Gilbert hurried back to the apartment, his mind consumed with concern for Sherilyn. When he entered, she was still standing there as if frozen, her entire body tense and trembling more severely with each passing moment. “Sherilyn?” Gilbert’s heart ached as he approached her, gently guiding her to sit on the couch. Her hands were icy to the touch.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice filled with deepening worry.
Sherilyn met his gaze with a blank stare, her eyes unfocused.
“I’m a jinx…” she murmured, a bitter smile playing on her lips.
“That’s just nonsense,” Gilbert said softly, enclosing her hands with his own.
“Is it?” Sherilyn seemed lost in her thoughts, tears starting to form at the corners of her eyes. She shook her head slightly and spoke softly, more to herself than to him. “After my parents divorced, Mom took me back to her hometown, Ivy Hollow. I refused to believe Dad had abandoned us… I kept running away, trying to find him.”
Gilbert knelt in front of her, gazing up into her eyes.
Sherilyn gave a small, sorrowful smile as tears silently fell.
“I would disappear, and Mom would always come looking for me… There was one time Grandma found me, but Mom… she never came back that night…” Suddenly, Gilbert sensed something terrible. “Sherilyn… please, don’t say anymore!”
But she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “The next day, Mom still didn’t come back… Days passed, and then Grandma got the news… they found Mom…” Sherilyn was choked by her own emotions, tears pouring down her face.
“Mom… she was searching for me along the mountain road. It was too dark; she fell… She fell!”
The haunting image of her mother, bloodied and broken, appeared before Sherilyn’s eyes. “Sherilyn!” Gilbert straightened up, pulling her into his arms. “I’m here. I’m here.”
feline
Sherilyn leaned against him, numb and unresponsive. “It’s my fault… Why did I have to go looking for him He didn’t want us, and because of me, Mom… Mom died…
Her cries were soft, but the depth of her sorrow seemed to echo from her very bones. “Sherilyn…” Gilbert cradled her like a child..
“I’m so sorry.”
He had known her for ten years, yet he had never realized the depth of her childhood pain. “Let it out, cry if you need to.”
Sherilyn sobbed quietly. “Malvina was right. Grandma also suffered because of me. She had to struggle at her age just for me… And Jenna…”
She clung to Gilbert’s shirt instinctively. “Other kids are healthy, but I couldn’t even give that to her… I’m a jinx, I am…”
“No, you’re not!” Gilbert was overwhelmed by a surge of compassion.
“The Martin family’s misfortune is not your fault! Jenna… it’s my fault for not taking better care of you both. I’m so sorry…”
Sherilyn stared at Gilbert, her tears
halting as if seeing him clearly for the first time. Suddenly, she spoke with fierce determination, “What good is an apology? Do you know how I’ve survived these years? How Jenna and I have managed?”
“Sherilyn…” Gilbert’s hands still cupped her face.
“Then tell me, let me understand, alright?”