So Pleasant To Hear

"He said over the phone that he had an urgent matter to deal with. I didn't see him when I got here, but they say that he has already paid for the fees before he left. By the way, who is that man? He has great moral character, and his voice is so pleasant to hear!" Louise winked at me, curious to know what I was thinking.

Despite the fact that I was merely a stranger to Derek, he had done a lot for me. It was only natural for him to deal with his own business.

"lm asking you." Louise nudged me.

When I came to my senses, I told her about how Derek had driven me home. She didn't ask me any more questions about him.

The moment I reached out to take the apple from Louise, I saw that my hand was wrapped with layers of gauze.

Curling her lips, Louise continued slicing the apple into small pieces and fed them to me one by one. "Do you remember? When you dated Shane, I had him investigated for your sake. There were lots of negative rumors about him during his time in medical school. Once, a girl jumped off a cliff because of him and died. Later on, he was beaten badly by the girl's real boyfriend and he became bedridden for over two weeks. Just to get a recommendation for admission, he played all sorts of tricks! Did I not tell you that he's nothing but a weasel? But you were too stubborn to listen to me!" Louise said angrily.

Indeed, at the time, she was afraid that I would marry the wrong person, so she did her best to investigate Shane's background.

But back then, his tenderness blinded me to the truth.

I kept my head down, silently listening to Louise scold me.

"Why did you not tell me about this? This is an outrageous thing to hide from me! Why didn't you even consider staying at my home for the time being?"

It was true that her house was quite large. Her father ran a successful business. Not once in her life had she been short on money. All she lacked was friendship and love.

Back when she was in junior high school, her father divorced her mother and married a woman who was only a few years older than Louise herself. Since then, she had become a rebellious daughter, and her grades in school drastically declined.

"It worries me that I'll only bring you misfortune," I replied.

Louise cast me a glare. "Say more things like that and I'll be angry with you! Misfortune, you say? You're my friend, Eve! You could never bring me bad luck. Do you remember how you convinced me to go to your house back then?"

One cold winter day, in our third year of junior high school, Louise quarreled with her father and ran away from home in a fit of anger. When I saw her, she was sitting by the side of the road, trembling from the cold.

Although we were classmates, we weren't that close. After all, she was rich, and I was merely a poor student. Usually, Louise would act arrogantly, and she was easy to anger. That was why she didn't have many true friends. But on that day, I pitied her when I saw her all by her lonesome on the roadside. I couldn't bear to turn away from her, so in the end, I convinced her to come home with me. At first, I was afraid that a rich girl like her would not get used to my house. But it was fortunate that she didn't mind anything in my house.

Since then, Louise and I had become the best of friends; perhaps even closer.

I told her that I wanted to leave the hospital, so Louise asked the doctor to confirm if there was nothing serious about my condition. The doctor told her that I just needed to recuperate for I had lost too much blood. Thus, Louise helped me complete the discharge formalities.

She was driving a new car, and it was

Hoan quite luxurious.

When I got in the car, she said, "This was a gift from my father. He gave it to me and I took it. He owes me, anyway."

I had always thought that there would never be true hatred between a father and a daughter, but the hatred between Louise and her father had continued to exist after so many years.

Truthfully, I wanted to convince her to make peace with her dad. After all, she still had the chance to keep arguing with her dad, but I was not that lucky, for I had lost mine.

I didn't know much about cars, so when Louise saw that I was looking around the car, completely clueless, she told me that this was a Lamborghini.

"A Lamborghini?" I repeated in a hushed voice. "All I've seen is a bikini." Louise burst into laughter and gave me a thumbs up.

It was then that I thought of Derek's car.

"There's an M overlapping another M inside a triangle. What brand of car is that?" Louise glanced at me disdainfully. "Wait a second. I think you're talking about a Maybach." "Is a Maybach expensive?" I asked.

"A Maybach is far better than my car, of course. The worst of that brand costs at least a million dollars!" "What? How much?" I was shocked to hear it.

Louise poked my forehead with her finger. "A million dollars, Eve! Look at your prissy face. It almost makes me loathe you. It's a good thing that you saw that bastard Shane's true colors this soon. You're sexy, and you have a pretty face. You'll be able to find a good man; a better one. Just let Shane wallow in regret."

While she was speaking, I was thinking of something else.

I recalled that Derek mentioned he was a businessman. A businessman driving around a luxury car worth at least a million dollars must be doing a big business!

Louise drove me back to my old house, and told me not to go out until I fully recovered. She had also asked a maid working for her family to look after me for two weeks, until the wounds on my hands had healed.

Throughout these days, Derek did not contact me again.

Each time I saw his number on my contact list, I had an impulse to dial it and say thanks to him. In the end, I decided not to do it.

Perhaps at the time, he must've helped me because of his sense of justice. He was a man running a big business. Perhaps he had already forgotten the trivial episode in his busy life.

I imagined that I would never again interact with him, but I was mistaken. Everything was fated to happen.