Chapter 6 Still Hate Me?

Her other hand was playing with a pocket-sized perfume bottle. It was opaque and in the shape of a heart. This was the first bottle of perfume she paid for with the money from her job.

She was still full of hope for the future when she bought it. But after only a few years, she defeated herself. She always believed that everything would work out as long as she was willing to let go of the past.

She took a deep puff of the half-burned cigarette before putting it out. She set a limit for herself, one cigarette per day. The hospital was not a place she wanted to spend her time.

Arianna laughed at herself. She did not like to recall the past, but today she couldn’t stop reminiscing. She never wanted to think of the first time she met Travis Cooper.

She had a hunch that she would always hear from the person she remembered if she thought of an old memory. Arianna hated how accurate this usually was.

The music had stopped, and Arianna’s sixth sense kicked in. Her cell phone rang loud suddenly as if supporting her superstition.

After glancing at the display screen, she discovered it was a stranger’s number calling and sat back down. She took out the soft piano disc and replaced it with a British Rock disc.

But now, her phone was receiving text after text. She tried her best to ignore it, but the sound of the notifications was interrupting her music.

She tapped the screen and saw texts from two unfamiliar numbers.

One read, “Arianna, it’s Janie. I had no idea you were still in town until I saw you yesterday! How are you? Still hate me?”

Arianna sighed before moving on to the next message, “Hi, it’s Bain. I want to apologize.”

Her lips twitched as she replied to the two messages, “I wish you two happiness. You don’t need to apologize.”

After deleting their messages and ignoring the other ones, she shut down her phone. Arianna prayed that they would leave her alone after they read her message.

But she never hated the two of them. It was a little tough for her when she saw them last night. It was all in the past now, though.

****

If a graph represented life, most people’s graphs would be wavy lines. There are ups and downs, but it is smooth and continuous.

Janie and Bain were a source of sadness and disappointment for her at a time. Perhaps she wanted to hate them before, but she couldn’t.

The Jenkins family nanny once told her, “Dear Miss Jenkins, do not hate anyone with your heart and soul. Even the worst of us possess some good qualities. Do not poison your soul and waste your energy in anger.”

This was after the nanny overheard her pray for heaven to punish her friends after they got in a fight when she was a child. Though she did not understand the meaning at the time, she now lived by this philosophy.

Life was too short to be lived in hatred. Therefore, even if she had a reason to hate, she always tried her best to see the good in all people.

When Arianna thought of her nanny’s words, her life curve emerged in her head. It was the most beautiful upward curve until she turned seventeen. Back then, it was like she ruled the world.

She had a great family and was always thin and beautiful. She loved her parents and friends. Beyond this, Arianna was intelligent and outgoing. She could get along with anyone.

Her nanny always told her someone in heaven was sending her all of their blessings.

However, her curve took a steep dive downward at seventeen years old before falling into a straight line. It resembled the ECG of a patient whose heart had failed.

The beginning of that year was an omen of this downfall.

On New Year’s Eve, Arianna carelessly broke her beloved glass bottle. Her father had taken her to a handicraft workshop thousands of miles away, where she was able to make the bottle herself.

Hours later, Arianna’s nanny suffered from a major heart attack and passed away. She was as important to her as her own family.

Arianna only viewed the two incidents as an unfortunate coincidence. She never expected more hardships to come.

That year, she took the college entrance examination and had lots of pressure from her family to do well.

She had a nervous breakdown and became depressed due to intensive studying. Additionally, she experienced more deaths in the family.

Her grandmother passed away before her grandfather became extremely ill. Then, her father was in a major car accident.

A few years later, she and a friend made a falling domino course. She couldn’t help but think back to her seventeenth year. The domino effect was the perfect way to describe the chain of events.

Her memory of that year was split into several vivid moments, none of which she wanted to remember.

Even in his recovery, Arianna’s father could see how distressed she was about everything. He arranged for her to go abroad to relax.

However, when she returned early to surprise her family for the summer holidays, she discovered that her parents were having affairs.

This made her absolutely hysterical. However, it was even before she discovered the truth about her birth.

She was not her father’s daughter by blood. The marriage between her parents was no more than a mutual benefit transaction. These were secrets that were kept from everyone.

Arianna snuck out one night to see her old boyfriend. He claimed to love her forever, but she soon found out that he was now dating her best friend.

Miseries were hitting her one by one. The universe did not want to give her a break that year. She felt completely alone in the world. If life had been better for her, she would not have met Travis Cooper.

She thought she had met the archangel. He shone like a lighthouse in the rough seas to her, extending safety in her most desperate times. She desperately followed the light with all her trust.

When Arianna thought of that year, she reminded herself that none of those events made her different from anyone else. People die, people cheat - it was that simple.

But she laughed at her luck often. Before she was seventeen, she never experienced any setbacks. That year completely ruined her and was the fuel for her self-destructive behavior.

She went to nightclubs to drink and dance. This was done to forget the world, but she could also exhaust her brain and body in the process.

The home was the last place she wanted to be. She often left notes claiming that she would be out for several days so that her family would leave her alone.