SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Thirty-One: Rain Lily
Chapter Thirty-One: Rain Lily
HYACINTH’s fists clenched at the intensity of her husband’s stare. Unlike the last time she saw him, he seemed to be more...open. Right now, Hyacinth could tell that he had been nervous.
About what?
Did he blame himself for her accident?
“D-Don’t apologize, Max. It’s n-not your fault.” Hyacinth cursed under her breath when she heard herself stutter.
“No, Haya. I’m not blaming myself. I’m here to check how you’re feeling.”
She motioned for him to sit on the couch near her bed. Hyacinth might be unconscious for a few months but she had known that Max spent most of his time beside her.
She had heard his voice in her dreamless sleep. The only thing that kept her mind working was his stories about business negotiations, his jokes, his endearments...and how he whispered and begged for her to come back.
How could she hate him for that? They’d argued before the accident, yes, but that seemed like an irrelevant memory for her now. The only thing that mattered to her is to figure out how to be on good terms with him again.
Hyacinth’s heart silently begged for those endearments. Oh, how she ached for him whenever her mind seemed to slowly regain its consciousness.
Hyacinth went back to reality when Max cleared his throat. She shook her head when she realized that she was staring at him for a prolonged period.
“Do you want to rest? I can always visit later.” His eyes told her otherwise, though. His eyes begged for her to ask him to stay.
“You c-can stay, Max. No need to ask permission from me.”
An awkward silence filled the room and Hyacinth didn’t know how to start a conversation. She wanted to avoid discussing their argument before the accident. If only she could lie about having amnesia or something, but she’s not in the mood for theatrics.
“So, how’s George?” She managed to ask to fill the silence between them.
“He only suffered minor injuries, Haya, because he wore a seatbelt.”
“But I was about to wear mine. I had a hard time doing it because my eyes were so blurred—” she managed to stop her outburst before she could remind him of the hurtful event.
“Please finish, Haya. You were crying, I know. I was a jerk for causing that.”
“C-Can we please forget it? I d-don’t want to remember.”
“But we need to talk about it, Haya.” He reached for her hand. “Otherwise, it’ll continue to always cause a rift between us.”
She shook her head. “B-But we might fight again—”
“No, we won’t.” He assured her. Max exhaled as he contemplated if he should continue discussing what had happened. After all, Hyacinth just regained consciousness.
He didn’t want to cause her pain again.
“We fought that day because I was a coward. I didn’t know how to react and handle those feelings back then but now I do.” Max gripped her hand. “Good god, there’s this six months of anxiety that squeezed the truth out of me. It tortured me, Haya, to be with you yet your consciousness is so out of reach. To not hear your voice—” he dreadfully sighed as if he could still feel the misery of the past few months. “If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.”
Her eyes stung upon hearing those words.
She heard him say those words while she was in a coma but it seemed so unbelievable at the time, considering that the two of them fought and argued the last time they talked to each other.
Her heart throbbed when she fought the urge to throw herself into her husband’s arms. It’s evident that he’s not done talking yet. He might scold her for her thoughts, considering that she just regained consciousness and her body is still fragile from the accident.
“But please understand that it was not easy for me to allow myself the liberty to be involved with someone emotionally. I tried to stop it, Haya, because Erin saw how miserable I would be in the aftermath of your disappearance in the future.” He swallowed, hard, before he continued, “and I saw how love slowly killed my mother...how it made us all suffer.”
Before Hyacinth could reply, Max stood up and reached for her hand. “Read my thread, Haya. Look into my past and find my fears.”
She tried to pull her hand back but he gripped it firmly.
“Please, love. I want to share this with you.”
Her eyes widened a little bit to give room for the tears that were starting to accumulate in her eyes. She could sense how terrified he is to let her inside his fears. Max is desperate enough to kick the barriers he built between them and reduce them into rubbles.
Hyacinth grabbed touched his thread and closed her eyes, finally letting go of the tears from her eyes.
“Mommy, we should leave. Dad kept on hurting you.”
A woman with raven hair and bruised skin across her face smiled at the twelve-year-old Maximillian Bismarck. They’re in a bedroom with wooden furniture and vintage carpeting.
“I can’t leave him, Max. I love him so much. How can you even ask me of that?”
“Mom, we need to leave. Now! He had hurt the maid last night. I heard him threatening the maid in his room if she didn’t keep quiet. I’m scared, Mom. I think he did things to our maid.”
“Honey, you must forgive your father. He’s just a man. One day, you’ll realize how lovable he is.”
Max had been terrified by the fondness written on his mother’s face. “You’re insane!”
Hyacinth’s bones chilled at the memory she unearthed. Is this how his mother had acted? It is no doubt that a kid will be traumatized because everything didn’t make sense.
How could someone ignore a child’s fear like she just hear something normal?
The threads led Hyacinth to the memory lane where Max’s mother had repeatedly ignored his protests. The woman was obsessed with her husband to the point that she was willing to overlook the man’s crimes against his household staff. The thought made Hyacinth tremble.
She scanned through his thread to skip some of the worse events of his childhood. Hyacinth only wished to penetrate his past and comfort him with her embrace, but the only thing she could do is watch what had happened in his life, almost as if she were watching a movie.
