The time seemed to have stopped.
Jay, who was filling her plate, looked around her… Venelope was frozen, staring at her, and her father was standing, about to pull his chair to sit with them, looking at her with guilt and pain.
Finally, after a minute of this dead silence, her father said,
"Haha… you are absolutely right. That's why I'm saying, eat all you want. It's not every day you get to enjoy my best world-class cooking."
Venelope added, "Yeah, yeah, Uncle! I'm especially honored today. Jay must have enjoyed your delicious recipes before, I'll also savor them wholly."
Jay was silent, looking down… thinking, I am the most dumb person… but why am I the dumb person? I'm right, after all… Still, I shouldn't have said this… then you wouldn't be able to say it ever. But still… Venelope was here! Who cares, she already knows more about you than any of you parents…
Jay…
Jay…
JAY?!
"Y-Yeah?" Jay exclaimed suddenly, snapping out of her train of thoughts.
"What are you thinking?"
"N… Nothing…"
"Then why weren't you listening?"
"I was just… randomly…"
"Don't think here and there just eat."
Her father placed a water jug on the table and pushed the chair he had pulled out earlier back into its position.
"Uncle, you won't sit with us?"
"Oh… I have something to do. I won't disturb you young people."
"Oh, we won't be disturbed, Uncle! Let's have a meal together…"
Her father untied his apron, took it off, and hung it on the wall hook.
"You eat. I'll eat later. And take more if you wish there's much more left in the kitchen. Okay?"
He looked at both of them and then left, rushing upstairs.
"Where's your mother?"
"Don't know."
"She won't eat?"
"No idea."
"You won't ask her?"
"Why would I ask her?"
Venelope looked at her crossly, to which Jay replied,
"What?! She can eat when she wants to eat."
"Go, Jay. See your mother. Otherwise, if you don't go believe me I will go back to my own house right now! I don't want to become a villain in front of your mother. Go ask her!"
Reluctantly, Jay got up and started to go up the stairs. Her parents' room was open.
...
"Did you know Jay is allergic to shrimps?"
"Who said she is allergic?" Jay heard her mother saying angrily.
"She told me herself!"
"When?"
"Earlier…"
"In front of the outsider?!"
"That doesn't matter, does it?! We are her parents and we didn't even know she's allergic to seafood!"
"I already have a headache don't talk to me! I don't want to hear this gibberish"
"Do you know how I felt when I told her I had cooked her favorite shrimp fried rice, and her friend told me she's allergic?"
"I don't know, and I don't want to know! If she's allergic, she should have told us!"
"Do you know what I felt when I realized we almost daily cook seafood because we think all of us like it?"
"Are you blaming me for this?! Don't you like seafood?!"
"I'm allergic to seafood!"
"What?!"
"I thought it doesn't matter… As long as my love and my daughter enjoy it, I love it too…"
"Miller do you even realize what you are saying?!"
Jay could clearly hear her mother's sobs and her father's painful sighs.
"Why didn't you tell me?! That you didn't like it, and that you were allergic?! What if you had died!"
"What if my daughter had DIED, Elyana…she was taking poison everyday! We were feeding her poison by our very hands!? Do you know what I felt when right in front of my eyes she was going back to her room, without even looking at me?"
Her mother was silent now.
"Have you ever felt disappointment?"
…no response
"Elyana I am talking to you…"
Still no response came.
"Let's say… there is a thing it's necessary for your existence. Necessary for you to live.
But you cannot touch it… You cannot go too far from it, because you won't be able to breathe otherwise.
And you cannot get close to it, because then again, you won't be able to breathe and it will also cause that thing to perish.
And you don't know what to do… You feel miserable, tired, alone, and stuck in one place…
And then, because you can't go close, can't go far you want to die right at that very spot, so you won't be called a coward…"
"What are you even talking about, Mil…" her mother was crying now.
"Jay is that thing to me Elyana… i cannot get too close to her because I fear I will suffocate her, I cannot go far from her because then I will suffocate without her… I don't know what to do…"
Jay's face was red and she couldn't stop crying. She had her mouth covered with her hand to keep her voice from echoing in the empty corridor. She didn't know what to do… She knew if she went down, Venelope would see her… And if she didn't move from here, her parents would see her…
She started taking deep breaths… and immediately went into the guest bathroom on the floor.
There, she opened the tap and started drinking directly from it.
Suddenly, she felt a pang of pain in her stomach. She bent over the sink with pain.
It was again one of the most severe more severe than the last time.
And this time… she lost consciousness.
The tap was still running, filling up the sink, because she had forgotten to remove the sink cap.
She fell on her knees on the floor.
The water from the sink started to overflow. It left the bathroom and started following an unknown trail down the stairs…
…..
Venelope was waiting for Jay to come and eat together.
But suddenly, she heard the fast rush of water and turned her eyes toward the noise.
The scene struck her.
She immediately left her seat and ran upstairs. She was following the trail of water and saw the closed bathroom door. She started knocking but to no avail.
Venelope looked around, panicked, and then saw the open bedroom.
Without any warning, she went straight in.
Her mother was still crying, and her father was holding his head…
"Uncle! Auntie! Jay is not opening the bathroom door…"
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