Never had she expected that Larry would engrave the jade on his own in the dead of the night. Now her name ‘Joan’ had been specially and ingeniously inscribed on this expensive jade.
The crooked and unsightly inscription was nothing like Larry’s elegant handwriting. Larry must have tried his best to control the graver, but how could one compare between writing with a pen and a graver? That was how this one-of-a-kind jade came about.
As her finger stroked the uneven surface of the engraving on the jade, millions vivid images of Larry flashed across her mind. Other than the happy memories of him, she recalled his enraged face and the times when they got into a serious fight. The last image that came into her mind was Larry sitting at his desk, holding a graver while looking out the window at the night sky, and his forehead was drenched in sweat.
The man had never shown her the engraved jade, but in the end, it somehow ended up in Leslie’s and her hands.
Larry visited Leslie before he went missing. I believe he’ll definitely come back, because he’s still holding onto many people and things. He’ll never abandon me and Leslie just like that.
When Finnick and Vivian saw Joan bringing Leslie to them, their eyes misted over right away. Turning around in silence, Joan blinked back her tears and hailed a cab to the beach.
Regardless of whether she could find Larry, she wanted to give it a try. A man would be constantly on a woman’s mind if she cared deeply for him, wanting to set foot in every place he had been to before.
People usually took the things they had for granted or even despised them. Only when they lost something would they remember the goodness that they once had or the people who they cared for, and that would become the most precious part of their memories.
The waves crashed against the shore unceasingly, glimmering as the sunlight hit the surface of the sea. Only a handful of people were on the beach. Joan was worn out as she had been to various places over the past few days. But the scenery of the endless ocean and the relaxing rhythm of the waves calm her down, and her anxiety ceased.
She sat by the reefs on the beach, but Larry was nowhere to be seen. Leaning against a huge rock, she listened to the sound of the waves and gradually drifted off. Just as she was about to fall asleep, her phone rang suddenly. The piercing sound of her ringtone broke the peaceful silence on the beach like an off-key note in the midst of a melodious symphony.
Taking out her phone, she saw Vivian’s name on the screen, so she quickly swiped to answer the call.
The woman’s loud and anxious voice echoed on the other side of the phone, “Joan, where are you? Come back now! Something’s wrong with Leslie!”
The news was like a gigantic, heavy rock on her heart, making her feel out of breath.
“I’ll be right there!”
As a mother, these words were the only response she could give now. On her way back, she kept calling Larry, hoping that he would finally answer one of her calls for the first time since he disappeared days ago.
The ringback tone went on, but she never heard the familiar voice sounded on the other side of the phone. Joan had never felt so despondent in her entire life, trying vainly to reach Larry while worrying about Leslie’s condition. A serious complication has already happened when I secretly took Leslie out, but now…
She dared not to think further about it. “Please drive faster. I’m in a hurry,” she urged the driver.
Fortunately, there was no heavy traffic on the road at night. The driver hit the pedal and sped all the way to the destination, while Joan was on pins and needles, squirming nervously in her seat. I guess this is how being in a terrible fix feels like.
Stepping into the hospital, she had lost count of the number of times she came to the hospital recently. I guess no one comes to the hospital as frequently as I do.
