The tube that connected the IV needle to the drip bag was indeed starting to turn from clear to blood- red.
The nurse looked over her shoulder at me and did a double take. When she tried to pull out the IV needle, tiny drops of blood spurted out.
Using a cotton swab and iodophor to clean the wound, she instructed, “Hold this for a minute.”
I held the cotton swab in place, internally lamenting about how complicated humans’ blood circulatory systems were. All veins had the same purpose of sending blood to different parts of the body but getting them mixed up might potentially cause a health hazard.
The spot on the back of my left hand was no longer bleeding, but a bruise was starting to form, much to my dismay.
As I chucked the cotton swab into the nearby trash can, the nurse also noticed the growing bruise on my left hand. She furrowed her eyebrows slightly and looked apologetic but didn’t say anything.
She took my hand in hers and inspected it closely, searching for another more suitable spot to insert the IV needle.
I couldn’t help but pity myself whenever I looked at the tiny lump on my left hand. “Maybe we could try my right hand?”
I would’ve hated it if the nurse somehow accidentally inserted the IV needle into the wrong vein on my left hand again, creating yet another bruise there.
Nodding, she lowered her head and gestured for me to clench my right hand into a fist.
Fortunately, the process was much smoother this time, and nothing happened after the IV needle went in.
The nurse packed her medical tools, staring woefully at the bruise on my left hand. “I’ll go get a pack of ice for you.”
I nodded. My vision of her was slightly blurry due to one of my eyes being covered by bandages.
Things always looked a little blurrier when you were staring at them using one eye instead of two.
John stepped into the room and brushed past the nurse, who couldn’t help but gaze admiringly at him. A man with his handsome looks was bound to attract female attention wherever he went.
He was probably used to it as well. He walked into the room and gazed down at me, his eyes full of worry. After glancing up and down my body, his eyes settled on the pinpricks of blood on the back of my hand.
“How did you manage to do that to yourself?”
I replied blithely, “My skin is too fair, I suppose. It was very difficult to find the veins.”
John frowned a little but didn’t say anything more. As he continued to gaze at me, he asked, “Well, how do you feel?”
I evaded his question expertly. “Have you found Summer?”
John nodded and replied, “Yes, we’ve already found him. Anthony suspected Kristina all along, but it wasn’t until he found Summer that he realized something was terribly off. That was when he went to look for you in the factory.”
I pursed my lips. Anthony was a very clever man indeed. Also, that taxi driver had disappointed me greatly! I thought he would at least be kind enough to help me call the police.
I couldn’t help but sigh. Strangers weren’t to be trusted, after all.
John looked at me with a strange expression on his face. “Why aren’t you asking me how Anthony is?”
That was a difficult question. How was I supposed to answer that?
Anthony had shielded me from most of the sulfuric acid, so his injuries were probably far worse than mine. However, I was still a little hesitant about asking John about his condition.
I looked up at John and asked morosely, “John, don’t you think I’m pretty selfish?”
He knitted his brows together. In a low voice, he replied, “Jared has been planning this for a long time. You’re not to blame for this incident, because you couldn’t have predicted his actions. It’s well within your rights to be mad at Anthony, but Sienna, you must know that he has put in his best effort for you.”
Yes, Anthony had put in his very best effort. He was a human being and not a god, after all. He couldn’t have known that Jared was hiding a deep grudge and that after so many years, Jared had finally laid a trap for the both of us.
However, Anthony was the root cause of that grudge in the first place! That was an undeniable fact.
Seeing the complicated emotions swirling in my eyes, John sighed a little, looking very helpless. “Sienna, if you don’t let go of your grudge now, you’ll have an even harder time in the future.”
I looked up at him and retorted, “What about you, then? Can you disregard Hannah’s family background and live happily with her for the rest of your life?”
John fell silent at my question. Looking rather perturbed, he muttered, “We’re talking about your situation right now.”
I nodded. “Yes, we are talking about me right now. I’m just making you see things from my perspective. Sometimes, it’s hard to understand the viewpoint of the other party when you aren’t in their shoes. You might even think I’m making a big fuss over nothing. However, if the same thing happens to you, you might be singing a different tune.”
John pursed his lips, probably thinking that I was a lost cause. The room descended into an awkward silence.
As the anaesthesia began to wear off, a burning feeling gripped my face. I lay in bed, thinking miserably about how my face would look after the injury started scarring.
Because of my incident, Zachary and Cameron rushed over to the hospital immediately. The moment she saw me, tears fell from Cameron’s eyes like a string of broken pearls.
I wasn’t in a talking mood, so both of them chose to remain silent as well. Knowing that Anthony had caused my injury indirectly, their faces were clouded over with rage.
However, after they found out that Anthony had taken the splash of sulfuric acid for me, their expressions lightened up a little.
That, however, didn’t change the fact that I had been injured anyway. They wanted an explanation for this.
Louis was a very powerful man. If he employed his usual methods of chasing down people, the Crest family would be defenceless regardless of how much influence they commanded in society. After all, they had injured someone.
Hence, Jared had been apprehended for charges of causing intentional hurt before long. Everyone had expected this outcome. The man was now a criminal.
Anthony had been very badly injured by the sulfuric acid, and a large part of his skin had been corroded by the chemical. He had to be kept under strict observation by the hospital at all times.
After spending a few days in the intensive care unit, his condition finally seemed to improve.
When they finally transferred him to a normal ward, he was still confined to his bed. The doctors had already removed the bandages from my face, and my eyes had made a full recovery. However, my face was scarred for life.
The scar was on the left side of my face, right next to my eye. It was a rather small wound that was no larger than the size of my thumb, but it seemed so much more obvious because it was on my face.
Because the scar was so obvious, I had put some silicone tape on it. The nurses had recommended it to me, telling me that it could help improve the appearance of the scar over time.
Since I was still alive, I couldn’t let this scar cause too much disruption in my life.
Anthony was still in a coma. The doctors said he needed to rest—he had been very badly injured, so much so that he had damaged some nerves in his brain.
I grabbed a stool and sat down next to him, gazing at his face. Because he had been burnt on his back, he was lying down on his stomach.
Seeing his face, which was still as handsome as ever, I mused that we both made up for the defects in each other’s appearance.
After so many years, we could no longer tell whether we were together because of love, or because we owed too much to each other.
Because we owed each other too much, we were bound to each other for life.
Anthony finally woke up at night. The doctor changed his bandages and warned, “You’ll be in a great deal of pain when the anaesthesia wears off.” He turned to me and continued, “The patient will be bedridden for now. Make sure to change his urine catheter and wipe him down every couple of hours so he doesn’t feel too uncomfortable.”
I nodded— I already knew what I had to do. This was probably the first time I had been entrusted with taking care of Anthony.
He had always been very healthy in the past. I couldn’t recall a time when he was gravely ill.
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.
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