Myra had no idea what Elsie had meant by ‘you can’t make me leave Bradfort City’, but she was growing annoyed at the other woman’s ridiculous antics.
As she turned on her heels to leave, she pointed out in a clipped tone, “In case you haven’t noticed, there are cameras all around here. Regardless of how things may turn out after this, I won’t try to deny any wrongdoing on my part. I just hope that you’ll still have as much bravado by then, Miss Foster.”
Upon hearing that, Elsie stared at Myra dumbfoundedly. As Myra slid into the car, Estelle started the engine.
Elsie snapped out of her daze when Estelle slammed the honk at her to get out of the way. Elsie knew there was no way for her to get a word in with Tony. She had called him with different phone numbers, but there was no answer on his end. It was clear that he refused to hear anything that she had to say.
Seized with desperation, she had resorted to asking Myra for help, but her strategy earlier had obviously gone awry. She had only succeeded in irritating the girl and now, the help she tried to seek was slipping out of her reaches. A panicked Elsie stood her ground and barred Estelle from driving away while she cried, “Myra, I was wrong for trying to frame you! But, you’re the only person who can help me now. I know what I did to you was twisted, but you have to understand that I was way in over my head with anger! It was your sister, Kris, who asked for the contents of the drug, but I didn’t think that she would use it against you! If I did, I never would have told her in the first place. I never would have deliberately been involved in her wicked schemes!”
Myra listened to the vehement rambling that was going on outside the car, but she had no idea what the other woman was saying. It was only when Kris’ name was brought up that she started to connect the dots.
Anger flashed in her narrowed eyes as a sudden thought came to her mind.
Soon, one of the security guards from the beauty parlor rushed out to pull Elsie aside. Once the curious crowd that surrounded the vicinity had dispersed following the guard’s intervention, Estelle quickly revved the car and sped away from the scene.
While cruising down the road, she asked, “From what I’ve heard, it sounds like she has tried to hurt you recently. Could it be that your protective knight in shining armor found out about it and has exiled her from Bradfort City? Is that why she’s desperate enough to beg for your help?”
Myra nodded. There didn’t seem to be any other reasonable explanation for Elsie’s erratic display. However, Myra’s gaze softened as soon as she thought of Tony and she repressed the urge to grin like a lovesick fool.
Upon seeing that, Estelle rolled her eyes in mock exasperation and clicked her tongue. “Look at your situation. I ought to show you how sour and resentful you looked when you were still married to Sean.”
Myra laughed. “I didn’t think that life could surprise me like this.” Indeed, meeting Tony had been the greatest surprise of her life.
“Yes. And apparently you’re the only person who’s capable of trapping a surprise like Tony,” Estelle drawled teasingly. Knowing that he had intervened to put the wretched woman from before in her place, she was no longer worried for Myra’s safety. Turning to glance at Myra, she asked, “Should I drop you off at the hospital?”
Myra shook her head. “You can drop me off at the Hart Residence. I’ll be making dinner for Tony tonight.”
She had initially planned on returning to the hospital to visit him, but she was suddenly inspired to make dinner for the man. Perhaps she was moved to know that he had stood up for her against Elsie, making her feel warm and fuzzy at the thought of him.
“It’s one thing to make yourself at home at the Hart Residence, but it’s entirely another to rub your love life in my face,” Estelle grumbled as she turned to a different route, driving down the road that would lead them to the Hart Residence.
…
Unbeknownst to Myra and Estelle, they had been so distracted by Elsie’s schemes that they overlooked a slightly more crucial detail. Meanwhile, Gemma was relieved to know that she would be receiving medical treatment abroad and she babbled excitedly as she eyed her parents and grandfather curiously, “I’m sure the treatment is far better abroad. Where will I be going? Can I go to South Korea? I could even undergo plastic surgery before I return to Bradfort City.”
