Free Web NovelChapter 336: Chapter 334: She Will Fade Away on the Wind
"!"
In the hospital bed, Mia Grant suddenly opened her eyes.
Light and shadows danced on the ceiling, sunlight spilling wantonly through a gap in the curtains.
The ventilation system was still running, carrying away the faint, unpleasant smell of disinfectant. The room was so quiet that the whirring of the machine seemed deafening.
Mia didn’t know how long she had been staring. She only snapped back to her senses when she was about to suffocate, and began to gasp for air.
When a person is in extreme shock, they can forget to breathe. Even their heartbeat seems to pause.
When it suddenly started beating again, her body struggled to adjust. Mia clutched the blanket and leaned over the side of the bed, gagging a few times.
Carla Sinclair had stepped out to take a call, leaving only Julian Vaughn in the room.
His back was to the bed as he arranged a fresh bouquet of flowers on the table.
He’d had them delivered early this morning. He took them out of their wrapping, washed a beautiful glass vase, and began placing the flowers inside one by one.
Perhaps because he studied art, he was quite meticulous. He fussed with them for a long while, still not satisfied, trying to perfect the layers and color combinations.
’If you want too much, you need to have patience.’
A sudden sound from behind startled him. As Julian turned, his sleeve caught the vase.
A loud crash echoed through the room, like a gunshot suddenly fired in the dead of night.
Mia’s shoulders trembled, and she let out a short scream.
Julian ignored the flowers on the floor, rushing forward to press the call bell and check on her.
A pair of hands suddenly landed on her shoulders. They were cold from the water, and the chill seeped through her thin hospital gown to her skin.
In an instant, Mia violently tore herself away, clutching her head and screaming.
She screamed with all her might, startling even Carla, who was on the phone outside the door.
She didn’t even have time to explain to their father on the other end, hanging up immediately and rushing into the room along with the nurses and doctors who came running.
The scene descended into chaos.
When Carla first entered, she thought Julian had done something.
But when she met his panicked and uneasy gaze, then glanced at the shattered vase on the floor and Mia, who had fallen silent and was now weeping soundlessly on the bed, she realized it probably wasn’t his fault.
The two of them had been rivals for so many years; she knew Julian’s personality well.
Although she understood he wasn’t as pure and harmless as he appeared on the surface, she knew he cared deeply for their sister, Mia.
He might not have much affection for her, his older sister, but when it came to their younger sister, their feelings were surprisingly aligned. They both cherished her.
After a flurry of frantic activity, Mia gradually quieted down.
It wasn’t so much that she was quiet, but rather that she seemed lost.
She seemed to be trying to recognize something.
Her gaze toward the two of them slowly cleared, like a little fawn emerging from the depths of a misty forest.
Carla cautiously stepped forward. "Mia, it’s me, your sister..."
The words had barely left her mouth when the little fawn threw herself into her arms.
The force of the impact was so great that the unprepared Carla nearly fell. Fortunately, Julian was behind her and steadied her.
The person in her arms began to wail.
Once she was steady, Carla quickly held her tight.
Of the three siblings, only she had memories of their mother.
So, she clumsily imitated how their mother used to soothe her to sleep as a child, gently patting Mia’s back. "It’s okay, it’s okay. Your sister and... your brother are both here."
This was the first time Julian and Carla had been on the same side since the last New Year.
It was something of a truce, one could say.
Julian didn’t say anything, but he stayed by the two sisters’ side.
One moment he was handing over a tissue, the next he was moving a chair for them.
An unknown amount of time passed before Mia’s crying gradually subsided.
Her attention was captured by a floral fragrance. With her nerves frayed, she instinctively looked toward the source.
The wreckage on the floor hadn’t been cleaned up yet.
Sunlight struck the shards of the glass vase, refracting a kaleidoscope of colors onto the ceiling, like a vibrant and intense oil painting.
Julian followed her gaze and said, "I knocked it over by accident just now. I’ll go get another vase."
As he spoke, he began to clean up. This time, his flower-arranging skills seemed to have improved; it only took him five minutes to create a splendid and perfect composition. He placed it gently on the nightstand, within Mia’s reach.
Seeing that her mood had stabilized, Julian brought over a basin of water. He soaked a towel in the warm water, wrung it out, and handed it to Carla.
The two of them, normally at odds, were now working together in perfect sync.
Carla wiped the tear stains from Mia’s face and handed the dirty towel back, and Julian promptly passed her a clean one.
They repeated this two or three times before stopping.
Carla cupped Mia’s small face in her hands, looking at her for a few seconds before smiling. "Now I finally know what people mean when they say a face is ’as smooth as a peeled egg’."
"Are you hungry?"
Mia didn’t feel hungry. She gently shook her head.
In truth, she hadn’t eaten anything since last night.
She hadn’t brought anything up when she was gagging earlier.
Her stomach was empty.
Julian stood up. "I’ll go buy something light. You should have a little something in your stomach before you take your medicine."
Just as he finished speaking, there was a sound at the door.
The person who entered was someone who surprised Julian.
Kian Keller.
The hand he used to support himself with a cane was covered in pinpricks from needles.
Looking around, Julian glanced at Carla. She frowned slightly, likely unhappy that someone else was here to divert her sister’s attention.
But now, she had to admit, they really needed someone to help get through to Mia.
Mia hadn’t opened up to them yet.
’Kian Keller... perhaps he’s a good choice.’
When Carla moved aside, Mia finally saw who had come in.
A hint of bewilderment appeared in her red, swollen eyes.
After Carla and Julian left the room, the man walked to her bedside. She just continued to gaze up at him blankly. "This feels like another dream."
A warm hand rested on her head, accompanied by a sigh of relief as his thumb caressed her cheek.
The familiar scent of the Agarwood Buddha Beads drifted into her nose, bringing with it a sense of peace and calm.
It was as if she were kneeling peacefully before the compassionate, downcast eyes of a great Buddha, with the blue smoke of burning incense swirling around her, a simple act that had the power to relax the soul.
"Why are you back again?"
After distinguishing dream from reality, her eyes inexplicably began to sting with tears again.
Though it was meant as an accusation, her voice sounded incredibly aggrieved.
She was still ill, her face even paler than his. He hadn’t seen her for just a few days, but she had lost so much weight that he felt he could almost trace the outline of her bones when he held her.
Even though she was right here in his arms, Kian Keller felt an emptiness in his heart. He found her hand and held it tightly, but it wasn’t enough to fill the void inside him.
He didn’t know why, but he felt as if the person before him might vanish at any moment, like a wisp of smoke carried away by the wind.
A racing, irregular heartbeat—a sign of panic.
As they held each other, he first thought it was her heartbeat.
Then he realized it was his own.
