Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 307: Look Into The Past

Anne felt especially heavy this morning, since she woke up several hours ago, she had been finding it a bit draining to move.

Anne’s pregnancy wasn’t too huge even at 37 weeks, however she still usually woke up feeling extremely fatigued.

She was supposed to go congratulate Kristen today for being promoted at Nexon, barely four months now since he started an internship and he had already gained a full position, Anne had no doubt that he would reach great heights because he was extremely skilled, however Kristen was extremely busy, and she might not be able to see him for the rest of the week, not wanting to stay home all day again since Andrew had gone on a short two days business trip to France for a business conference, Anne called Jasmine and asked if she could come see the progress on her restaurant.

"Are you sure you can go out, shouldn’t you be at home resting?" Jasmine asked sounding concerned. Anne’s pregnancy was in it’s later stages and Jasmine was worried for her health.

"Don’t worry Jass, I’m not due yet in weeks and I need the movement anyway." She replied.

"Alright, I’ll come pick you up. I can’t wait till you see everything!"

About three months ago, a letter had arrived for Andrew along with news that his mother, Andrea Elizabeth Walters had just been cremated after she passed away in the hospital. At the time, no ripple had appeared on Andrew’s expression.

He had gone into his study to read the letter. Anne had given him some space at the time, but she couldn’t sit still so she had gone to knock on the door. When Andrew opened the door for her he looked fine, but he hadn’t said a single word, looking lost in deep thoughts.

Anne had glimpsed the open letter kept on his desk and got to read the very last line,

’...never forgive this heartless mother of yours, but please always remember me, my son.’

Anne had stood next to him in silence, offering him her quiet comfort, because she knew that even if he didn’t say it, he was hurting deep inside.

Several days later he had gone to retrieve her ashes, burying it and placing a tombstone with her name on it. It was the very last thing he did for the woman whom despite walking out of his life, would forever remain his birth mother.

After getting dressed several minutes later, Jasmine came to pick up Anne from the estate, since they would be going directly to the location of Jasmine’s new restaurant, it wouldn’t be too exhausting of a trip for Anne in her condition.

When they arrived, Anne was overjoyed to see her own art hung up on the walls, giving the space a romantic feel. The space wasn’t fully done yet, but Anne could already see Jasmine’s face etched on everything she looked at, it all matched Jasmine’s taste perfectly.

Because some things still needed to be setup at the space, Anne and Jasmine left the restaurant some minutes later after Jasmine shared the whole plan with Anne of how the rest of the space would be designed.

"Have you been sleeping well Jass? You have dark circles under your eyes." Anne asked when they were in the car.

She had noticed how exhausted Jasmine looked and it could be because of her restaurant opening, but it could also be because of something else.

Jasmine smiled brightly as if that would mask her exhaustion.

"Yeah, I’ve been sleeping just fine, sometimes I wake up halfway through the night and I find it hard to fall asleep, it could just be stress, nothing else."

Anne thought about it and realized Jasmine had indeed been under stress lately. She gave her some stress relieving techniques that her own doctors had recommended to her in order to maintain a healthy sleeping schedule.

When they came to Jasmine’s apartment, they both settled down for a chat, while they were talking, Anne felt a familiar tightening in her lower belly, it was something she had been feeling infrequently during the past few weeks but the doctors said it was nothing to worry about so Anne didn’t fret about it, she had been advised to get up and move around slightly whenever it happened, so Anne casually moved around the space of Jasmine’s apartment looking at things she hadn’t seen there before.

"Jass, your Mom is calling." Anne notified her upon seeing her phone ringing on the coffee table.

Jasmine stiffened, and moved to grab the phone after a moment’s hesitation and without thinking twice, hung up the call.

Anne came back to sit next to Jasmine since she had moved around quite a bit.

"Have you thought about hearing her out sometimes? It won’t hurt if you took her call even once."

Jasmine lowered her head letting out a long sigh that sounded weary.

"I never knew trying to hate people could become this exhausting. I kept telling myself that my Mom did me wrong, that I didn’t deserve it, but I still wonder how she’s doing, I still think about my family and I still think about...him." As she said this, she turned her face to the side, lifting her eyes to push back the tears glimmering in them.

