“As long as the dish is cooked by you, I would love it.” While spoke, he pecked on her cheek.
Loredana didn’t have time to check on him. Before the noodles were fully cooked, she put the lettuces and turned over the gas off. Since Cormac was holding her like this, she couldn’t move around. She patiently said, “Could you stop playing at being cute, please? Just go out and wait for your food.”
Cormac released her, but he didn’t go out. Instead, he pulled her away. “I’ll put it into the bowl.”
He opened the cabinet and got a rice bowl. When he was about to put the noodles into it, Loredana asked, “Are you sure you’re gonna use this bowl?”
Cormac looked down and check it on, but he didn’t find anything wrong. “Don’t we use this bowl to eat?”
He wondered what was wrong.
Loredana heaved a sigh, took the bowl from his hand, and explained to him by the way, “This is a rice bowl. You should put the noodle soup into a noodle bowl because it’s big enough for the soup. The rice bowl is way too small. If you leave the noodles in the pot, they would lump shortly. Hence, you should use this one.”
She opened another cabinet, took out a white glazed noodle bowl, and gave it to Cormac.
Cormac looked up at her and took the bowl over with a smile. He filled the bowl with the noodle soup, and Loredana took the stir-fried dishes to the dining table — stir-fried tomatoes with eggs and stir-fried green pepper with sliced meat. She put the lettuces in the noodle soup.
Pulling out a chair, she sat down. Cormac put the noodle bowl on the table and sat down opposite her. “Would you like some?”
Loredana shook her head. Cormac had been used to eating noodle soup with stir-friend tomatoes with eggs in this way. Loredana didn’t need to tell him again, and he mixed the dish with the noodle soup already. “Probably you can cook the noodle soup with the stir-fried tomatoes with eggs together.” He believed that it would save much time. It was way too troublesome in the current way. Loredana needed to stir fry the tomato with eggs first before putting them on the noodle soup.
Loredana supported her chin and didn’t retort him. She said, “I’ll try your method to cook it next time.”
She used the current method because the tomato juice would come out after being stir-fried. It wouldn’t look good but also be with a strong flavor. If she cooked them all together with the noodle soup, the tomato could be over-cooked with less flavor.
Cormac picked up sliced meat and took a bite. The meat was quite tender. After the marination, the meat’s smell had completely gone. He looked up at her. “Have you learned how to cook?”
Loredana nodded. “In the past, I could only cook the noodle soup with the stir-fried tomatoes and eggs. After giving birth, I made time to learn to cook some simple dishes. If I had time, I’ll cook for them myself.” After having the kids, she wanted to learn how to cook. She felt that it was a happiness to prepare three meals for her children. However, she had to work, so she could only make certain time to cook for them when spending time with them.
Cormac looked down slightly. He didn’t participate in the past six years. When listening to her talk about those things, he felt quite depressed.
He cast a glance at the clock on the wall and asked, “Aren’t you sleepy yet?”
Loredana was indeed sleepy. She didn’t take a nap again after being woken up by Coral.
“You should go upstairs and sleep.” Cormac could tell how sleepy she was. He didn’t have the heart to let her wait here.
Loredana hesitated for a moment, stood up, and said, “Okay. I’ll go upstairs. Put the dishes in the sink after you’ve done.”
“I got it. Just go ahead,” Cormac interrupted her.
Loredana went upstairs. She had already taken a shower. After lying on the bed, she soon fell asleep and even didn’t know when Cormac came upstairs.
In her dream, she felt that someone was holding her from behind. Her subconsciousness told her who that was, so she was sleeping soundly.
Boyce led the team to search until the latter half of the night but still failed to find them. The cave entrance from which Armand and Theresa had slid down was in a secret place and the cave was deep. Even if there was any sound above, they couldn’t hear it at all, unless it was a huge noise.
After a night, Armand’s cell phone died. They were in the cave but didn’t speak at all for a whole night.
When the sun rose, there was light in the cave. Armand checked on Theresa, only to find that she was leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. He thought that she had fallen asleep, so he dared not to make any sound at all.
