Wicked Fate

FORTY SECOND CHAPTER

If. If. If.

Dara remembers growing up and being told of the legend of the forsaken maiden who devotedly waited for her lover on top of a stone rock until she melded with the stone – while still looking out into the sea.

Now known as the Oedolgae Rock of Jeju-do, she knows better about the story of the rock and that her Grandfather was being gentle towards her (one of the stories about it was it was actually the remains of a woman who threw herself to the sea in grief after her husband's death, not the kind of story you'd tell a wide-eyed 13 year-old) when he gave her the "fairytale" version of it instead.

She also remembers asking whether someone could really wait that long for another person.

Her Grandfather had smiled mysteriously at her then, as though, he personally knew the maiden who had turned into stone as he answered. "You may not know it now but someday you will find that there are things – or people for that matter – that are worth waiting for."

She had not taken it too seriously but as the years went by, she understood that phrase better and better.

Like a whisper of prophecy, she wondered whether that conversation with her Grandfather altered something in the way her life was being written.

"Will I turn into stone like you too?", she asked the rock now as she and Jay watched the drizzle of tourists walking around and basking under the sun, taking pictures with Oedolgae as their background.

"What did you just say?", the man beside her asked.

"Ow! Nothing", she lied, smiling at him to erase that hint of worry that she knows might be playing around her face "I'm a little hungry now. Why don't we eat?"

"Thought you'd never ask", Jay replied and immediately took her hand to walk towards the nearby restaurant.

This is the first time since she bumped into Jay this morning that she got reminded of her broken heart. Acidly, she shook her head at how she had even thought she could forget that.

As clear as the sun breaking out and bouncing in the sky is how desolate she has been feeling after that conversation with Jiyong.

Like he had some contagious disease – they were back on the same footing they once had.

She is doing her best not to talk to him and he is doing his best not to create any reason for her to go down from her office and face him.

Young Bae pointed it out to her and joked that ever since Jay's arrival, she had become a little calmer – she wasn't going about the hospital ready to cut their heads off.

She smiled at this – neither acknowledging nor denying it because it was a safe shield.

If Jiyong wans everything to be kept in secret, she is going to respect that.

"You suddenly look so thoughtful", Jay told her as they sat down a table in a veranda looking out to the sea.

"Do I?", she asked distractedly, "It's just I suddenly remembered something."

"Want to tell me about it?"

Dara, in truth is really tempted to. She doesn't have too many friends who are guys – some of them are even Ji's cousins.

But how could she open up something like this to Jay?

"Well... it's one of my nurses", she began.

"What happened to her?", Jay asked in concern as a young boy came to take their orders.

They both settled on pork barbecue and she continued – albeit with difficulty. She isn't one to lie and being an adult, she hasn't really deceived anyone. Jay, on the other hand, is a good lawyer who can read through anyone but she wished he wouldn't know of this deeply. "It's really something personal but it's bothering her work and I don't know whether to step in and talk to her about it. I left her on the lead today and I just want to check how she's doing."

"Why?"

"You see... I think she fell in love with some guy."

"Is that a bad thing?"

She fidgeted with her fingers. "I'm not entirely sure."

Jay took her hand and forced her to look him in the eye. "If it bothers you this much, talk to me about it."

"The man is sort of a playboy, a rebel", she began, knowing she won't be able to turn back now, "And nothing good has ever come out in falling in love with someone like that right?"

"How would you know?", the lawyer in Jay asked, "Have you been in love with a playboy Nurse Park? Haven't the novels you've read or the movies you've seen convinced you that there is always hope for the young rebel who falls in love with the pastor's daughter? Nicholas Sparks ought to have opened your mind to that already."

She frowned. "That's fiction, Attorney Park. I haven't seen with my own eyes a real-life story of the good girl having a happy ending with the bad boy."

He frowned back at her. "You've become quite the cynical haven't you Dara?"

She sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be", Jay told her and pressed on her hand, his sincerity evident in the next words, "I know you're just being real to your self and I do understand it's normal to doubt how genuine love like that is but you can't deny that that's still love. We all wish for a happy ending but maybe your Nurse just wants to be happy for the moment... maybe for her, that's enough. And maybe you should just let it, After all, no matter how common place love seems to be nowadays, it still doesn't happen for a lot of people."