"If your heart doesn’t truly hate them, you don’t have to create hatred forcefully." Anne said softly, gently patting Jasmine’s back in consolation.

"But...my Mom was heartless to me, she sold me off for money, what hurts more is that she never felt any remorse for it. Do you know what it feels like to spend all your life making sacrifices for your family, loving them, willing to do absolutely anything for them, but they betray you. Do you know, if she had cried to me, maybe pleaded with me to do it for my Dad’s sake, I would have been willing to sacrifice. It hurts more because she chose to be heartless, chose to force me, to tie me down if I refused. It made all those years of loving her as my mother feel worthless, it made me feel like she saw me as nothing all along but a commodity to be sold."

"If she’s still trying to contact you, maybe it means that she still cares about you deep inside. Our parents might be older but they aren’t always right, maybe she regrets what she did to you too, everyone deserves a chance to rectify their mistakes."

Jasmine’s tears were falling freely now and she wiped it off everytime only for more to fall.

"Because I was so angry at her, because I tried to hate her for it, I punished someone who didn’t deserve to be punished. I knew even back then that he wanted to save me, but I thought...I thought if my own mother had so little love for me, then maybe no one could truly love me. Maybe if he stayed with me for a while, that love will fade away and he would betray me too...I did everything to make him hate me, but I’m the one who hates myself now, I hate myself for it everyday..." Her voice broke into sobs and at the end, she couldn’t continue speaking, she dropped her head onto her knees and cried brokenly.

Anne felt her eyes sting with tears. She tried to console Jasmine best as she could, after getting some tissues, Anne also got her a glass of water.

When Anne noticed that her emotions had settled and she wasn’t crying anymore, she sat quietly to speak to her.

"You don’t have to keep living like this, hating yourself and blaming yourself for everything. You ran away from the past and you deserved to get away from all that for a while to clear your head because none of it was your fault, you deserved your mother’s love and understanding and feeling betrayed would naturally hurt, but that doesn’t mean you should keep yourself in that hurt for the rest of your life. Your mother hurt you, and you hurt that person too, but you don’t deserve to keep punishing yourself everyday for the past."

Jasmine sniffed and looked at Anne with a grateful bitter smile.

"Then what should I do? I don’t know what to do."

"You should confront your past, talk to your mother, you need closure about the past, not to run from it. After that, you should find him too. I know it’s going to be hard to face him again, or even to find him but..."

"I don’t need to look for him Anne, he’s here. He found me but I haven’t had the guts to face him, or the messages he leaves me everyday." Jasmine got out of her seat and walked towards a cabinet in her living room atop which there was a vase of roses.

At some point she had gotten tired of tossing the roses, so she kept them, the more she got fresh ones the more she kept them. At some point, he no longer sent the notes she didn’t read, only sending the roses unfailingly.

Did he really not hate her, even after everything? Did he really not feel like giving up, even till now?

Anne walked up to Jasmine when she noticed her standing in the same place and found her staring at a drawer full of notes and unopened letters. Anne could already guess who it might be from.

"Give yourself a chance to look into your past, Jass. Maybe your happiness was there, in what you left behind."

Jasmine smiled at Anne, nodding her head in understanding. She wiped her tears and perked up.

"Enough about me, how have you been doing lately and how’s that husband of yours?" Maybe it was a way to put a little bit of light after the heavy topic they discussed but after keeping Anne’s advice in mind, she wanted to at least talk about something nice to boost Anne’s mood a bit and hers too.

"I have been..." Anne had started to talk but suddenly paused, her whole face turning pale.

"What’s wrong Anne? Are you okay?" Jasmine looked into her face with worry in her eyes.

"I’m fine." Anne said, trying to sound okay but she wasn’t exactly feeling okay at the moment.

For a moment she had felt this sharp pain.

"Come sit, I’ll get you a glass of water." Just as Jasmine left her side, the pain hit her even harsher this time causing her to wrinkle her brows and let out a small sound of pain.

"Anne!" Jasmine rushed back to Anne’s side when she heard her make that sound.

"Jass, I think I...Ahh!" Anne couldn’t finish her words when the pain hit her again and Jasmine immediately rushed to call the ambulance.