"She"s the reality, I"m running from."
A seemingly very ordinary sentence but it fell like thunder on Xu Mey. Her mind was reeling as she felt her knees weakening. That sentence was akin to a sharp-edged sword that pierced her heart. All the feelings and words felt like a lie to her. She felt a splitting headache coming and her body trembled uncontrollably.
Through the hand held in his own, Ye Jie felt the tremor and turned to glance at her. She was blinking repeatedly without a pause making Ye Jie roll his eyes at her and shake his head. He let go of her hand and held her arms. "Stop running your mind. Let me finish before going round and round in your head. Okay?" Xu Mey nodded with much difficulty. She really needed an answer. One that doesn"t break her bubble of happiness and all the feelings she was beginning to have for him.
Ye Jie helped Xu Mey sit at the couch in the hospital room and sat beside her. He angled her body to look at him and held both her hand in his own. "Should I start from the start?" He asked. Xu Mey nodded yet again not getting the courage to open her mouth.
Ye Jie sighed loudly. "Where should I start from?" He asked himself as Xu Mey"s eyes were trained on his brown eyes. "Let me clear one thing first. That girl," He pointed at the girl on the bed. "Apparently, she"s my sister."
Xu Mey"s frown deepened. With much effort, she said, "But you don"t have a sister." Ye Kang only had two sons; Ye Jie and Ye Jun. That was a very well known fact especially for Xu Mey whose family"s been close to Ye Family from generations.
Ye Jie pinched her frown down and said, "That"s what I used to believe as well. But..." He took a pause, "It changed a year and a half ago when she got into an accident." He was looking at the girl on the bed with sadness and tenderness.
"I met her when I went for summer vacations after middle school to Country A. She was a kid back then probably 9 or 10 years old. But she was a very clingy person. Why she approached me? I had no idea but she kept running behind me for 3 months." He took another pause, drawing circles at the back of Xu Mey"s hand.
He was thinking about that memory, "Jie-Ge!" He heard her childish voice as the girl with her two pigtails bouncing ran towards him.
"I told you to stop following me. What do you even like about me?" He asked exasperatedly.
She smiled widely. "I like you... Erm... Because you"re so handsome." Her answer made him speechless.
Back to the present, Ye Jie continued. "After I came back, I thought, I won"t see her again until a couple of years ago, I met her at an official dinner party. I didn"t recognize her but she recognized me for sure. Although she was older and mature, her weird fixation with me was still there. But this time, I didn"t try to shake her off at all. She became a very good friend of mine."
He remembered that dinner party too well when he saw a slender beautiful girl clad in an aquamarine colored mermaid tail gown sauntering towards him. She came up to him and smiled asking, "How have you been, Jie-Ge?"
Ye Jie frowned at the way a stranger addressed him. "Have we met?" He asked curiously.
The beautiful girl made a face. "I didn"t expect my Jie-Ge to forget me so easily." She lamented.
"Mr. Ye, this is Ms. Azalea!" A man near Ye Jie introduced the beautiful young girl making Ye Jie"s eyes widen.
"Azalea? The same girl who used to run around me?" Ye Jie asked with a disbelief look in his eyes.
She smiled again. "So, you do remember me."
He suddenly stopped talking thinking about those memories. Xu Mey saw the look of bitterness in him along with self-loathing. She let him silently collect his thoughts. Ye Jie took a sip of water from the bottle placed on the table before him. "One day, she came to tell me something. She was really happy."
Back then she barreled into his office and hugged him with all her might. She kept hugging him for a long time as Ye Jie felt her shoulders shaking. She was crying.
"What happened? Why are you crying?" Ye Jie asked panicking. He knew her to be a strong young woman who didn"t cry so easily. But today she was sobbing.
"I"m crying because I"m so happy, Jie-Ge." She replied in between her sobs.
"Which idiot cry when they are happy?" Ye Jie asked with a scowl as he wiped her tears.
"That idiot is me." She said. After a minute, she held Ye Jie"s wrist and said, "I need to bring you somewhere. Come with me." She dragged him out of his office building.