Finally, his head showed her the last traumatizing thing from his childhood.
Max cradled a baby in his arms while eavesdropping in the tiny gap of the opened library door. He heard his father beating up his mother and they discussed something about Maine Bismarck being an illegitimate child.
Hyacinth gasped. This was the first scene from his past that she saw when she had tried to prove that she can read the threads of fate.
And then, the young Max gasped in shock and horror when he heard multiple stabbings. He flinched and stormed upstairs with the baby in his arms.
Hyacinth pulled her hand away from his thread, panting for air.
“Are you okay?”
Hyacinth gathered her thoughts for a moment before meeting his gaze. “Your mom died on November seventh, 2005?”
“Yes, Hyacinth. That’s when my father decided to accuse her of cheating. Obviously, Maine is every bit a Bismarck based on her features. My father believed otherwise, though. It was because it had been more than a decade before my mom conceived a second child. My father thought of it as odd, considering he’s a pea-wit.”
“Why did your thread show me those events?”
Max touched her cheeks with his palm, his thumb caressed her skin like it was a delicate petal. “My mom’s obsession with my father terrified me. She lived only for him and had accepted her death in her last moment because she wanted to ease Dad’s anger.”
“I see. You’re afraid that one day, your love for someone might become an obsession? That your...y-your love for me is an obsession?”
He nodded. “I grew up believing that, Haya. I think that’s the main reason why I didn’t fully communicate with you in matters of the heart until now. I was afraid that I might become obsessed with you like how my mother was with my father. I don’t want to ignore Maine and Erin, Haya. I want them to grow up knowing that their feelings mattered...that I will always put them first.”
“But you’re not your mother, Max. What we share isn’t a disease—"
“Then, why was it overwhelming? I can’t handle it, Haya. They’re too much for me.” He sighed. “I guess I was a bit afraid of those feelings, too, because I can’t control them.”
“I know, I know. We’ll figure it out together,” she assured him. “I’ll not run away like that again if ever we encounter a problem.”
His eyes reddened with unshed tears, and his voice cracked with hurt. “When I received the news that you got into an accident, I shove Maine and Erin out of my way and immediately went to the hospital. My thoughts were filled with the fear for your well-being that I accidentally pushed a resident doctor when he happened to be blocking my way—”
Hyacinth silenced him abruptly by pressing her lips against his. He froze for a split second, then gave in to the overpowering sensations that had risen inside him. Maximillian groaned against her lips and returned her kisses with a ferocity that matched hers.
She reached for his nape and pushed her head to her face so that she could kiss him deeper. Max was delighted by her greediness that he unconsciously pushed his wife onto the bed.
“Max!” She giggled. “We’re in the hospital!”
“Sorry, just one more...” His lips searched for her lips and he groaned with utter satisfaction when he found them.
He longed for this...for her kisses, for her. Max expressed that sentiment with how he hungrily sought and tasted every corner of her mouth like a man deprived. Hyacinth felt overwhelmed by the affection she received from him that her eyes started to warm.
For her, it only had been a few hours. For him, it had been six months since they last kissed.
His lips traveled to her cheeks and kissed away the tears that had trailed there. “I’m not even worthy of your tears.”
She sniffed back a sob. “Of course, you are, dumbass. I thought you never wanted me.”
He pulled away from her and a teasing smirk formed on his lips. “My cock says otherwise, my love.”
She blushed not because of the lewd word but because of his endearment. Max kissed the tip of her tomato-red nose and chuckled. “Our honeymoon is long overdue, lovely. What are you gonna do about it?”
His face is so close to hers that his lips brushed against her cheeks accidentally...or was he teasing her?
“I’ll give birth this November, Max. We’ll be both busy with our baby.”
He groaned with disappointment, and then he kissed her cheek with so much tenderness that Hyacinth felt like she was about to burst from the happiness expanding inside her chest. “At least, we’ll meet our baby Erin soon.” He then touched her chin to turn her face to his. “I missed kissing you—”
Someone faked a cough near the doorway. Max eventually backed away from her and Hyacinth covered her face like a blushing schoolgirl.
“I thought Mom already killed you, Dad. You’ve been in the room for a few minutes now. I thought you might need backup.”
Hyacinth removed her hands from her face to see her daughter approach Max with a teasing grin. “I guess my help is not needed in here.”
Max fist-bumped with Erin and Hyacinth wished that the ground will eat her alive.
“Mom, I think you’ll give birth here in this hospital. Do you want me to bring the baby bag you’ve prepared?”
“Yes, please. Thank you.” Hyacinth massaged her belly. “I think you just gave me an idea for a girl’s name.”
Erin smiled. “By the way, where did you get my name from?”
Hyacinth looked outside the window. “In the native language from the Orient seas where the Sinclairs originated, Erin meant ‘Rain Lily’ I want you to carry the name on behalf of my mother who loved the rain and lilies.”
Erin’s eyes glittered with moisture. “Oh, that’s pretty.”
“Can we add a second name for her?” Max suggested.
“Absolutely not,”
“Absolutely not,” they both replied in unison.