Pathological Possession: Even Death Will Not Part Us-Chapter 123: Eleanor, You Don’t Hate Me That Much
The last time Eleanor saw the child was on the simple ultrasound machine at Elaine White’s home. It was just a tiny, blurry gray dot.
Encased in a large gray-white oval, the female doctor told her that was the gestational sac.
Eleanor thought the shape of the gestational sac resembled an eggplant, and later, she searched online.
Netizens have a wealth of experience, saying a round gestational sac means a son, and a long one means a daughter.
She hoped for the best.
Elaine poured cold water on her hopes.
"The shape of the gestational sac depends on the direction of the ultrasound probe. Whatever shape you want, the doctor can adjust the probe to accommodate. This time it’s an eggplant, next time it’s round. If you have a son, a mini version of Cillian Grant will be ordering you around every day. The Great Underworld King is gone, and here comes the Junior Reaper."
Eleanor took it in, fearful of a child like Cillian Grant, yet reluctant to let go.
She and Cillian Grant had torn each other apart, and the words spoken truly kept swirling in her heart.
It was a tug of war, a battle within.
Yet she never truly hardened her heart and always found excuses to salvage things.
Elaine resentfully scolded her, saying that pregnancy hormones had gone to her brain, controlling her thoughts, and that even after the child was born and the pregnancy hormones were gone, there would still be an invisible umbilical cord tying her down for life.
Eleanor didn’t know if it was the pregnancy hormones controlling her. At first, she didn’t want a child, but the longer time passed, the more she felt the child rooting and sprouting in her bones and blood, accompanying her through ups and downs till this very day.
Some children are fragile, and a fall means they can’t be saved. This child rode the waves with her, even surviving severe hemorrhaging.
Eleanor began to believe in fate.
After going downstairs, the room was already prepared.
She lay on the bed and lifted her clothes.
The female doctor, unusually amiable, gently applied gel to her lower abdomen, "NT is the fetus’s first anomaly scan, mainly checking the nuchal translucency to assess the risk of Down syndrome."
She picked up the probe, "Relax, don’t be nervous. If the fetal position isn’t right, we can’t see anything."
Eleanor remained silent.
If she were living alone in Froskar, she’d be thrilled. She would smile and politely ask the doctor many questions.
Yet, Cillian Grant stood by her side, and her limbs felt like they were crushed by an invisible boulder, her chest heavy and suffocating.
Cillian Grant sensed her gaze and held her hand, soft as boneless, with cold sweat seeping all over.
He was always reticent and indifferent in front of outsiders, distant and icy, yet at this moment, as he gently interlocked her fingers with his, the tender affection on his face was undeniable.
The female doctor moved the probe around.
After a long while, she frowned, "When was your last menstrual period?"
Cillian Grant, "October." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚
When he returned from a business trip in Indigo Province, it wasn’t that he didn’t have a gift for Eleanor, just that Damian Sinclair had been making multiple detours at morning rush hour to see Eleanor, forcing him to be cautious.
"Are you sure it’s been twelve weeks? The fetus seems small."
Cillian Grant stared at the ultrasound screen, his expression serious, "Is it not developing well?"
"Not that severe. Just improve your nutrition, eat more meat, eggs, and milk, and make sure to rest..."
The female doctor gave many more instructions, and after putting away the probe, the assistant took a tissue to clean the gel from Eleanor’s abdomen.
Cillian Grant stopped them. He was one of the few Asian men with deep-set features and sharp lines, strong and imposing. Probably dissatisfied with the prenatal check-up results, his brow furrowed, a black shirt paired with slacks exuded a deep, severe sternness, full of intimidation.
The assistant involuntarily handed over the tissue and retreated to a position far from the bed.
Eleanor stared numbly at the ceiling lights.
The blinding white light didn’t seem harsh. The gentle pressure on her abdomen was deliberate, occasionally Cillian Grant’s fingers warm with a latent heat brushed across her skin.