They took Ye Jie"s car as he was the one driving the car.
Suddenly he received a call from his business a.s.sociate who wanted to see their new project site. Ye Jie stopped the car and turned to look at her anxious face as he unbuckled his seatbelt.
"Zelie, take my car and I"ll see you later. Whatever you have to show me. Let"s do it later." He patted her head and got off the car to hail a cab for himself.
Coming back to the hospital room, Ye Jie held his head in hands hiding his face from Xu Mey. Xu Mey slid closer to him and stroked his hair to calm him. "If I knew that my mistake of leaving her there will get her in an accident. I would have never done that at all." When Ye Jie looked up at Xu Mey, he had tears in his eyes which he was holding onto. "I was informed about her accident because I was the last person she called."
He was living that nightmare again. He picked the call and heard, "Mr. Ye Jie?"
"Yes!" He replied.
"We have a patient named Azalea who got into an accident and you"re saved as her emergency contact number. Could you please come to the First Emporer Hospital?" When Ye Jie heard all the details, he went numb. He didn"t know how he replied. He only knew that when he reached the hospital, she was in surgery. Her condition was very critical.
They gave him all of her belongings and he found the DNA test result in her things. He didn"t know how she got his sample but she had sneakily done a DNA Test and they matched to be full-siblings.
Xu Mey"s eyes widened at this revelation. So she wasn"t wrong in thinking that Ye Jie had no similarities with neither Father Ye or Mother Ye. That means, her mind wasn"t always just running uselessly.
"I did the DNA Test again but the results were the same. She is my younger sister. And I couldn"t protect her." Ye Jie"s voice turned hoa.r.s.e as his eyes were red.
Xu Mey placed his head on her shoulder and said, "It"s not your fault. You didn"t know."
"But the accident was my fault." Ye Jie said as he raised his head from her shoulder and looked at her. "It was my car and it was tampered with. I was supposed to get into that accident. Whoever it was, that person was hunting me but my sister became the prey." Ye Jie clenched his hands into fists.
Xu Mey didn"t know what to say anymore. Who could try to kill him? And if the girl in this room is his sister than what about the parents?
"What about her parents?" Xu Mey asked hesitantly.
Ye Jie lowered his head. "I don"t know." Xu Mey frowned at his reply. "I told you, she"s the reality I"m running from. If for a second, I accept this reality then my entire life will become a lie and it will crumble up right before me." He looked into Xu Mey"s eyes and said, "I"m scared. I don"t even know if I"m ready to find the truth or not. I just know that until she wakes up and explains everything to me herself, I have no plan to dig anything out."
Xu Mey nodded. It was a scary thing that the parents he called mom and dad, one day, they are said to have no relation with him. He would not be human if he wasn"t scared at all. Then, can Dr. Zhu really have a relation with Ye Jie? Xu Mey bit her nails in nervousness. "Should I tell him?" Xu Mey contemplated. "No... No... Not yet... I need to be sure first."
"What"s her name?" Xu Mey asked.
"I don"t know her Chinese name but her English name is Azalea." Ye Jie replied with a small smile.
"That"s a beautiful name just like herself." Xu Mey commented.
"Is this why you asked?" Xu Mey didn"t have to remind Ye Jie of his own question when he asked her whether he was important just because he was a Ye. Ye Jie nodded and Xu Mey scowled. "Aye! Do I look that pretentious to you?"
"Absolutely not, Baby. I just needed to know whether you were ready to know this truth or not." Ye Jie replied softly.
"Next time, don"t ask." She started. "Whether she"s your sister or not. Or whether you"re a Ye or not. For me, you are my husband now. Your relations.h.i.+p with others doesn"t matter much. What matters is that I"m your family and you"re mine, now." Xu Mey said like a wise person and it made Ye Jie"s heart flutter.
He pulled her in his embrace and said, "Yes... You are my family and I"ll always stay like yours. No one can change that. I"m yours and you"re mine..." He whispered.