Ronan continued to comfort me. A strange sense of warmth exuded from his embrace.
Formerly, I thought of Ronan no more than a flirtatious playboy who was only trying to get me in bed. However, I had come to the realization that he truly did care for me.
Ronan did not stop me as I squeezed him tighter. Only when I was exhausted from all the crying did I let him go. As I pulled away, I noticed a huge stain of my sweat and tears on his shirt near his collar.
“Sorry for making your shirt dirty…”
Embarrassed to see the mess I have created, I mumbled sheepishly while avoiding eye contact. Overwhelmed by my emotions, I only cared about letting it out before I drowned in my own tears, forgetting that I had no relation with the man in front of me.
“It’s okay, as long as you have stopped crying. You almost scared me to death just now. I thought I had said something wrong that drove you to tears.”
Ronan shrugged and peered nonchalantly at his dampened shirt before turning to face me, concerned.
“It’s not your fault. I just thought of something upsetting.”
Utterly grateful that he had allowed me to cry on his shoulder, my perspective towards Ronan started to shift.
“Do you want to talk about it? After that crying session we just had, we should at least be friends now, right?”
A bright smile bloomed on his face as he looked at me carefully.
His big eyes made him look like an oversized toddler. However, I was surprisingly at ease by just staring into his sparkling eyes.
After a few minutes of hesitation, my lips parted as words started to spill out. I told Ronan everything that was happening between my family and me. It was not that I wanted his sympathy. I just needed to vent.
“Your parents had gone overboard this time. When we first met, you were kicked out of the hospital ward. Was it because of this?”
After my rant, Ronan’s eyes were filled with newfound pity. I pursed my lips subtly. Truth to be told, I did not like being pitied.
I nodded in silence.
“How can your parents treat you this way? Plus, what happened with Steven was not even your fault. Why did they push the responsibility onto you?”
Ronan stared at me sympathetically. Even so, his facial expression indicated his anger towards my parent’s behavior.
“It’s fine. I’m used to it anyways. It has always been like this since I was a little kid. They just made it even more obvious recently.”
I shrugged, feigning a look of nonchalance as I said that coolly.
“If you really are used to it, you wouldn’t have cried so hard just now. Also, given how sick you are, your parents still choose not to take care of you but be with your brother instead. That’s totally unacceptable.”
Ronan clasped my hands in his while looking at me. Heartache was written all over his face.
Overwhelmed with sorrow, I forgot to pull away from his touch. Instead, I let him continue holding my hands.
For the whole afternoon, Ronan stayed with me inside the ward. Time and time again, he would ask the nurses to take my temperature. His meticulous care for me touched me deeply.
However, there was something peculiar that I had noticed. For some unknown reason, all of the nurses seemed to treat Ronan with extra caution. All of them were very obedient to his orders. Is it because Ronan looks handsome?
No matter how hard I tried, that was the only reasoning that I could come up with.
Before long, the sun began to set. Ronan had taken care of me for hours. I was starting to feel sorry for taking up so much of his time. Just as I was about to ask him to go home, the door of the room swung open.
In walked Mom with a box of food in her hands.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Love from My Dominant Boss