The Apple of My Eye
Chapter 1611 An Outsider

Sheryl was impressed to find Melissa speaking in a more civilized manner. 'Wow, she seems to be a changed woman now who has learned to speak without cursing!' Sheryl thought to herself. She studied Melissa for a while as if she had developed a completely new impression of her. Then she said, "Haven't you ever given a thought to your own problems? It seems like, ever since you came out of prison, Charles has gotten into endless trouble. These weird things that Charles would never have imagined in his wildest dreams have turned into daily events for him! Haven't you ever reflected on your role in it?" When Sheryl was living in Dream Garden, she would be more careful when she spoke with Melissa, because Melissa was Charles' mother and they lived under the same roof. However, after she moved out of Dream Garden, Sheryl had shunned all of her former courtesy. Melissa had done a lot of things that Sheryl couldn't forgive. Melissa never acted like a real mother-in-law and had left no stone unturned to make Sheryl feel harassed. Hence, Sheryl had no respect left for Melissa in her heart. She no longer wanted to tolerate Melissa' humiliating words or pretend to be a good daughter-in-law.

Melissa hadn't expected Sheryl to point out her problems so blatantly. Hence she was at once dumbfounded.

At that point, Leila stepped in to support Melissa. "Sheryl, what are you talking about? How can you be so rude to talk like this to your own mother-in-law? Aunt Melissa is Charles' mother. Hasn't anyone taught you to be polite to your mother-in-law?"

At first, Sheryl did not want to meddle with Leila. But since she had invited her attention by supporting Melissa, Sheryl couldn't let her go so easily. "Leila? Who do you think you are here? I'm speaking to my own mother-in-law. Why on earth is an outsider judging our relationship in our own family?"

Leila was rendered speechless. Initially, she fumbled as she tried to find words but became quiet after a while. Upon seeing Sheryl retaliate against her ally, Melissa lost her temper and reprimanded in a loud voice, "Sheryl! Stop it now! You are so mean! If anything happens to Charles, I will not spare you!" Her voice was trembling with anger; however, she knew that she couldn't argue with Sheryl because Sheryl was being very logical. Hence, she immediately left the hall with Leila after issuing her threat to Sheryl.

Melissa believed that she was just too tired to argue with Sheryl. However, she didn't want to admit that it was out of fear of losing face.

After they left, Sheryl slowly turned and walked towards Charles' room. She stopped at the glass barrier from where the visitors could see Charles. As she looked through the glass, she could see Charles sleeping peacefully with all of his life support system and monitors hard at work.

The sharpness of her tongue and presence of mind that she had exhibited not so long ago in front of Melissa and Leila just disappeared into thin air the moment her eyes fell on Charles lying in his hospital bed. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she blamed herself even harder than what Melissa did. She could only blame herself and no one else for Charles having ended up in the hospital. At least, it was partially her fault.

However, she knew that she couldn't just break down at the moment. She had to stay strong and face everything on her own since Charles was not there for her. She bit her lips, trying to gather all her strength to hang in there. She managed a smile and said in a low voice towards the glass door, "Charles, please wake up. If you don't wake up so soon, I might find myself another man. I know how jealous you would be if that happened. For sure you won't want to watch me go into another man's arms, will you? So if you don't want me to go, then you'd better wake up as soon as possible. Then you can punch that man in the face, and we can get back together like nothing ever happened between us. Like how we used to be. Charles, what do you think of that?"

Sheryl said a lot of things. Some of her words were not logical, and she didn't even know what she was talking about. However, she just wanted to speak to Charles more and more at that point, hoping that Charles could wake up soon.

"Sher, I thought you were gone," Cassie interrupted Sheryl as she came to Charles' room and found Sheryl.

Cassie was on her rounds for the night shift, so she had looked for Sheryl in her room, but she didn't find her there. Before Isla went home, Isla had told Cassie that Sheryl would be staying in the hospital overnight, hence Cassie became confused when she didn't find Sheryl in her room. After pondering over the matter for a while, she assumed that Sheryl might be with Charles, so she came here to find her. Sheryl secretly wiped away her tears and turned around to Cassie. "You're on a night shift today?"

"Yes, I am," Cassie answered briefly and turned her head to watch Charles. For a while, Cassie remained silent and watched Charles just as Sheryl was doing. She marked the sadness in Sheryl's eyes. Instinctively, she comforted Sheryl in a low voice, "Sher, don't worry. We've handled similar patients like this before. Our hospital is good at it. Most of them woke up eventually. It's just a matter of time, but we don't give up on waking them up. So, Sher, don't worry. Mr. Lu will wake up one day."

Sheryl believed what Cassie said because she knew that Charles would fulfill all the promises he made, especially the promises he made to her.

