Filed to story: Loving You In My Final Days
Abigail was even more confused but before she could say anything more, he spoke again.
“You don’t want to? Did you already change your mind?” he asked, seemingly disappointed.
But the moment he began retracting his hand, Abigail took the piece of paper he was holding out to her.
The man smiled in satisfaction before he moved away. “Bye bye, Miss Yellow! See you!” he waved and then before she knew it, he disappeared from her sight, leaving her blinking in confusion and curiosity as she stared at the note in her hand.
As she left the city, Abigail’s mind began to wander.
She was already twenty-two and still never had a boyfriend. She grew up within a peaceful, loving family and she had grown up into a really good girl. Some even compared her to an untainted snow, well-mannered and pure, but most mocked her, calling her, Miss goody-two-shoes or little Miss Priss.
As she was growing up, Abigail had gotten used to other people mocking her but her grandparents always encouraged and advised her to not let the water around her enter her ship, otherwise, she would drown. She had been raised to keep a positive mindset and she herself decided that there was no way she would let those kinds of people drown her.
She had a reason for why she had never had a boyfriend in her twenty-two years of existence. When she was seventeen, she realized that she had developed a trauma – she was afraid of having someone fall in love with her.
Abigail had witnessed just how much her father suffered day by day, even years after her mother died. It was unbearable for her to even watch him. Her father loved her mother so much that even after nearly two decades her death, she still saw her dad crying at night, looking at his wife’s photo. She had seen just how painful it was to lose someone you loved through her father – it was nothing but torture. She even once heard her father saying that he didn’t feel alive anymore since that day her mother died. She knew that her father was only holding on because of her.
Years after her mother’s death, Abigail was diagnosed with the same illness that killed her mother. It appeared that she inherited the illness from her and since then, she’d been battling with it. She was only seventeen that time and she knew that just like her mother, she only had 5 more years to live.
That was why she always rejected the boys who showed any interest in her. There were a few of them but her fear would always be triggered especially when someone confessed to her. All she could say to them was ‘sorry’. Due to that, Abigail avoided boys as much as she could. She even purposely dressed quite unfashionably in order to become less attractive.
However, as years passed by, Abigail started to question herself. ‘Will I die just like this?’
The desires that she had been suppressing all this time were getting out of control. She had been dreaming of wanting to experience how it would feel like to love someone. She wanted to know how it would feel to have butterflies in one’s stomach, and how it would feel to kiss and embrace that person you loved with all your heart, romantically. She had read many webnovels and she couldn’t help but wish she could at least experience this so called love before she died. That was her only wish – to fall in love, to find someone she could fall in love with.
But she was torn. She was afraid and worried sick. She didn’t want to leave someone behind to suffer when she was gone. She didn’t want anyone to experience the loss and pain her father was going through until now.
For years, she’d been thinking about it and she thought she had already accepted her fate but now that her due date was getting closer, the desire in her heart only kept on getting stronger. So she decided to be brave and try her best to make her wish come true with the little time she had left.
The only way she could think of to fulfill her wish was – to find a man whom she could fall in love with but would never fall in love with her. She had heard and read stories about one sided love. She heard and read that that kind of love was excruciatingly painful but… she still wanted it. If this was the only way for her to experience falling in love, she would be willing to throw herself in it, even if it meant being hurt. She thought that she could handle the pain of loving someone who didn’t love her back more, than dying without knowing what love felt like at all. Perhaps, she was thinking about the quote she once read when she was eighteen that said, ‘It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all’.
Abigail once anonymously shared her situation online and asked about what to do. Her thread garnered lots of attention and different contradicting reactions occurred.
“Since you don’t want someone to fall in love with you, then why don’t you go and pick a random bad guy? I mean, there are a lot of jerks and heartless idiots out there who only know how to break hearts.” Was one of the advice she wanted to try. But what if that supposedly heartless someone would fall for her in the end?
Abigail still had a year left.
She was doing fine for now. The people around her, except her family didn’t even know that she was sick. But her mother was like this back then, too. Abigail somehow knew that her health would start to worsen in the fifth year – this year. She could even foresee that she might have to start going back and forth from the hospital in the next month or two. She was aware that she didn’t have much time left.
Everything that just happened right then started replaying in her mind and she couldn’t believe herself. She actually did something so outrageous like that? It was simply unbelievable. Now that she pondered about it, she couldn’t fathom where she got her bravery from to approach him, much more offer herself to a stranger as mysterious and dangerous as him. Was she really that desperate?
Abigail was aware that what she did was pure madness but… deep in her heart, she didn’t regret it and the fact that that man rejected her unexpectedly motivated her. She thought that he really was the man she had been looking for. A heartless man who didn’t fall for anyone. She didn’t know why but she believed him when he said he didn’t do love and never would. Maybe it was because she could see the truth in his eyes. She didn’t know why but she just felt that the man had an icy heart that would never, ever melt.
But was it possible for her to fall in love with such a man? she wondered. Would it possible for her to love a man who was cold so cold that he might even scare her poor heart away? She didn’t know but, like Eve, she wanted to taste the forbidden fruit even though she knew it might bring her pain. Besides, didn’t they say that ‘love builds up’ and ‘love is blind’?
At this point, she thought that there was really no reason for her to even tell herself to be careful anymore. There was no point for her to chicken out anymore because she was going to die soon and if she wanted her wish to come true, she had to do it NOW. She just knew that this was her last chance.
…
When she arrived home, her family was waiting for her in the living room, watching their favorite TV show.
They then had another pleasant and peaceful dinner before Abigail finally went in her room.
After taking a shower, she lay in her bed. She had been thinking about that man all night, even when she was in the shower. Strangely, she couldn’t stop. Was it because he rejected her? Probably not. Maybe, it was because of his ever so striking appearance? The probability was high.
Abigail couldn’t help but think that he wasn’t real as she remembered every feature of his face very clearly in her head. She then lifted the note that pleasant man in black jacket gave her and stared at it for a long while.
As she lay there, her eyes finally drifted close. The next thing she knew the sun was already streaming through her windows.
She rose and did her usual routine; arranged her bed, helped her grandmother prepare their breakfast, and after eating together, she got ready for work, kissed her family goodbye before she drove back to the city.
After Abigail graduated from college, she volunteered to work at the Morning Sun orphanage. Her family co-founded that orphanage and she had become a part time volunteer since high school. Her job was mainly assisting the teachers during class time. She was assigned to read books to the kids on the weekdays, except Fridays, and she loved what she was doing. She had grown to care very much about the children and she treated them as her family. She was truly happy extending any help for as long as she was able.
It was Monday so the kids that hadn’t seen her for three days were excited to see her. They embraced her one by one in the hall way as soon as they saw her.
“Miss Abi! We missed you.” the youngest in the bunch, Betty, kissed her in her cheek.
“I missed you too, darling. Now, let’s get inside. Your teacher is coming.”
Abigail assisted Mrs. Jang, the kids’ teacher, the whole day. She read the story of “The little prince” this time and when the class was over, Abigail headed to a coffee shop near the orphanage.
She had sent Kelly, her friend, a message last night that she wanted to talk to her about something so they planned to meet at this shop – their favorite meeting place since college.
