Chapter 98

098 Room To Breath Scarlett’s POV Is there a kinder soul in this world? I look at Adrian, envying Aurora secretly because she is being loved by such a good person.

But I can’t. “I want to be your friend, Adrian Dunn,” I shake my head, feeling pity in my chest, “So I can’t be such a burden to you.

You understand, don’t you?”

Adrian looks at me plaintively. He understands, I know Talking to him has been so easy “You are insulting me by implying that it takes a lot of me to protect just one girl,” Adrian says half- jokingly, “I can’t protect you well if you leave, especially to a place that far away. But here I can promise that they can’t get another drop of blood of yours if you don’t want them to.”

That’s really sweet and generous, but I can’t put such a weight on Adrian. I feel guilty enough taking so much of his help as it is.

Out of a misunderstanding no less. It’s not right.

“I can take care of myself now,” I say as Adrian holds out his arm to block the elevator door for me. He definitely did that on purpose! I laugh at him, “Including holding my own door!”

“Exactly,” Adrian laughs with me, “I know you can, but it doesn’t mean I can’t do that for a lady, right?”

I sigh. He doesn’t know the Fullers, not well enough. I don’t want to drag him into this mud pond.

We walk to his car, and he pulls it open for me, his eyes determined.

“Let me tell you what happened last time, and you can make a better decision,” I hold the door but not going in. I wish he can give me a good solution, because I surely don’t have one, “The last time Ava went to the hospital, was because she came to my birthday party uninvited.

“It was the third year I married Sebastian. Just a small thing with only him, Aurora, and a few other of my friends. I told her to leave, and Sebastian told me he would leave with Ava. So I let her stay. Later she dragged me into a room and cut her own finger with a magazine, laughing at me until she started screaming and got everyone over, saying it was an ‘accident‘, but that I was the one who it her.”

It’s just one piece of dark memories of her among a million.

*Jack Fuller got 400cc out of me that day,” I say as that dark day resurfaces in my mind.

The feeling of life drained from me is so horrifying. The powerless, the suffocation woke me up in the middle of the night time after time.

“Of course, the day was ruined, and Sebastian stayed in the hospital with her that night when I almost fainted at home all alone. I dare not to, because I don’t know if anyone could find me before I die. The joke is, she didn’t even need that much blood.

That was the first birthday I spent with Sebastian, and also, the only.”

Adrian opens his eyes wide in shock, angry as he grunts: “You had every right to refuse their request!”

“Did I?” I laugh at how innocent he is, or rather, how simple his life is. Maybe for a kid who was loved, it was that simple for him.

098 Room To Breath But not for me.

I laugh as I look up so the tears won’t fall. The low, dark ceiling of the parking lot looks exactly like that day, a day when my whole world crushed down on me, making me suffocate “How could I refuse? It was MY husband who dragged me to the hospital, scolding me in front of the emergency room for hurting his beloved, my “dad” was shouting at me about what a cold–blooded monster I was for hurting my fragile sister, and my mom cries on the side, her sorrowful tears turned all the nurses against me. No one even wanted to help me, whether they could have or not aside.”

Adrian grips the door so hard that his fingers turn white. In the end, he couldn’t give me a better answer. I really wish he had one.

I’d love to hear that.

“I can’t refuse them so long as I’m still in this city,” I shake my head. I wish I could. “The truth is, I wouldn’t have any room to breathe on the surface of this earth, if I turned and left right there.”

Not like I had any room to breathe before that, but... that was the only family I knew back then.

“If you really want to help, Adrian, then trust that I can take care of myself,” I ask of him, “I just need you to block off Sebastian and the Fullers long enough so I can get on a plane.”