"Yes, I know. I just...I just feel so worried to see him like this," Sheryl said with a lot of pain in her voice. As she moved her eyes over all of the tubes attached to Charles' body, it seemed as if she could feel Charles' pain. These tubes ran all over his body, and Sheryl couldn't even begin to imagine how agonizing that had to be.

They silently stayed there for a while. After that Cassie returned to her duties and Sheryl went to sleep in her own room.

It was late that night; almost everyone was asleep at Dream Garden. However, someone just couldn't go to sleep that night. It was none other than Leila.

Leila could not keep her two eyelids together for a single minute that night. Although she had stayed with Melissa for the whole day and Melissa had even defended her in front of Sheryl, she felt highly insulted by Sheryl's words.

She felt as if every word uttered by Sheryl was hammering inside her head. The entire conversation she had with Sheryl kept playing in her mind over and over again. However, she could not retaliate by talking to Melissa at the moment. She could only endure it silently because she hadn't gotten what she wanted yet.

No matter how much Leila tried to look at the larger picture, Sheryl's words kept haunting her. She felt claustrophobic and oppressed despite all of the comforts from Melissa.

She felt a strong urge to speak to someone and take action against Sheryl. At that moment, she could think of only one person. Hence, she reached out for her phone and called Holley.

Holley, however, was in a noisy bar with some friends. She didn't even hear the phone ringing amid the loud music.

Leila desperately called her several times, but Holley just didn't pick up the phone. After several attempts, Leila finally gave up.

As Leila stared at the blank screen, she was fuming in anger. She flung the phone to the floor and hit her pillow in anger, before trying again to sleep.

However, she wasn't the only person who couldn't sleep that night.

Rachel unintentionally woke up in the middle of the night. She realized that the downstairs light was on, and Bernard was still awake. She went downstairs and found that Bernard was sitting on the couch alone. She was worried that something might have happened because she had never seen Bernard that way before.

She approached him slowly and asked, "Bernard, what happened? Why are you not asleep? What are you doing sitting on the couch in the middle of the night?" Rachel approached Bernard as she spoke and rested her head on his arms.

Bernard was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice Rachel at first. When her presence brought him back from his reverie, he smiled at her and said, "It's nothing. I just wanted to smoke. Why are you up?" Rachel smiled back sweetly and said, "I wanted some water. I was thirsty."

Although both of them knew from the start that they had only gotten together to stay warm and avoid being lonely, Bernard felt that he wouldn't be able to stay without Rachel after being with her for such a long time. He even thought that he loved Rachel so much that he would even risk his life for her.

After Rachel made sure that Bernard was not feeling troubled as such, she felt relieved. She got up and drank some water before going upstairs to hit the sack, leaving Bernard all by himself.

Bernard saw Rachel off but remained silent. The moment Rachel disappeared out of his sight, the smile on his face suddenly disappeared.

Just a day before, Bernard happened to meet up with Tom again.

Bernard was shopping when Tom found him, and he hadn't expected Tom to appear in front of him all of a sudden.

"Tom! How come you are here?" Bernard said as he saw Tom. Then, Bernard looked around nervously, trying to see if there were any other people around them. A moment later, he gathered all his strength and staying calm he managed to look back at Tom.

A smile slowly appeared on Tom's face. He studied Bernard all over and sneered, "I had thought that you must have forgotten that I still exist in this world."

"Oh, that's impossible, Tom. Don't make fun of me. I will never forget you. How dare I forget you?" Bernard remarked nervously. Bernard knew that Tom must have come to look for him because of Ferry. 'I haven't completed the task Tom assigned to me. He asked me to kill Ferry, but I have not been able to do it yet. It's been a long time, and I have not made any progress towards it. He must be losing his patience, Bernard thought to himself.

"Oh, really? But your actions betray your words, Bernard. If you haven't dared to forget me, then why on earth is Ferry still hale and healthy?" Tom said provocatively. Then he suddenly stepped closer to Bernard after he finished speaking.

He looked straight into Bernard's eyes with a cold and threatening glare.

Bernard could feel Tom's eyes piercing into his own eyes. He couldn't help but feel nervous and terrified, like a deer caught in the headlights.

After he managed to calm himself down in front of Tom, he responded slowly, "Don't worry, Tom. I will complete my task very soon. I will definitely complete it since it has been assigned by you. Recently, I've been gathering all the information about Ferry, so that I can create a foolproof plan to kill him. I need to be careful about it so that I don't miss the target.

I want him dead in only one attempt."

Luckily for Bernard, Tom was apparently in a good mood that day, so he bought Bernard's explanation. He patted Bernard on the shoulder and smiled. "I know you and what you can do. You will complete the task for me, won't you?"