He Wanted Me to Take the Poison for His First Love

Thera’s eyes were red, her face pale, and her voice trembled with disbelief.

Harriet’s expression shifted instantly. Panic filled his face as he rushed to pick Thera up and tend to her wound.

She shot me an angry glare before turning away.

I stood there, feeling dazed.

It was just like a few years ago when I had broken a ceramic bowl while bringing him chicken noodle soup and hurt my hand. He had the same look on his face then.

Even when he saw my hands covered in blood, his eyes reddened with worry.

He had quickly treated my wound while muttering to himself in self-blame.

“It’s all my fault. I should’ve gotten it for you. Does it hurt a lot, Cathy? You can hit me if you want. If you hit me, it won’t hurt anymore.”

I shook my head, but he insisted.

He made me hold the stick and hit him twice before he finally backed off.

“Cathy, I promise I’ll never let you get hurt again. I’ll take better care of you.”

His words were still fresh in my ears.

And like a fool, I believed him.

Until the poison he injected into me. Until the endless stream of inferior antidotes he pumped into me.

That was when I finally understood.

His heart wasn’t with me anymore.

I snapped back to reality. Thera’s wound wasn’t deep.

After treating it, Harriet walked toward me with a cold expression, and slapped me across the face with a force neither too light nor too heavy.

“Cathy, what happened to you? How could you be so malicious? You knew the ceramic pieces were on the floor, and you still pushed Thera. You did it on purpose!”

“She came to visit you with good intentions, and not only are you ungrateful, but now you’re trying to harm her! They were right, people like you deserve to die from illness!”

I swallowed the metallic taste in my mouth.

I calmly looked at Thera, who was glaring at me from a distance, and said softly, “I’m sorry.”

Harriet froze, her words cutting off as she swallowed the rest of her anger.

She stood there for a long while until the sound of Thera’s crying snapped her out of it.

“Still pretending, Cathy? Is this some kind of game for you? Thera may be kind and a little naive, but I won’t let you deceive me! I’ll protect her. Don’t you ever try to hurt her again!”

With that, Harriet turned and left, taking Thera with her.

Looking at Thera’s victorious smile, I found it laughable.

Before leaving, she threw a pitiful glance my way.

“Cathy, tomorrow’s my birthday. I hope you’ll come too. Let’s forget the past and start fresh, okay?”

She smiled, carefree.

Harriet furrowed his brows and gently pinched Thera’s cheek, his tone playful.

“Forget the pain after the wound heals? You’ve already forgotten she poisoned you? How can you be so easily fooled? What would I do without you?”

After lying for so long, Harriet began to believe it.

But the truth was, it was Thera who had insisted on picking that unknown plant, even after I warned her over and over not to.

When Harriet found out, he looked at me with blame in his eyes.

“Cathy, you’re the older sister. Why didn’t you warn Thera more? If you had told her the plant was poisonous, would she have picked it? You have some responsibility in this too.”

Thera, pale from the poison, clung to Harriet, crying.

“Cathy, you majored in plants in college. How could you not recognize it? Why didn’t you warn me when you knew it was poisonous? I just thought it looked pretty and wanted to give it to Harriet…”

She looked at me, her gaze cold, with Harriet’s reproach mirrored in her eyes.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

I let them ride off on their mountain bikes, leaving me to “punish” myself by walking home.

It took me all night.

By the time I finally reached the bottom of the hill, my feet were bleeding, and I had no idea how many times I had tripped.

But then Harriet found an excuse to take me away.

And she locked me up for five years.

That night, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

Without a phone, without a watch, I had no way of knowing what was happening outside.

Just as I was about to drift off, I was jolted awake by the voice of Bill from the lab.

He sounded a bit excited.