13 Three Months and Ten Days

[The Nurse's POV]

They said whoever love first would be the one losing. I thought this statement held the most honest but painful truth. Because then, we would be the one giving out the most.

Every inch of our heart, we offered them for the sake of the promise and the vow. Every moment gave us more hope and every memory we shared, we craved for more.

The greed was always there. But love only made it bigger until we no longer knew what was right, what was wrong, and which was a lie.

"Love makes us blind," they said. And that was the second fact.

I knew firsthand how destructive and consuming love could be. If you let yourself loose in the pleasure, you ended up drowning, sinking to the very depth of it and ended up losing yourself.

There would be neither surface nor bottom. There was only in between as we swam forth thinking there was an end to it.

Happiness was the goal. It had always been the finishing line.

"But has anyone ever thought that it could be just an illusion?" I said as I watched the leaves gently floated down.

"We crave so much for love. For a happy ever after," I continued to speak, "But we forget that it takes two for a relationship to work."

"In the end, we row the boat ourselves, expecting so much out of love, only to end up with a heartbreak."

I looked away from the window and turned to face her. The patient I had been attending to.

She was a woman with pale skin and a fair complexion. Her soft light brown hair as the result of hair dye, hung just below her waist. I remembered it clearly. She had it short before, just a little below her shoulders. But I guessed time grew on them.

And just like her hair, her body experienced changes as well. She was not fat before but more towards the curvy type. But now, she was down right thin. Her small cheeks and thin arms appeared as if they would break with just a little force.

Her pale and dry lips along with her face that was devoid of color, if a child saw her, I was sure they would cry and shouted like they had seen a ghost.

However what frightened me, what made me anxious and felt like escaping this room was not her appearance.

In fact, if I looked closely, if one would spare a moment to observe her more, they would realize what a delicate beauty she was.

She was not the type of woman that would strike anyone speechless with her beauty, nor the type that could cause the downfall of a nation or a riot between men.

Her beauty had been calming, like a spring breeze blowing softly in the morning. It was easy to the eyes of the beholder. The more they saw, the more pleasant she became.

Miss Huang Li Fei had been that way. When people saw her as an arrogant and foolish crazy lady, I could see the faltering pride in her eyes that she had struggled to uphold.

When they said she was pathetic and disillusioned because she shamefully went between young master Lu and lady Hua, all I saw was the fight she put up to protect the smallest hope she had on her failing love.

I could see everything she did out of love, out of desperation. I could felt everything she felt when it all came falling down on her.

I knew....because we were the same. I experienced it too, the cruelty of love.

"But you know Miss Huang, it wasn't our fault. And I'm not saying that it's anyone's fault either."

I smiled bitterly as I lowered my head, recalling the past.

"We just fell in love with the wrong person at the wrong time," I stated. "It's unfortunate but it's inevitable. They just come suddenly and catch us off-guard."

And now, she was left with a broken heart and the scattered pieces stabbing on her skin. We were hurt by our own love.

I lifted my head and was immediately surprised by a pair of grey eyes staring back at me.

It wasn't Miss Huang's appearance that frightened me and made me want to run away but, it was her eyes.

The way her empty grey eyes stared into space. The blankness of her expression along with the eerie calmness on her face. She was like a porcelain doll lying quietly on the hospital bed.

And now, she was staring blankly at me. There wasn't a single hint of emotion in her eyes or on her face. She was soulless like a mannequin standing still on a platform.

The stillness around her felt suffocating and the coldness of the air sent my body shivering. I was breathless while my brain only caught on one thing, she moved!

My name was Chun Yi and it had been three months before Miss Huang finally opened her eyes. Ten days had passed since then. Today was the eleventh day and the first time Miss Huang showed a movement.