The garden seemed to belong in a different universe than the hospital ward. Outside, the birds were chirping brightly while the sun shone down upon us. It was just the right temperature; not too hot, not too cold. Every breath was filled with fresh air.
Clearly, Camelia hadn’t had such a relaxing time in a long while.
Even though Marcus still looked disgruntled, he didn’t lash out again. It turned out that I had to do things the hard way with him.
It was pretty rare that the three of us were so peaceful. We only walked back leisurely after the nurse called Marcus in for another check-up.
His attending doctor called for Camelia and me to his office in the afternoon.
We felt pretty at ease when he called us in, but when we saw the stressed-out look on his face after we opened his office door, our high spirits dropped immediately.
Camelia was already used to all the bad news after staying by Marcus’ side for so long. She immediately sat down and asked, “Doctor, is something wrong with my husband’s condition?”
The doctor was an old professor who was around sixty years old. He took off his glasses after hearing Camelia’s question and sighed before he looked at us gravely. “His condition is worsening rapidly. We are going to need to intensify the frequency of his treatment and up the dosage of his medication, too. This won’t be comfortable for the patient. He would have a better time if he was checked out and brought home to rest. I called you both here to ask if you would like to continue with his treatment here or…” He trailed off.
“How could this be?” I said in disbelief. “He managed to eat some food yesterday, and we brought him out to get some sun earlier today. He seemed to be in better shape than before. Could there be a mistake?”
Camelia was quiet, but she had her phone in a vice grip below the table. She was clearly holding back her emotions and trying to stay calm as she squeezed out a pained smile. “If we up his medication dosage, would he still be able to live for a few more months as predicted before?” she asked in an almost pleading tone.
It was the doctor’s turn to fall silent. He frowned and shook his head as he sighed, leaving no hope to be found.
The scariest thing that could happen wasn’t falling into despair. It was the feeling of getting kicked back into the dark abyss of hopelessness after seeing the faintest glimmer of hope.
“Impossible,” I murmured to myself, trying to stay calm.
“Where are the professionals from overseas that Anthony reached out to? Why aren’t you consulting them, too? Marcus is getting better! You’re the doctor here, so how could you ask us to let him go and stop treatment? That’s so irresponsible!”
Camelia finally exploded and began hitting the table over and over again in frustration. All I could do was hug her tightly, trying to contain the situation before it got worse.
“Please calm down!” the doctor said hurriedly as he got up and tried to help Camelia’s situation. He finally gave us an explanation we couldn’t deny. “We have already explained the situation to you during our last few consultations. Chemotherapy is extremely harmful to the patient. The reason he suddenly changed and seemed better is clearly due to terminal lucidity! His energy is close to being used up. If we drag things out any longer, all that’s left of him will be an empty shell.”
“You’re lying! You’re lying. Marcus won’t die so easily! He won’t!” Camelia cried out.
She was clearly already losing control of her emotions, so I had to get the doctor to leave first so that we could have the room to ourselves while I calmed her down.
After a long while, she finally calmed down and slumped down in her chair with an empty gaze. It was as if all her life had been sucked out of her.
I finally sighed in relief when she suddenly sat upright and gripped my hand tightly. “You promised me that you would marry Marcus. You’re still following that promise, right?”
I frowned. Deep down inside, I was feeling uncomfortable about this whole thing, but I forced myself to nod anyway. “Of course.”
“Then we’ll do it tomorrow,” she said. “We’re running out of time.”
The next day, I put on my wedding dress again. Putting it on after my actual wedding had only just passed felt strange and almost surreal.
Anthony showed up next to me in a black suit, and his gaze met mine through the reflection of the mirror. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied before asking, “Everything is settled with the hospital and the church, right?”
Anthony pulled me into a hug. Despite the wedding dress adding an extra bulky layer around my midriff, he was still determined to hold it tightly with both hands as if defying reality. “Of course. No one wants this under wraps more than I do.”
I completely understood where Anthony was coming from. Our wedding had only just passed, and Wenville’s Hanfu craze was still ongoing. The names Sienna and Anthony had practically become a replacement for Romeo and Juliet. If word got out that I was putting on a wedding dress to get married to another man, it would be instantly frowned upon. In order to avoid getting backlash, the whole wedding had to be kept secret.
