CHAPTER 117: WISH TO BE ANOTHER

{Music Recommendation: I Can’t Hear It Now ~ Freya Ridings}

Jenna hadn’t eaten anything, but she wanted to throw up. She couldn’t pretend she was fine when she felt sick from inside down to her stomach. Staggering to her room, Jenna slammed the door with force, walked over to the corner of her room and hid herself.

It was horrible. The many thoughts that made her shiver, Jenna could feel herself burning up from inside. Why? She didn’t know. She hated the feeling so much that she wanted to wrench out her own heart.

Not once had she felt this way, even when Gerald soiled their home with numerous women, or when he shamed her in front of his friends. Jenna only felt dirty, but not this way... she wanted to hurt herself or rather drown, at the same time she wanted to yell. Yell at who?

Rhane!

Jenna tightened her eyes shut and gasped for air. That was right, she was not just angry at Rhane, she despised him, and she abhorred herself for thinking that low of Rhane based on what a mere stranger had said.

’He touched me.’

Jenna grabbed her hair, she recoiled in the corner where she was sitting and winced. She didn’t want to think about it, to imagine that Rhane had laid eyes on another woman the same way he’d do her. And touched? How... just how? Was it the same way he touched her too? Was he even better with it?

Though she had stood up for herself earlier, it was all because Jenna didn’t like to lose. She hated the young woman’s guts so much that it made her let her guard down. Jenna knew the girl was trying to spite her, but she had underestimated her abilities very much.

And it wasn’t just that, the manner in which the girl had described Rhane’s features. It made more sense when the girl mentioned what happened between them.

Rhane isn’t like that. A small voice of reason whispered at the back of Jenna’s mind. Memories flooded in, Rhane had been in the merchant village with her. So many women threw themselves at him, but not once did Rhane let go of her hand. He stayed, he obeyed, and he bowed to only her.

This is different. Did you see her? A sun-kissed hair... tiny face, pale skin.

Jenna shook her head, pushing away the voice that crushed her soul. The words that made her hate Rhane.

Rhane is better. He’s never hit you... he always bled for you.

Jenna nodded to herself, she breathed in and out very slowly. She needed to calm down and not let her past ruin the best for her.

But he is a man. He is like Gerald. All men are the same. All they ever do is lie and use women! He found someone better than you... someone undefiled. A true lady who had never been seen by other men. Someone perfect for him.

"Rhane isn’t like that!" Jenna screamed out loudly, clasping her hands on her ears as if to silence the voices.

"Ah!" The little girl at the door gasped out in fear, one hand on her chest, the other holding the tray to balance on her stomach.

Jenna, who didn’t realize she had company, dropped her hands to her knees. Her back resting on the wall, while she just stared blankly at the young girl.

"I-I’m sorry if I scared you..." the young girl stammered, "I noticed you didn’t touch even a slice of bread during breakfast, so I brought this... there won’t be another meal until the sunsets... it’s just an egg with this bread." She used her two hands to hold the tray, moving it forward for Jenna to see.

Jenna opened her mouth to talk, but a croaked sound was heard, followed by a tear that slipped without warning.

"Oh my," the young girl gasped, stepping further inside the room. She dropped the tray on the table and rushed to where Jenna was. "Your hand needs treatment."

Running inside the bathroom, the girl returned with a wet cloth which she used to wipe Jenna’s bleeding palm.

More tears rushed down Jenna’s eyes, not from the cut on her palm. She barely felt it. It would have been better if she did, as the cut would be more bearable compared to her chest that ripped to shreds.

"It’s all fine, Nana will stitch the wound back... you don’t have to cry." The girl consoled, blowing air on Jenna’s palm.

Seeing that Jenna wouldn’t stop crying, the girl bit her lips worriedly. She threw her small hands around Jenna’s neck, pulling her into a hug.

"There... there... a little cut won’t make you ugly." The girl reassured, "I’m sure a good man with eyes won’t hesitate to love you—"

Jenna tightened her eyes shut and bawled, she could no longer control what grew inside of her. What she had been so afraid to admit.

It wasn’t her hate for Rhane, nor her anger towards the girl that had spoken to her earlier. It was how she saw herself. The reason why she avoided her feelings for Rhane for too long. And the reason she should never have accepted what she felt.

Besmirched. Touched. Defiled. Rotten.

All the worst was what she thought herself to be. The reason she hid her body from others, the reason she felt jealous that Rhane had met another woman.

It dawned on Jenna that she had only been dreaming, having a man fit as Rhane fight for her. No man would ever do that for a woman who has warmed another man’s bed. A woman whose body had been seen by others. Rhane had no reason to live in that shame, to be mocked by other men about what his wife’s body looks like.

Maybe that was what her father had wanted to warn her about. Jenna curled her body, as she shook in tears.

If only she had locked her heart, returned back to the merchant village, living her life the way she planned it. Maybe she wouldn’t have believed that love would come for a woman like her.

Jenna bit her lips, more tears swelling in her eyes. She had dreamed for too long.

"It’s alright," the little girl patted, "Nana always says every pain has its day... but it doesn’t stay until dawn. It’ll fade away by dusk. You can ask her yourself."

Jenna buried her face on the girl’s shoulder, "I hate who I am," she prayed. "I wish I were another...." For the first time in Jenna’s life, she wished that Rhane had met her in her prime. When she knew no man, when she was just as pure as girls in the house.