Chapter 35
The months slipped by with merciless indifference.
Time refused to stop for anyone.
Not for Sean, whose body continued to surrender little by little.
Not for the tiny life growing inside Orm.
And certainly not for Orm herself.
Every sunrise only brought another battle she never asked to fight.
Sean grew weaker with each passing week.
The once vibrant man she had known now spent most of his days confined to a hospital bed, his skin growing paler, his smile becoming rarer, his breathing more fragile than the day before.
Some days he could still joke with her.
Some days he barely had enough strength to whisper her name.
And every time Orm looked at him, she could feel another piece of her heart breaking.
Not because she love him.
But because she knew she was slowly watching someone disappear while she stood there, utterly powerless to stop it.
At the same time, her pregnancy continued to progress.
Her baby was growing.
She could feel the tiny kicks becoming stronger every week, each movement reminding her that while one life seemed to be fading, another was desperately trying to enter the world.
Life and death had somehow chosen to coexist inside her.
One was asking her to hold on.
The other was teaching her how to let go.
There were days when she no longer knew who she was supposed to be.
A wife.
A caregiver.
A mother.
Or a patient pretending she wasn't breaking apart herself.
The lines between those roles had blurred so completely that she no longer recognized the woman carrying them all.
Some nights, she slept on the stiff couch beside Sean's hospital bed, waking at every sound from the heart monitor because she feared the silence that might follow.
Other nights, sleep never came at all.
The baby kicked so strongly beneath her heart that she would cradle her swollen stomach, whispering soft apologies to her unborn baby.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart..."
"I'm trying."
"I'm really trying."
Some mornings, she realized it was already afternoon before remembering she hadn't eaten.
Her mother and Sean's mother would gently scold her while placing warm food in front of her.
"You need to eat for the baby."
They reminded her every single day.
They helped her through every doctor's appointment.
Held her arm whenever her back hurt.
Massaged her swollen feet.
Made sure she took her vitamins.
They surrounded her with care that only mothers could give.
And Orm was endlessly grateful.
Truly grateful.
But no amount of kindness could reach the place where her heart had shattered.
Because there are wounds that even love cannot stitch back together.
Some pain simply learns how to live beside you.
Sometimes, during the rare moments she found herself alone, Orm would quietly walk into the hospital restroom.
She would stand before the mirror for several minutes without saying a word.
The woman staring back at her looked like a stranger.
The sparkle in her eyes had long disappeared.
Dark circles rested beneath them like permanent shadows.
Her cheeks had grown thinner.
Her smile...
She couldn't even remember the last time she'd genuinely smiled.
She lifted trembling fingers to touch her own reflection.
As though she were searching for the version of herself she had lost somewhere along the way.
Then, almost in a whisper, she asked the woman in the mirror,
"Who am I fighting for now?"
The reflection never answered.
Only silence greeted her.
And somehow...
Silence had become the loudest thing in her life.
...
Every night, when exhaustion finally forced her eyes to close, someone always found her in her dreams.
Lingling.
Always Lingling.
She would see that familiar smile...
The one capable of brightening even her darkest days.
She would hear her soft laughter echoing through memories she had tried so hard not to revisit.
She remembered the warmth of Lingling's hand wrapped around hers.
The tenderness in her voice whenever she whispered her name.
The quiet way she made the ordinary feel extraordinary.
And every single dream ended the same way.
Orm would reach for her...
Only to wake up with tears already running down her face.
She often found herself wondering...
If life had chosen differently...
If fate had been just a little kinder...
Would they be waking up beside each other now?
Would Lingling be rubbing soothing circles over her swollen stomach every morning?
Would they be arguing over baby names while laughing halfway through the conversation?
Would the baby have grown up surrounded by the love of the woman Orm had loved with every broken piece of her soul?
Maybe...
Just maybe...
They would have been happy.
It was a dangerous thought.
One she tried not to entertain.
Because imagining the life she could have had only made the one she was living even harder to bear.
—
There were mornings when her fingers instinctively reached for her phone.
Lingling's contact still remained there.
Untouched.
Unchanged.
She would stare at the screen for several minutes.
Sometimes longer.