However, after a long while, Theresa still didn’t open her eyes. Armand tried to call her, “Theresa?”
She didn’t answer.
He called again, “Theresa?”
There was still no answer. He frowned and gradually approached her, reaching out to touch her. “Theresa…”
As soon as he touched her body, Armand felt the burning heat. In a hurry, he covered her forehead — it was quite hot. He didn’t know when she was on fever. Without a thermometer, he was sure that she was on a high fever.
Her lips dried out with a layer of skin. Armand held her and patted her on the cheeks. He kept calling her name, but she had no response at all. She was totally in a coma. Armand was so anxious. He shouted to the entrance of the cave, hoping to attract people’s attention and rescue them.
He shouted till his voice got hoarse, but there was no response at all. Dizzily, Theresa heard Armand’s voice. She wanted to open her eyes but she was too weak. She just felt so thirsty and cold.
“Water… Water…” Her voice was as low as a mosquito’s. Armand didn’t hear it clearly. When his ear approached her lips, he finally heard what she was muttering about.
However, there was no water in the cave. Besides the rocks, there were only dried branches and leaves.
If they couldn’t get out and she kept being on fever, Armand couldn’t imagine what would happen.
If they just sat and wait to be saved, they would have to wait for a long time. Theresa couldn’t continue waiting upon her current status. He put her down gently, walked to the entrance, and looked up. The entrance wasn’t straight from the ground above, so he couldn’t see anything above at all. All the light came in through that narrow crack.
Looking at Theresa who was lying next to him, he whispered, “I’ll definitely help you out of here.”
He didn’t fear death, but he couldn’t let Theresa die.
He took off his shirt and shoes. Clinging his skin to the rock would increase the drag force, which would help him to climb. Since the entrance was broad flat, he estimated the distance. Then he turned his body aside, supported himself with his legs against the rocks on both sides, and started climbing up.
However, when he started moving practically, he found the distance between the two rock walls was not the same. The higher he climbed up, the wider the gap was. His legs couldn’t be opened up so widely in the end. Even if he could move to the side, he couldn’t keep climbing up.
He hadn’t eaten for a whole day and night, so he was a bit weak now. His body suddenly lost some strength, and he slid down again. However, he didn’t give up. He tried again and again but fell all the time.
In a daze, Theresa faintly saw a figure climbing up to the entrance of the cave. He went up and fell, again and again. She tried to remind him not to waste his energy, but she was too weak. When she was locked up, she was afraid that the food and water were with some drug, so she dared not to eat at all. Now she was on fever, so she was way too weak.
She wanted to stop him but couldn’t speak out at all.
Armand’s strength became less and less after he fell again and again. In the end, he was too worn out, looking up in despair.
It was alright if he would die, but what should Theresa do?
She escaped from death last time, changed her appearance and voice, and tried her best to survive. Would she die here?
Probably sweats or tears dropping from the corners of his eyes.
He wondered what he should do.
He turned around and looked at Theresa, who was half squinting. Her eyes were blurred, so she couldn’t see Armand’s expression clearly. Instead, she could only see his outline.
She saw that figure crawling to her. He reached out to brushed the hair on her forehead and said hoarsely, “I’m not afraid of death at all. I feel good when dying with you together. At least, we can be together, but I can’t let you die.”
Theresa looked at him, seeing that he shed tears and wept like a baby.
“I’ve never told you about my parents. It’s not because I don’t trust you or I don’t love you. It’s because… whenever I recalled it, I would have a nightmare for a long time, but right now, I want to tell you. I’m afraid in the future I wouldn’t have the chance to have the nightmare at all. I’m afraid I would have no chance to confess my love to you.”
He wiped his face. “I can’t remember how old I was at that time. Probably I deliberately try to ignore the things that happened in my childhood, so I forgot anything about myself.
“My mother cheated on my father. I saw her take a man home and have sex with him in the bedroom belonged to her and my father…”
Armand lowered his head. Theresa couldn’t see his expression, but she could feel his helplessness and hatred at that time.
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