Try Begging - Chapter 168.2

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Eventually, she said she’d be in touch later and quickly took the baby away. She had come with the resolve to leave the baby there if the house was as perfect as she had hoped. It truly was a perfect home, so why was she hesitating?

She stopped when she reached the foaming water’s edge.

Standing with her toes dipped in the tide, she watched the large passenger ship in the distance shrink to a mere dot before speaking to the baby.

“Isn’t it amazing? I thought it was amazing too at first.”

The baby, fascinated by the sea and the beach, kept glancing around. Grace neatly combed the baby’s tousled hair, then pointed at the sea from the baby’s eye level.

“Look carefully. That’s the sea.”

“<>Awaa—”

The baby babbled as if trying to mimic her. As she looked down at the baby’s sparkling eyes, she suddenly wondered.

Would your thirteen-year-old face resemble his?

She probably wouldn’t know. She shouldn’t have to know. When she’d be thirteen, she’d already be beyond that sea.

Sitting on a bench by the roadside, gazing at the sea, she eventually became thirsty.

“Ugh… why do I drink this stuff…”

Grace grimaced as she took a sip of the sparkling water. The baby, sitting on her lap, looked at her face with curiosity and then stared intently at the pale blue bottle.

“What? Want to try some?”

As she held the bottle to the baby’s small lips and let a tiny bit of sparkling water flow in, the baby immediately scrunched up its face and pulled away. It seemed the baby didn’t share the same taste as the man.

“Huwa—”

“Right? It’s so awful, and he drinks this every day. It’s really beyond understanding.”

As Grace wiped the spilled sparkling water from the baby’s bib, talking and laughing to herself, her expression suddenly hardened.

“Badmouthing the father in front of the child isn’t good for their education.”

‘Shut up. Please, just shut up.’

Lately, the man’s voice has been echoing in her mind all day. Since being confined in the annex, the only person she had to talk to was him. Even after escaping, she had lived in isolation, never engaging in a proper conversation with anyone.

So, for the past year and four months, Grace’s sole conversation partner had been that man.

Even when she wanted to speak, there was no one to talk to, so she ended up conversing with the man in her head, often startling herself into stopping. Yet, the man’s presence in her thoughts was persistently bothersome.

“Grace Riddle.”

Why?

“Have you ever imagined a life that isn’t yours?”

Yes, now she’s going to live a life that wasn’t Grace Riddle’s.

A normal life. Like those people over there.

Grace stared intently at a young couple standing hand in hand, walking across the sunset-painted sandy beach with their baby. She wasn’t sure what a normal life was, but it seemed like it would look like that.

Imagining herself in that scene, she tried not to picture the man and the child, yet the man in her head persisted in irritating whispers.

“I’ve become curious about a life that isn’t Leon Winston’s.”

The voice, once filled with exhaustion when she first heard it, now sounded temptingly sweet. Grace suddenly clenched her teeth.

‘Why are you telling me this? Whether you do or not, don’t think you can force me into your life.’

With the man, her, and the child, achieving a normal life seemed out of reach. If that incident hadn’t happened, would she be a better adult now? If it hadn’t happened, could they have been happy together?

Those thoughts now seemed laughable.

The hypothetical was futile, and what’d happened couldn’t be undone.

Because that incident did happen, they grew into flawed adults and left behind an innocent victim, this child, in their personal miseries. When the two of them came together, sparks always flew, and those sparks spread, turning everything around them to ashes.

She couldn’t let this innocent child be caught up in that firestorm. So, she believed that for all three to find normal happiness, they had to achieve it separately.

‘…But what am I doing right now?’

Grace shook the empty bottle filled with seashells and sighed as she watched the baby smiling with the happiest face in the world.

This modest happiness was just a fleeting luxury.

‘Before becoming unhappy together, I need to let you go. What am I doing?’