Spark gave a small smile—he knew she would never agree but he still tried anyway.
Molly stared at him as if she was actually considering Spark's condition because if she was the only one who could help him, then she would do anything for him. Grinding her teeth, Molly said, "Fine, Spark, if that's what you want, I'll marry you, but does that mean you'll play now?"
Everyone in the room froze—stunned by Molly's words. They all looked towards her. She stood up and continued, "Spark, this is all I can do to help you. If you don't want to play anymore just because of me, then you're just being a child. Every day, you're just escaping and you're just moping around waiting for people to feel bad for you. You just
want everyone's sympathy," her voice was cold. This was quite uncharacteristic of Molly because she was normally a nice, sweet girl. But this time, it was different. "I think somehow you purposely did this to make me feel bad. If that's the case, then I feel sorry for you," Molly said grimly.
Spark wasn't looking at Molly as he listened to her words. He looked calm like he wasn't even surprised that she had agreed to marry him. Meanwhile, Manny and Wing were tarting at Molly; they didn't expect that Molly would say those things to Spark.
"If that's what you need for you to play again," Molly repeated, "Then I'll do it."
As soon as she finished speaking, she grabbed her bag and left. The air was thick with tension. While they all wanted to help Spark, they were afraid that what Molly just did may have just hurt Spark even more.
Wing went after her. She stopped her and said, "Molly, why would you do that?"
"Wing," Molly stopped walking to talk to her. As she sighted the heavy traffic, "I'm the one to blame because he loves me so much. He wants me to be happy and he wants me to have a good life. Unfortunately, I'm the only one who can do that for him," Molly paused, "Yeah, I may have hurt him with what I said but I know him. He wouldn't want to embarrass me and he'll play even just to avoid that. That's how I'm going to help him."
Wing was surprised because she never expected something like this to come from Molly. She just gazed at Molly and found that she had totally changed—she wasn't weak anymore. She was brave, confident, and decisive and Wing liked that. After all these years, she was finally the woman she deserved to be.
***
At XK Intelligence Agency.
It had been so hot the past few days that when it finally cooled down today, it just made the air turn humid. The air was clean and fresh while the sun was warm and bright.
"Grandma," Mark said as he lay in bed, "Where is grandpa? Did he come with you?"
"Grandpa is busy," Shirley said as she sat down by his bed. She ladled the congee into a bowl, then she scooped up a spoonful of congee. She blew on it to cool it up then she lifted a spoonful of congee to his mouth, "You want to see grandpa?"
"Yesterday, he promised me that he would bring me a rabbit," Mark said happily, showing off his dimpled smile. Grandpa always brought something to surprise him. Staying at the hospital bored him, so he always looked forward to seeing him and playing with him.
"Don't worry. He'll get you that rabbit soon," she said as she lifted another spoonful congee to his mouth. They thought it wouldn't take too long for Mark to recover from the surgery, but Mark was different because he was weaker than most. When he was conceived, he was infected with drugs while he was still a fetus inside Molly, so he needed more time to recover. Most importantly, because of his health condition, he couldn't take a plane so he wouldn't be able to see Molly for now. They were scared that it might take Mark longer to recover if he was sad about missing Molly too much because he couldn't see her yet. So what they did was they always played with him and made him happy to distract him from that.
Mark was a sweet and smart child. He reminded Shirley of Wing when she was a little girl. As a child, he had been through a lot, so Shirley felt protective over him.
"It's still cold outside," Shirley said as she put down the bowl, "Can you just stay here and read first? When grandpa comes, he's going to get you your rabbit and you can play with him. Is that okay?"
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