts Of An Arranged Marriage

29. Don't Be Lied

SHIN

When waves crash on either side with you in the middle- You learn to stroke, strive and survive. I had a past that stopped me from living life to its vast, It wasn't an intended one. A warning from the future had me digging up the last resort where I can fix the time I lost. A remedy. A concession.

While hanging in the presence I had two choices. It was either pathetically waiting for the end or getting back on my own feet to embrace the moments I had lost so far to my apprehension.

It's surprising how promptly the old fear fades when prominent ones are established.

Internal trauma from years ago had caused the nerves on my brain to quit their systematic cycle occasionally. Constant blackouts, weak stamina, and numbing joints almost to the point of paralyzing were some symptoms that shadowed if I wasn't on my medication. Not that it will work from the day my brain decides to die entirely leaving behind a useless body.

For six months it had been a crucial research, Dr. Sim Dowon, the 31 year old neurologist had been the supportive liar to me. Distributing hopes that had no surface. Tests after tests, therapies after therapies, we atleast came to a conclusion. It was an outward injury from the past meddling with the future.

The revelation was so severe that I couldn't recall the times I had a head injury. Except once. The only wise I had collapsed and fainted as a child was when I fell off the chair when the kidnapper had punched me. It was the he first time the woman with him had realized that the psychopath she was teaming with might actually pan out killing me.

Guess she wasn't wrong.

It was three months ago when I had screamed at Dowon, bargaining my anger to ampute a fact I was ready to face.

I was informed that my mortality rate falls by eighty-nine to a hundred. And the life rate and what struggle might befall with a successive surgery sounded worse than death to me. I have been treated differently my whole life, so when I know this will change everything that I had worked so hard and grown over, I kept it to myself.

I don't cry myself to sleep.

I don't think of what I will do or be like in the next two hours. I had ceased to worry now. and it felt phenomenal to not get lost in a maze when you don't attempt to free yourself. For now, I was relieved that my parents are proud of me, Hwan still had his vengeance on me and Dowon still hasn't ratted me out.

As for Lee, I admired him more with every passing minute. He gave me the space I yearned, stepping back only tonight, clad in his elegant tuxedo and gelled hair after a four-day hiatus. It's what I had absolutely craved from him. Then what authority do I have for being mad by his absence? He affirmed me with a nod as he picked me up from the hotel- then drive from there to the venue had been a sensitive one.

We didn't talk.

Not a word exchanged.

The atmosphere was so fragile that I even held most of my breaths to keep it ventilated. He did his part well, opening the door for me, lending his hand, smiling for the camera, and adjusting the trail of my maroon embellished gown when it needed to. Interlacing our fingers tighter when we walked through the crowd reassuringly. The details of him were the same, but not him.

Deep beneath those brightly shining smiles as he greets and talks was pulsating exhaustion. His smile dropped with a heavy exhale as soon as a guest retires from a conversation. Only for another to come as he dons his mask.

There was no room for him to rest.

For an hour it rolls such, the repeated congratulatory speeches while the soft music from orchestral soprano stirs by the grandiose party hall. I looked at the floor, the opaque reflection on the glossy marble stared back at me. My hair looked lengthier as it was straightened to the tip. It's been so long since I had a portion of my hair braided into a crown, it was soft and angelic on my features with messy strands framing my sides.