Love Persist

Kabanata 46 - With the story now revealed, a solemn pact must be sealed.

Simeon's sharp intake of breath echoed through the four walls of his office. I could practically hear the wheels turning in his mind as he tried to calm his tensed shoulders. The news from Leona's words, pieced together bit by bit, was bound to hit him like a sledgehammer. Even I was still grappling with it, barely able to sleep since the revelation, half-convinced I was dreaming the whole thing. It was a reality so jarring, it seemed unreal.

Last night, when I told Simeon about Leona, he persuaded me to wait until we could discuss it in person. And so here we were, in the dean's office, a tense atmosphere hanging heavy in the air. The room seemed to shrink around us as we prepared to face the gravity of the situation head-on.

Who would have believed it? The woman we'd scoured the ends of the earth for—the one who had vanished without a trace—was alive but languishing in a hospital, fighting for her life. For years, our search had been relentless, chasing down every clue and lead, driven by the desperate hope of finding her and putting our endless questions to rest. When we had finally accepted the harsh reality that she was gone for good, destiny threw us this bewildering twist.

He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his tone was much more composed yet laced with a mix of apprehension and an emotion I couldn't quite place.

"What else did she say?"

I swallowed calmly, my eyes briefly drifting to the files on his desk before locking back onto his nervous stare. "She wanted to see Cerise," I murmured. The words weighed heavily on my tongue, laden with years of grief and unresolved issues.

Simeon exhaled a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair in a rare display of vulnerability. He fell silent for a moment, his brow furrowed in deep thought. I just sat there, as patient as I could be, knowing that this was a lot to take.

"I see. Cerise deserves to know the truth."

I nodded in agreement, my heart clenching at the mention of Cerise's name.

"But I also understand the pain and trauma that this revelation could dredge up. She believed her mother was gone, and now to find out that she's been alive all this time—it could be utterly devastating."

I remained silent, my mind racing with the implications of what he was saying.

Simeon sighed heavily, his eyes drifting to the framed photograph on his desk—a snapshot of our group with my brother from years ago, back when we were all still together, before the unimaginable happened. The memories seemed to weigh on us, each face in the photo a reminder of what had once been.

"We owe it to Cerise to give her this chance, but we have to be careful. This could shatter her in ways we can't even begin to fathom.

For years, I had stood in as a true mother to Cerise, nurturing her and being there through every storm. My deepest hope was that one day I could reunite her with her real mother. But now that the moment had finally come, fear and hesitation took hold of me. My brother, on his deathbed, had urged me to meet Leona and uncover the truth. It was his dying wish, a duty I felt compelled to fulfill. Yet the thought of Cerise enduring more pain and heartbreak was a heavy burden. She had already faced so much, and I couldn't bear the idea of piling on more suffering.

She had never had the chance to bond with her father; he had died when she was so young. Despite that, she had loved him deeply. Now, the revelation that her mother, whom she believed had died giving birth to her, was actually alive threatened to shatter everything she had come to know and accept.

Introducing another life-altering truth into her already fragile world filled me with dread. How could I, in good conscience, bring this burden into her life, potentially plunging her into an abyss of anguish? The responsibility weighed heavily on me. Each decision was fraught with the fear of causing her more pain, threatening to destabilize the fragile stability we had worked so hard to build.