Finally, the hour of Mrs. Huang’s surgery arrived, and they wheeled her into the operation theatre. Mrs. Huang was clearly scared, but seeing Liam standing alongside Lana, she felt a lot relieved and kept her fears at bay.

Liam accompanied Lana at the waiting area of the operating room. They sat beside each other. Lana was very nervous, and she kept on scratching her hands out of nervousness.

Though she looked calm from outside, her heart was in total turmoil. Cancer was such a deadly name that the horror of this disease lingers in the mind of the patient and the family. Lana was no different in this regard.

Liam noticed Lana’s nervousness and saw her hurting herself while she tried to keep herself composed on the outside. He shook his head and exhaled loudly, then extended his hand, taking away her one hand in his own. He clasped his fingers tightly around her palm. .

Lana jumped from his sudden touch and was suddenly held in the warmth of a rough hand. “What are you doing?” Lana snarled with collided eyebrows, trying to pull her hand back from his grip.

“Shh, relax. It’s not like I will eat your hand up. You don’t even realise that you are unconsciously scratching at your hand out of nervousness. Look at how red it is already. Let me hold your hand for a while and keep it warm instead of you, else you will end up bruising yourself, even before the operation is over.” Liam reasoned, but Lana was not convinced with his statements and kept staring at him with her furrowed brows.

Somehow she felt Liam’s actions were sometimes out of ordinary and she couldn’t help but like all his gestures, yet a weird kind of fear lingered in her heart every time he came close to her.

“Hey, don’t tell me you’re getting affected with my simple touch like this one? It’s just a friendly gesture comforting someone I like…”

Lana raised her eyebrows when she heard his words and before she could even open her mouth to rebuke him, Liam realised what he had blurted out.

Liam had subconsciously mumbled his feelings in front of Lana, but he knew how to salvage the situation. Without giving much thought he immediately added, “I mean someone close to me, I like… like a friend.”

Lana’s contorted face then softened back, and she hummed, “Thank you Liam, but as much as possible can you limit being too touchy with me? I’m not used to it besides we’re the only ones here. No one is around from any of our families to show off that we are a couple.”

“Sure Lana. I’ll take note of that, but for now I will better keep holding your hand like this instead of letting you scratch it. If you want today, I can also lend you my shoulder while we wait and in case you feel sleepy.” Liam offered.

Lana shook her head and with a coy smile replied, “No thanks. I’m afraid you’re gonna ask me for more favors if you lend me these precious shoulders of yours…”

They stayed there for a few minutes, both silent when Lana suddenly asked, “Liam, I’m curious to ask a personal question from you but I’m not sure about it. This may be an improper question from me to you…”

Liam’s muscle flinched in excitement. It was the first time that Lana wanted to ask something private about him.

“Fire it out, it’s okay…” Liam responded in his soft voice.

“About your mother?” Lana started, still hesitating if she would continue or not.

“I don’t have a mother, Lana. For me, she’s dead already. We all treat her as dead…” Liam answered with a sullen voice. Lana noticed how his aura suddenly changed. He somewhat sounded gloomy.

So she thought that maybe it was better not to ponder more on what happened. She knew her mother would also ask her later if she had any idea about Liam’s mother.

“Do you want to know what happened?” Liam asked in a low and sad voice. He wanted to know if Lana was curious to know everything about him as well as he wanted to know about her more.

Lana’s past life was not important to him at all but he wanted to know it so he could understand her more because sometimes, the past played an important role in a person’s life and perspective. It often played a vital role in framing the mindset and entire personality of who the person was right now.

He heard Lana heaved a long, deep sigh. “Yeah… I’m curious to know what happened to you and your mom, Liam. I believe the topic is a bit sensitive because I noticed none of your family members mentioned her when your family visited a while ago. You don’t have to tell if you’re uncomfortable. It’s just me getting curious about it.” Lana explained with a smile.

It was good to talk about something meaningful rather than waiting in silence in the waiting room. Lana was about to change the topic when Liam suddenly whispered, “It’s okay, Lana.

To start with, I should tell you, I was one of those kids whom people called a mother’s boy, I always followed my mom when I was a kid. I was so close with my mom in my childhood because I was the only child by that time.”

“I had spent a lot of good and happy moments with her. She smelled so good… just like fresh milk… something similar to your smell. She got pregnant again and delivered Miley when I was four…

Everything seemed to be perfect. I think I was six or seven years old then when something started feeling not right to me. My father and mother often quarrelled. My mother would always leave home for no reason. Then one day I accidentally witnessed it… She and her so-called friend…” Liam narrated, but then paused for a while.

Lana unconsciously hugged Liam’s arm, gently caressing it with her other hand since her other hand was still being held by Liam’s. She could feel how Liam got hurt by that incident with his low, disappointed voice. Then she heard him sigh and say, “Well you see at my age that time I could perfectly understand what I saw. To cut the long story short… She left us to go to another man.”

Liam could still recall how he begged on bended knees for his mother to stay with them, with her family… But she chose to leave without even looking back at him.

“You see from them on, I have built a kind of hatred or resentment for women. I always feel like all women are the same… Cheater… Selfish like my mom. You see my father… He’s almost so close to perfection that I still can’t understand why she left him… me and Miley. From then on, she’s already dead for us.” Liam continued.

“Where is she now?” Lana asked.

“Last thing I heard about her was that she had another family to love and take care of now. She had changed her name too, but I no longer pondered and even scolded my father for still secretly asking details about my mother.” Liam replied. Somehow, telling this lifted up a heavy thing inside his chest. He told no one about his mother except her now.

“It must be hard, but then you should be proud of how well your father raised you and Miley and even Jorge so well.” Lana murmured.

She heard Liam chuckle and said, “Yeah… He’s the best father and mother at the same time. I really pity him, Lana. I feel like he did not deserve to get hurt like that. I can’t believe I shared one of my darkest secrets with you as well. I guess I trust you too much, Lana.”

Their serious conversation stopped when the door of the operating room opened and Dr. Wang informed Lana that her mother would soon wake up and was now being moved to the recovery room so they could wait for her to get back in her ward.

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