From the window, one could see the sky outside darkening as rain clouds gathered, covering the bright sun. The woman in the ward looked as gloomy as the dark sky. She suffered from an inner storm.
“Don’t you want to explain yourself?” Brandon’s eyes, which were trained on her, were as sharp as an eagle’s.
Charis swallowed uneasily. Brandon’s question was straightforward. Apparently, he had already talked to Natalie before they came. Charis wasn’t sure what Natalie had told Brandon, but she doubted Natalie had any evidence of her past crimes. Therefore, it was likely that Natalie didn’t tell Brandon everything. Otherwise, Brandon wouldn’t have been so gracious as to give her a chance to explain herself. In fact, he might not have visited her at all.
Since Charis had figured this out, she knew what to do next. She pretended to be angry and asked pointedly, “Why don’t you trust me? I’ve never lied to you! Brandon, I described your relationship with Natalie only from the perspective of an outsider. Didn’t I tell you before? You never talked to me about your relationship with her. If you didn’t tell me anything, how could I have known whether or not you two had a good relationship? Now, I realize that I must’ve misunderstood your relationship. Иσνєℓєвσσк.¢σм After all, what I saw was just the way you two got along in public. You are always cold and indifferent with everyone. I thought you didn’t like her either.”
Charis’s explanation was somewhat convincing. It was true that Brandon didn’t talk about his private affairs with others. But Charis was an intelligent woman with a discerning eye. She should’ve seen the relationship between Brandon and Natalie for what it really was, which meant that she wasn’t telling the whole truth. Still, it was difficult for Brandon to tell which part of her words was true and which part was not. They had known each other for years, thus he still trusted Charis somewhat. As for Natalie, Brandon could only feel that there was some sort of a special bond between them. But every time he tried to recall something related to her or their past together, he’d get a splitting headache that would debilitate his thinking.
“Indeed, I’m not good at expressing myself.” Brandon fell silent for a moment. After a while, he stood up and said, “All right. Get some rest. I have to go back to work. I’ll visit you another time.” Although what he said wasn’t out of character, his eyes were as cold as ice. No matter how hard she tried, Charis couldn’t read him. So she simply forced a smile in response. She could see that although Brandon had stopped questioning her, he didn’t trust her as much as before.
Not long after Brandon and Natalie left, Charis’s attending doctor entered the ward with several nurses. The doctor glanced at Luke and then said to Charis, “Miss Turner, the gauze can be removed today.”
Charis had been in the hospital for a long time now. Because her burns were severe, the doctor never talked about removing the gauze until she had calmed down. After all, in his experience, many burn patients just broke down as soon as they saw their disfigured faces.
Charis was nervous. Her whole face and body had been covered in gauze since she woke up. She couldn’t see how bad it really was and therefore hadn’t mentally prepared herself for the fact that she was disfigured.
Standing beside the bed, Luke said in a fatherly tone, “Only after checking the wounds can the doctor decide the treatment plan for the next stage.”
“Okay.” Charis slowly squeezed her eyes shut and lay still. She could feel the nurses slowly peel layer upon layer of gauze off her body. Then she heard someone gasping. Иσνєℓєвσσк.¢σм Charis slowly opened her eyes, only to find her mother crying in her father’s arms. The doctor and the nurses also looked at her in shock. There was even a trace of pity and fear in their eyes.
Charis slowly turned her head to look at the mirror in the ward. The reflection staring back at her didn’t look human at all. She looked like a monster in the shape of a human. Not a single part of her skin was intact, and her face was beyond recognition. The large black scabs all over her body looked like a pangolin’s shell.
In the blink of an eye, Charis’s self-esteem was shattered. She started scratching at the scabs on her face like a madwoman and screamed at the top of her lungs hysterically.
Charis was utterly horrified by what she saw. In a streak of madness, she started clawing at the skin on her face fiercely, as though she could tear the ugly skin off and throw it away. Seeing that Charis was going crazy, the nurses and the doctor sprang into action and rushed to hold her down.
“Miss Turner, please calm down. This situation is very normal. You can still recover in time,” the doctor said, struggling to hold one of her arms down. Anyone with a brain knew that he was just trying to console her.
There wasn’t a hair left on Charis’s disfigured head; they had all been burnt to a crisp. It was nothing more than a fantasy to think that she could ever recover from this and look the same as before. No one knew where her explosive strength came from, but Charis somehow managed to shove all the nurses off of her and bolted to the door. She couldn’t stay here! And she didn’t want anyone to look at her as though she was a monster.
Just as Charis was about to reach the door, she bumped into Catherine, who had rushed over to block her way. Seeing her daughter like this, Catherine’s heart broke into a thousand pieces. She hurriedly threw her arms around Charis and held her tightly.
“It’s going to be okay, my baby. Once you’ve completely recovered, it won’t be so bad. Then you can have surgery to remove the scars,” Catherine comforted her daughter.
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Maybe it was Catherine’s gentle and patient voice that calmed Charis down. She hugged her mother back tightly and burst into tears. In between sobs, she cried, “Mom, I’m a freak now. How can I face the world like this? Even if I have plastic surgery, things will never be the same.” She sobbed hysterically and went limp in Catherine’s arms, unable to hold herself up.
Catherine was also grieving over her daughter’s misfortune. She didn’t have the strength to support her daughter on her own, and the two of them collapsed to the ground. The mother-daughter duo held each other and wailed in anguish. Catherine had always been a dignified and reserved woman who could keep her composure even if her husband’s mistress showed up at her doorstep to stir up trouble. But now, she couldn’t stop herself from crying hysterically in front of so many people.
“You’ll still have Mom and Dad. No matter what happens, you’re still our beautiful daughter,” Catherine reassured Charis, tears streaming down her cheeks uncontrollably. She patted Charis on the back and comforted her softly.
Charis’s face was also covered in tears. Her burnt face contorted as she cried, making her look even more ugly. Desperate, she roared at the top of her lungs, “What’s the point? Brandon won’t love me anymore!”
In the past, Charis had always thought that she and Brandon were the perfect match. But now, how could she stand beside him with such a disgusting face? She didn’t even deserve to be in the same room as him! Realizing this, her eyes took on a fiercely dangerous light. This was all Natalie’s fault. That bitch deserved to die a horrible death!
Natalie sneezed three times in a row, rubbing the tip of her reddened nose. She looked at Brandon and asked, “What did the doctor my father hired say?” Recently, Natalie had been accompanying Brandon in his treatments, but the situation was not optimistic.