Initially sporadic, once the gel’s iciness faded, his warm, dry palm covered, stroking across her abdomen.
Eleanor heard the doctors leading their instruments out, the wheels of the equipment clattering gleefully away, the engine sound in the yard.
Everything returned to silence.
In every second of it, the desperation and anxiety were painted vividly. She wished she could transform like The Great Sage, turning into the instrument wires and be pushed away along with the doctors.
"Did you hear all that?" Cillian Grant straightened her clothes, his arm slipped under her neck, lifting her, holding her partially in his arms. "Since you got pregnant, your body needs care and attention, isn’t enough that you’re running around everywhere, can the child endure it?"
Eleanor pushed him away and got off the bed from the other side, "You care about the child?"
Cillian Grant circled the foot of the bed, supporting her arm when he saw her bare feet touch the ground.
Recently, Eleanor had grown thinner, her foot skin alabaster, translucent, with blue veins twisting beneath the surface, giving a fragile, fragmented feeling, as if it could disappear at the slightest touch.
Cillian Grant was already fuming, his anger swelling from three to six parts, "That’s my flesh and blood, I care. You’re his mother, have you cared for him even a bit?"
Eleanor’s chest swelled instantly, her eyes brimming with bloodshot threads, "I want to care for her, want to peacefully raise her. Can you not appear? Can you stay a million miles away from me? Cillian Grant, don’t you understand how much one can loathe another? Spending a minute with you is thousands of times more exhausting and distressing than being tossed at sea or enduring long flights."
Sudden temper was actually a long-repressed enough to accumulate.
Once erupted, hard to restrain.
"Have you seen ants? What does it feel like when they cluster by the thousands? Cillian Grant, within ten meters of me, and those ants crawl inside my veins, gnawing at my heart, adding new wounds over the old scars, I detest you, hate you to the point of biological response. At this moment, why don’t you care about the child? Why don’t you get as far away as you can?"
Cillian Grant’s gaze was sharp as knives, as if he wanted to carve her, yet endured his violent temper, "Eleanor, provoking me does you no good. Once the child is born, and everything stabilizes domestically, I—"
"Marry me, right?"
Eleanor retched, "Why don’t you just kill me directly? People marry for happiness, for love, and marrying you, what would I gain? For disgust, for perversion?"
Cillian Grant took a deep breath, his chest rigid, swelling, "You hate me so much, yet the child remained."
He concluded, "Eleanor, you don’t hate me that much."
Eleanor shivered uncontrollably, gritting her teeth, "I hate you, it has nothing to do with the child, she is innocent and she’s not yours. Cillian Grant, of all the men in the world, you’re the only one unfit to be a father."
Cillian Grant clutched her arm tightly, his jaw set hard and taut, fierce, intimidating, "Who is fit? Eleanor, this child’s last name is Grant for this lifetime, and you’re Mrs. Grant; apart from that, any other possibility, whoever, I’ll destroy one if another appears."
Eleanor trembled, unable to hold herself. "Can you? Your father, your mother, your sister, Grant Group, the whole world. Do you think you’re Liam Xavier? People in love with each other, what do you have? Deceit on both sides? So you came to Froskar and lit the whole island’s candles; you can pretend, you can deceive."
Her undisguised sarcasm in her words made Cillian Grant clamp her chin in an intolerable yet steadfast icy fury, forcing her closer.
Stern-faced, malicious, yet thick with a layer of icy determination, "I can."
Eleanor completely gave up talking.
To this day, she wasn’t devoid of everything; she clearly had an illness— a psychiatric disorder, with neurons misfiring.
She pried his tight grasp finger by finger, breaking free from his constraints.
Turning to leave, she locked herself upstairs.
Still angry, she moved the chest from the doorway to block the door.
For a while, the hallway was quiet.
Cillian Grant didn’t follow her upstairs.