There was a hysterical edge to the way she spoke and behaved following the car crash. She was oblivious to the lawsuit that Tony would have filed against her if her family had not agreed to send her away from Bradfort City. Edward had been the one to break it to her that she would have to travel out of the city for treatment. Her hysterics had unexpectedly died down after she heard that and she had been relatively calm for the past two days. She even seemed happy.
Everyone had downplayed the gravity of her facial injuries. They had told her that the wounds would heal over time and given how advanced plastic surgery treatments were nowadays, there was no reason why she would not return to peak condition.
There had been days when Gemma was absolutely manic, but she found solace in the knowledge that she would recover from her injuries as soon as she received the necessary treatment.
While the rest of the Walton Family was temporarily spared from her tantrums, they made sure that the nurses who routinely tended to her knew to remain silent about the extent of her injuries.
As such, Gemma had yet to catch a glimpse of her face, which was usually bandaged up. She had tried on numerous occasions to ask for a mirror when the nurse changed her dressing, but someone in the family would always switch the topic of conversation and brush off her request. With that being said, she was inclined to believe that her injuries were more serious than her family would let on, but she didn’t want to dwell on it. Now that she knew she was going to receive treatment abroad, she was even more eager to see how her injuries were faring and no one could stop her.
Her mother had been in the hospital room to tend to her needs as usual, but Gemma sent her away to run a false errand. Then, she clambered out of bed and seized a passing nurse, claiming that she needed help in the room.
Upon hearing that, the nurse followed her into the room. She had never taken care of the patients on this floor and was blatantly unaware about the details of Gemma’s condition.
Seeing as Gemma could not move her hands, she asked the nurse to remove the bandages on her face, claiming that she would like to see whether her injuries were healing well.
The nurse had no reason to doubt her as she carefully peeled the bandages off.
A mirror had been propped up in front of Gemma. She sat still in bed, waiting for the nurse to unravel the gauze.
She knew that there was a possibility that her face had been badly wounded, which explained the reason why her family was so adamant that she stayed away from mirrors altogether. As the layers of bandages fell away, she was girding herself for the final reveal. However, when the moment came for her to lay eyes on her reflection, she froze in shock.
The nurse, on the other hand, had no time to be tactful as she screamed at the gruesome sight before her. Then, she staggered back and fell on the floor—the girl’s face looked worse than the scene of a car crash.
The scream pulled Gemma out of her daze and she furiously pushed the mirror to the floor. The sound of glass shattering was mixed with her anguished cries as she yelled, “How did this happen? How??”
Gemma’s scarred face twisted into an ugly grimace. She had braced herself for injuries that could be fixed with plastic surgery, but the horrifying face in the mirror looked like it belonged to some hideous creature. Her face wasn’t just badly injured—it was disfigured! There was a grisly scar that was the length of her once-intricate nose and her nose bridge was pitted so badly that if she weren’t breathing, she would have thought her nose had been sliced in half.
Furthermore, there was a jarring scar that stretched from her left cheek to her right and it ran across the skin above her cupid’s bow.
Her gaze darkened and for a moment, she thought she was going to pass out.
“This can’t be how I look! It just can’t!” Gemma shouted as she thrashed around in bed; she was so consumed with rage that she could not even feel the pain that shot through her arm.
Meanwhile, the nurse had finally snapped out of her initial horror and she was beginning to realize that the patient had lied so that she could see her own face in the mirror. Scrambling to rise from the floor, she rushed over to hold Gemma down, only to be pushed away by the girl before they both stumbled onto the floor in a scuffling heap.
“Don’t worry, miss. I’ll go and get the doctor immediately!” The nurse promised anxiously. Then, she ran out of the hospital room.
Gemma, on the other hand, had never felt so devastated in her entire life. Can I even return to the way I used to look? Can I? How is plastic surgery going to save this wreck of a face?
She was spiraling into the icy depths of fear and despair when a figure ran into the room.
“Gemma, are you okay? How did you end up falling on the floor?”
