Chapter 7
This time it was Rose.
She was crying hysterically, tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry, Hazel! Please forgive me! I can’t survive without your family’s sponsorship, and I can’t go to jail—I won’t make it! I’m sorry…”
“I truly didn’t mean to hurt you. Please, can’t you forgive me?”
She repeated her apologies endlessly, but Hazel couldn’t detect a shred of genuine remorse.
If her family hadn’t withdrawn the sponsorship, if they weren’t pursuing legal action, would Rose have come to apologize at
all?
Hazel knew the answer without having to think about it.
She didn’t want to see Rose and pressed the nurse call button.
“Nurse, I don’t know this person. She’s disturbing my rest. Could you please remove her? Thank you.”
Hearing this, the nurse immediately became alert and began ushering Rose out.
As Rose stumbled toward the door, two familiar voices suddenly called out:
“Don’t touch her!”
Julian and Maverick quickly rushed to support Rose, gently asking, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she replied with forced brightness, shaking her head while her red–rimmed eyes told a different story. “Hazel doesn’t want to see me. I should go.”
She said this, yet made no move to leave.
Seeing this, both boys took her hands and marched back into the room.
Maverick tried once more: “Hazel, Rose genuinely feels terrible. Withdrawing the sponsorship is one thing, but pressing charges is going too far. Can’t you forgive her just this once?”
Rose clutched Maverick’s hand, sobbing pitifully. “Maverick, don’t defend me. Even though it wasn’t intentional, if not for me, Hazel wouldn’t have been hurt or needed skin grafts or suffered so much pain. I understand why she can’t easily forgive me…”
As she spoke, she suddenly produced a knife from somewhere, her eyes brimming with tears as she looked resolutely at Hazel.
“Hazel, you said if I got hurt too, you’d forgive me, right?”
With that, she gripped the knife and slashed it across her arm. Bright red blood immediately welled up, shocking everyone
present.
As she raised the knife for a second cut, Julian’s eyes widened in alarm, and he snatched the blade from her, plunging it into
his own arm.
Til take her place!
Not to be outdone, Maverick grabbed the knife and sliced his own arın.
Two cuts aren’t enough? I’ll hear them for Rose too!”
Hazel lay in her hospital bed, watching the two boys compete to injure themselves for Rose. She felt strangely detached, as if in a dream.
Did she even know these two people anymore?
They had been inseparable for nearly two decades, yet Rose had appeared just a month ago and changed everything so quickly?
As the three continued their dramatic scene, Hazel suppressed the ache in her heart and finally spoke, her eyes lowered. “I don’t accept emotional blackmail. Whether I forgive or not is my decision. Now I need to rest, so please leave.”
Her voice was cold as ice, and her expression remained unchanged despite the three bleeding profusely before her.
Julian and Maverick exchanged glances, both stunned by her coldness.
Rose’s tears fell continuously as she repeated, “I’m
I’m sorry…”
Julian gently wiped her tears. “It’s okay, don’t cry. It’s not your
- still here for you.”
fault. We’re
“Right, if the Montgomery family won’t sponsor you anymore, we will. Don’t worry about tuition or anything else. And we’ll make sure you don’t face charges,” Maverick reassured her.
Hearing this, Hazel closed her eyes and smirked bitterly.
She knew perfectly well that if they wanted to, they could certainly protect Rose.
So why bother begging for her forgiveness? Was it just to put on a show of their devotion in front of her? To rub their relationship in her face?
Hazel remained in the hospital for several weeks.
Though Julian and Maverick came to visit almost daily, she refused to see them every
time.
Left with no alternative, they began leaving gifts and her favorite snacks outside her door, hoping they’d be delivered when someone entered her room.
But each time, Hazel simply gave everything to the nurses on duty.
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