After hugging him for a while longer, Anthony helped me down the stairs. I had changed the other wedding dress for a slightly simpler, thinner version, but I was still wearing heels that made it extremely hard for me to walk properly.
We didn’t add any overly modern details because I wanted Marcus to see my sincerity.
The van was parked by the back door of the hospital, and there were bodyguards stationed throughout the pathway from the back door to the stairs. All the visitors and family members of the patients on Marcus’ floor had been dispersed, and in their place were nurses under the Featherstone Corporation.
In Love, Never Say Never
The bright red shade of the wedding dress reflected subtly against the white hospital walls, coloring them with a faint blush that formed and disappeared like ocean waves as I walked past.
No one else was there to watch, which was why the journey was completely unobstructed.
Joseph placed the neatly folded groom’s outfit in my hands and opened the door respectfully before stepping aside.
When I walked in, I saw Marcus taking a shallow nap on his bed. He only opened his eyes a few seconds after hearing my footsteps.
It probably appeared to be a dream to him until he saw the dress I was wearing. The moment he saw me, his eyes widened, and his gaze became completely alert.
“Y-You-” Marcus stammered, unable to form a full sentence in his excitement.
I picked up the layers of my skirt with my fingers and smiled. “Doesn’t it look nice? Remember how I told you that I would definitely wear a dress like this when I get married?”
“I-It looks good,” Marcus said in a raspy voice. His eyes gleamed with happiness before dulling down again. “What does all this have to do with me, though?”
I smiled and lifted up the groom’s suit in hand. After I walked over, I placed it on his bed and said, “You wanted to get married, right? I’ve finally thought it over. Go get changed! We’ll get married right now.”
The longer I looked at the groom’s suit, the more I started to think about Anthony instead. I couldn’t help but smile and couldn’t help myself from straightening out the creases with my palm. “No matter how much I look at it, this is such a nice style of formal dressing.”
After I spoke, I finally came to my senses and looked at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re not regretting things, are you?”
Marcus didn’t answer and changed the subject. “Why did you suddenly change your mind?”
I maintained my smile as I shrugged and said casually, “You were the one who said it, remember? No matter what, I can’t say no. If I said it was because I owed it to you or because I felt bad for you, would you suddenly turn me down? If that’s the case, I’m happy to go home.”
“No,” Marcus quickly said as he swung off the blanket and sat up with difficulty. “It sounds like you want me to say no. Don’t worry, I won’t. I will officially become your husband.”
“Whatever you say. Either way, there’s no way you’re getting out of this one,” I said faux-nonchalantly. After that, I turned around and walked out as I said, “Joseph will help you change. Let’s meet at the church.”
“Wait!” Marcus called out, the force of his voice causing him to cough once loudly. Even after he coughed, though, he didn’t finish his sentence.
Despite that, I knew what he wanted to say. He was just worried that I’d suddenly go back on my word.
“You know me. Since I agreed, I will keep my promise.”
After that, I walked out of the room without waiting for Marcus’ response.
I closed the door and took the bag that Camelia had left in front of the door before walking to a safer spot. As per the plan, I then made a call to Camelia.
“You finally decided to call!” The hospital had been closed off since last night, so Camelia was clearly highly-strung after not being able to see Marcus for so long. “Anthony’s guards didn’t let me go upstairs, and you weren’t picking up your phone. What are the two of you up to? Even if you got cold feet, you shouldn’t be stopping me from seeing him! He never did anything to either of you!”
“Just calm down first,” I said with a sigh. “I’m going downstairs. Go wait for me at the back entrance.”
“You’re leaving?” Camelia’s logic was already taken over by her panic. “Sienna, was I wrong to trust you?”
“No, that’s not it.” I knew that if I tried to explain now, things would only get messier, so I said abruptly, “Anyway, I’ll see you at the back entrance. Of course, whether you come or not is up to you.”
As I expected, Camelia was already waiting for me when I reached the back entrance.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.