Her thumb hovering over the call button.
Just one call.
Just one hello.
Just hearing Lingling's voice...
Perhaps that alone would be enough to make the unbearable feel bearable again.
But every single time...
She lowered the phone.
Because the memories returned just as quickly.
She remembered the devastation in Lingling's eyes.
The tears.
The heartbreak.
The silence that followed after Orm chose a path that shattered both of them.
How could she possibly reopen wounds she had created herself?
How could she ask Lingling to carry her pain too...
When Lingling had already carried enough because of her?
No.
She had already broken the woman she loved once.
She refused to do it again.
So instead...
Orm chose the cruelest form of love.
Loving someone from afar.
Silently.
Without expecting anything in return.
Without asking to be remembered.
Without asking to be forgiven.
She carried every burden alone because she believed Lingling deserved something she herself could no longer give.
Peace.
Healing.
A chance to rediscover the woman heartbreak had stolen from her.
Even if it meant Orm remained hopelessly lost.
—
Every single night, before sleep finally claimed her, Orm folded her hands over the gentle curve of her stomach and closed her eyes.
She prayed.
Not for herself.
Never for herself.
She prayed for Sean.
She prayed for Liam.
And then...
She prayed for the woman her heart had never stopped loving.
"Please..."
"Be kinder to her than life was to us."
"Give her the happiness I could never protect."
"Help her heal."
"Let her laugh again."
"Let her smile without remembering the pain I caused."
Her voice often cracked before she could finish.
Fresh tears slipped silently onto the blanket covering her swollen belly.
She smiled through them anyway.
A smile made entirely of heartbreak.
Then she whispered one final prayer into the quiet darkness.
"I know I no longer have the right to love her openly..."
"But if love can travel farther than people ever can..."
"...then please..."
"...let mine somehow find its way back to Lingling."
Because even if they were now living beneath different skies...
Even if fate had separated their paths beyond repair...
Orm hoped that somewhere-
In the gentlest breeze...
In the warmth of the morning sun...
In the unexpected feeling of peace that might one day settle inside Lingling's heart-
A small piece of her love would still reach her.
Quietly.
Tenderly.
Like it never truly left.
—
There were days when the ache inside Orm became too unbearable to ignore.
Days when she missed Lingling so fiercely that it felt as though every breath scraped against her chest.
On those days, nothing could distract her.
Not the hospital.
Not conversations.
Not the people who worried about her.
Nothing.
She would quietly excuse herself, retreat to the solitude, and reach for the one thing she guarded more carefully than anything else.
A slightly worn envelope.
The confession letter Lingling had written years ago.
The letter that had never reached her hands when it was meant to.
The letter Lingling had carried with trembling hope, only to return home with a shattered heart.
Months ago, Orm had found it hidden inside the old storage box—a box filled with their memories, little trinkets, photographs, movie tickets, dried flowers, handwritten notes, birthday gifts, and countless pieces of a love she had been too blind to see.
From that day forward, she never let the letter leave her side.
She carried it everywhere.
Inside her handbag.
In her pocket.
Sometimes she would even tuck it beneath her pillow before going to sleep, as though keeping it close could somehow lessen the emptiness Lingling had left behind.
The paper had become fragile from being unfolded over and over again.
Its edges were beginning to fray.
Tiny creases ran across every paragraph.
Even some of the ink had faded, blurred by countless tears that had fallen onto the pages.
Most people would have protected something so precious from damage.
Orm couldn't.
Because every time she missed Lingling...
She needed to read it again.
As if she were desperately searching for a different ending.
As if somehow...
the words would change.
As if one day she would open the letter and find another version where Lingling confessed, and Orm chose her.
But every single time...
The words remained exactly the same.
"My Dearest Orm..."
The first sentence alone was enough to make her vision blur.
She read every line slowly.
Every memory Lingling wrote became painfully vivid inside her mind.
The rainy morning in the company lobby.
The shared lunches.
Coffee runs.
Late nights spent finishing presentations together.
Beach trips.
Forehead kisses.
Holding hands without ever questioning why.
The way everyone jokingly called them wives.
Back then...
She had laughed.