Chapter 556
What did it mean when he said he was willing to consume the medicine she gave him? Was it trust?
If that were so, why didn’t he trust her feelings if he could do so toward the medicine she provided? Perhaps they wouldn’t have broken up if he’d had more faith in her from the start.
At this point, such trust was more like a kind of irony.
Jonathan’s brows were furrowed, and a thin layer of sweat covered his forehead despite being asleep.
Therefore, Rosalie took a towel from the bathroom and gently wiped his forehead.
“Mom… Mom…” he called out intermittently. His voice was so soft that it was almost a whisper. She had to draw closer to him to decipher what he was saying.
“Could he be dreaming about his mother?” Rosalie thought.
She remembered Jonathan mentioning that his mother abandoned him and his father when he was still very young, as she could no longer stand living an impoverished lifestyle.
She had never shown up in his life since then, even after many years had passed.
Besides, Rosalie remembered the wound on his chest. While the scar had now lightened, it had almost cost him his life.
She could picture how dangerous the situation had been from the fading scar. A child would have easily met their end with such an injury.
It had been inflicted on him when his mother pushed him away when he begged her to stay.
“Mom, don’t leave me alone… Don’t abandon me… and Dad…” Jonathan’s eyebrows knitted together even tighter. His head began shaking slightly as his broken voice escaped his lips incessantly.
A new layer of sweat had formed on his forehead despite her wiping it a while ago.
The state he was in right then resembled a helpless child.
He might have been dreaming of a scene from childhood, which meant he was a child in his dream.
Rosalie wiped the sweat beading on his forehead once more and muttered tenderly, “Good boy. Sleep now. No one is going to abandon you.”
As a child, Rosalie still had the love of her grandmother after her mother passed on. Yet, she never received much care and affection from her only grandfather after her mother’s death and the subsequent passing of her father, who froze to death in
the snow.
“Now that I think about it, Jonathan’s childhood is far less fortunate than mine!” she lamented.
The depths of Rosalie’s heart twinged in pain..
She felt sorry for the child who had to stay strong alone at a tender age and was tricked into consuming sleeping pills by a deceptively kind housekeeper in a foreign household.
Rosalie told herself internally she felt sympathy for this man she no longer loved, only because he was sick/
“Don’t… discard me… I don’t want to be left on my own…” His tone was in full-blown panic while dreaming, and a never-before-seen vulnerability marred his features.
“I’m not going to discard you nor leave you on your own,” she went along gently with his words. All she wanted at that moment was to alleviate his insecurity exactly as her aching heart compelled her to.
Jonathan was drenched in sweat when he awakened and felt as if all the energy in his body had been depleted.
He slowly sat up and surveyed the room.
There was pin-drop silence, and he was the only one in the room.
“Isn’t… she here?” He lowered his gaze gingerly, and it remained fixed on his bare hands.
Even if he forced her to stay in this manor, she still wouldn’t remain by his side like his parents. They still left him in their respective ways, no matter how fervently he pleaded for them to stay.
He was ultimately still left to fend for himself.
Jonathan mused, ‘All on my own, just like before… What did it matter, anyway? Haven’t I always been solitary before
meeting her?
One could only rely on themselves in this world.
Despite that, a pain that felt like being pierced recurringly by a needle began spreading in his body.
At that moment, the door was suddenly pushed open, and a figure entered the room.
Jonathan gazed blankly at the advancing silhouette, and a look of surprise flashed across his eyes.
“Oh, you’re awake. I just cooked some oatmeal. I was going to give it to you after you woke up.” Rosalie placed the oatmeal on the nightstand while speaking and naturally stretched out her hand to feel the temperature on his forehead.
While it was still slightly warm, his temperature had dropped and was a vast improvement from before.
“Your temperature has gone down. I’ll use a thermometer to measure your temperature in a bit,” Rosalie continued.
“You… went out to prepare oatmeal just now?” Jonathan murmured.
“That’s right. I did so as I estimated it was about time you woke up. However, you awakened slightly earlier than expected. Wait for the oatmeal to cool down before consuming it since it’s still hot.”
“I see,” he replied hoarsely. “Have you been in this room all this while?”
“Where else could I go?” she questioned rhetorically. This was especially true since he had been having fitful sleep due to nightmares and sleep-talked sporadically. Jonathan could only rest easy when she remained by his side and comforted him with her responses.
She finally squeezed some time out to prepare some oatmeal in the kitchen when he could finally sleep better.
Jonathan stared at the woman in front of him confusedly, the pain spreading in his body seemingly dissipating bit by bit.
It turned out that she had been accompanying him all this time, and he was not alone.
Jonathan stretched out his hands and wrapped them around her waist, resting his face against her lower abdomen. He gently closed his eyes. “I’m so relieved that you didn’t leave me behind.”
Rosalie’s body stiffened unexpectedly. Jonathan didn’t hug her tightly this time, and she sensed she could push him away with only a little force.
Yet, she couldn’t muster the strength to lift her hands, which felt like they were leaden, to do so.
“Am I at a loss because of his fragility and reliance?”
Rosalie remained like a statue and allowed Jonathan to hug her for an extended period. The oatmeal had turned cold by the time he released her at last.
“You… have some oatmeal.” Rosalie finally regained her voice and scooped oatmeal from a pot into a separate bowl for him with a spoon.
He raised his hand to receive the bowl but almost overturned it, as his hand became weak all of a sudden.
