Chapter 522 Remember To Apply The Medication
When I arrived at Birchwood, I saw Janette sitting on the living room couch the moment I entered. Given that she was sitting in the same spot when I left the day before, I suspected that she didn’t move at all since then.
As I laid out the breakfast I brought from home on the table, I invited her in a gentle voice, “Janette, I brought you breakfast. Come and have some.”
However, she didn’t even look at me. It was as if she didn’t hear me at all. With a listless look in her eyes, it felt as if she had lost her soul.
Cognizant that she was still affected by what happened, I sighed with resignation before taking a seat by her side.
Looking at her side profile, I suggested softly, “Your mom will be discharged today. Do you want to go back home and stay there? I’m worried about you staying here all alone.”
Just as I spoke, Janette turned to face me and yelled emotionally, “No, I don’t want to go back! If Mom finds out that I was… How am I going to face everyone?”
Her sudden outburst gave me a fright which I took some time to recover from.
Evidently, she did hear me but had chosen to ignore me instead. It wasn’t until I asked her to go home that she began to rebut me.
“I know how difficult it is for you to face what happened. Every woman in your position would be equally devastated. However, since what’s happened has happened, you will need to learn how to deal with it. Avoiding it just isn’t the way to go.”
Patting Janette on her shoulder, I gave her a sympathetic look. At the end of the day, she was still my mother’s daughter. Although I resented her, she was still closer to me than the average stranger.
“That’s easy for you to say. If you were in my shoes, can you pretend as if nothing happened? Can you bear the fact that everyone knows you’ve been sullied?”
As she glared at me intensely with her bloodshot eyes, her face had lost all color. At that moment, she looked absolutely terrifying.
Trembling as she spoke, it was obvious that she was suppressing her own emotions and fear.
“No, but you can’t change the past. Other than facing it, what other choice do you have? Do you intend to continue hiding here from everyone?”
To be honest, if the same thing happened to me, my reaction would be even more extreme than Janette’s. As a woman, my honor was extremely important to me. If I was the one who was raped that night, I might not even have the courage to carry on living.
“Since you admitted to not being able to face it, what gives you the right to ask me to do the same? Anna, don’t pretend to sympathize with me. I became this way entirely because of you. Why are you my mom’s illegitimate daughter? If my mom didn’t come here to find you, I wouldn’t have come here to look for her. Naturally, all this wouldn’t have happened too!”
Infuriated, Janette stared daggers at me.
When she blamed everything on me, I furrowed my brows in indignance, for I felt that it had nothing to do with me at all. It was she who ran away in anger after having a fight with Alicia. Therefore, it didn’t make sense for her to blame it on me. It wasn’t like I was the one who got those men to rape her.
Despite what went through my mind, I didn’t reveal it to her. I just put it down to her venting her frustration on me as a result of her inability to accept what happened.
“If you think that it’s my fault, then so be it. Anyway, you had better eat the food I brought before it gets cold. Unless of course, you’re trying to starve yourself?”
I was certain that Janette hadn’t had anything to eat since last afternoon. In fact, I even suspected that she didn’t sleep a wink the night before.
Given what she had been through, I decided to look past her baseless accusation. Although it was none of my business whether she died of hunger or not, she was still staying at our place. If anything were to happen to her here, it would definitely be troublesome for me and Michael.
After shooting me a glance, Janette opened the lunchbox I brought her and began to dig in.
When I saw her finally eating, I let out a sigh of relief. Sitting by her side, I continued to silently watch her eat. While she was wolfing down her food, I could see that her eyes were reddened, as if she was trying to endure something.
Even when she finished, she didn’t say a word to me nor did I to her, for I had no intention of getting into another argument with her.
Instead, I packed up the lunch box and prepared to leave.
Since she could barely eat, she probably had no mood to shower or apply medication. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but remind her when I had reached the door. “I’ll come by again at night and bring you dinner. If you don’t feel like meeting anyone these few days, I’ll bring you a change of clothes too. Also, there’s the medication the doctor prescribed to you yesterday for… the tear in your private parts. Don’t forget to apply it.”
The instant she heard my words, Janette scowled at me with bloodshot eyes.
The tear in her private parts was caused by the gang rape, which was the biggest humiliation of her life. My reminder for her to apply the medication had undoubtedly triggered her memories from the night before.
It wasn’t my intention to bring up the matter, and I was only acting out of goodwill when I reminded her to apply the medication. After all, she had to accept what happened.
Regardless of how serious her wound was, I didn’t wish for her to suffer any side effects.
When I saw the hatred in her eyes, I turned and left without saying another word.
After leaving Birchwood, I heard my phone ring and saw that it was Ronan on the line. I still felt awkward when I thought back to what he said to me in the ward.
I was reluctant to answer at first, but the fact that I still saw him as a friend drove me to do so after a brief hesitation.
“Hello? Ronan?”
“Your mom is being discharged today. Why aren’t you here?” Ronan’s question rang out over the line.
“I have something to attend to today, so I couldn’t pick her up from the hospital. Besides, she’s already fine. It doesn’t make a difference whether I’m there or not,” I casually remarked.
I could gather from Ronan’s tone that he was currently in the hospital.
“And here I was hoping to run into you in the hospital. But sadly, You’re nowhere to be found. Can’t say that I’m not disappointed.”
