She felt her mouth go dry and eyelashes tremble, feeling herself standing above others physically. She gasped softly and felt slightly dizzy.
Jun jumped on his feet but seeing her gain her composure, he stopped. Worry marred on his face, and he still restlessly shifted his weight from one foot to another.
Yating, on his end, was about to rush to her side too but stopped in time, feeling relief that she was okay.
Jun wondered if he should order the organizers to remove the stage altogether. That way, Ai won't have to face her fear and confidently do her job.
Yunru adjusted his tie, alarmed of what he was planning. "Bro, just stay put, okay?"
Jun sharply jerked his head towards his cousin and narrowed his eyes. "She is afraid of heights. I don't want her to feel petrified while telling her story. What if she faints? I will burn this place down if they disqualified her because she became sick just like the other author!"
Why are you going so far?
"S-She seems in good shape now…"
Jun watched her figure go steady and nodded his head in satisfaction.
Ai watched the crowd in silence. Some of them watched her with interest while some with disdain. Many simply showed neutral expressions.
"Good evening. I am MissImperfectlyFine. Once again, I would like to thank the judges for giving me this chance in such a prestigious Summit. I hope you like the story I have to tell…"
The air had turned completely silent. Jun quietly kept his brown irises fixed at her, his heart strangely pounding in his chest to hear her story.
Xing Bi had also clasped her hands together and prayed hard for everything to go well.
The soft glimmer in Ai's pupils shone as a tranquil smile lifted her lips. Until this moment, she felt timid and flustered. But now a sense of serenity sheathed her heart as she felt herself sink in the depths of the story and let the emotions overwhelm her with which she had penned the words.
"She didn't know what love was.
Every time she got closer to discovering love, her illusion shattered into pieces. For a long time as a child, she watched her parents and thought, 'Ah, this is love. They laugh together. They live together. Happily.'
To her, love at first, meant family.
But one day, that family fell apart, and she realized it.
That was not love because if it was, then that love wouldn't have culminated into an ugly separation.
She had based the definition of love on what she had observed in her family. But when that answer proved to be wrong, the question found its way back to her once again.
Time passed. From a little girl, she grew up to become a quiet teenager who liked books. In high school when she met a certain bubbly girl her age, she felt she learned what love was.
The friendship where you laughed together, cried together and shared all your secrets with each other. A friendship where you always stood by your friend in their toughest times.
Her heart was filled with joy because she finally knew what love meant. She loved her dearest friend a lot because she brought her into a world where she always dreamed to be. She thought that they would fulfill their dreams together.
Then one day, a certain person stepped into her life. He became her friend just like her best friend. She found friendship in another person. But the more they spent time together, the more she couldn't stop herself from thinking.
'This is more than just friendship.'
She began to feel the difference between friendship and this feeling that enveloped her heart with sweetness and joy. Her heart ached with an emotion she had never felt before. A different form of love shaped within her.
She wondered if she was the only one who felt this way. Was she the only one whose stomach tickled with butterflies whenever she saw him? Content originally comes from novelFɪre.net
She got her answer when that certain person confessed his love to her under a beautifully lit Christmas tree. She felt she was the happiest woman on this earth.
With his confession, she conceived the meaning of love as togetherness. A love where she would marry that person and live with him forever just like how her parents used to.
Even though her parents' relationship had fallen apart, she wasn't afraid because she knew her love would be different. She won't end up like them. She couldn't ask for anything more in this world.
She had love as friendship as her best friend and love as togetherness as her boyfriend who treasured her.
But that didn't last for long.
Once again…everything proved to be a deception. A fallacy.
Love wasn't friendship. Love wasn't togetherness. Love was nothing but an illusion. Family, friendship, togetherness - everything was a lie.
She was betrayed by the very same people she had given her heart to for so many years.
The love she felt for her best friend and the love for that certain person led her to fall to her despair one fateful night. She kept falling and falling in that cold, chilling night until that despair mercilessly killed her.
Her heart felt empty, but her eyes were clouded with tears.
The betrayal had killed her. She thought she would never see the light again. She was forever pushed into the depths of darkness from where there was no return.
Life gave her another chance to stand up on her feet and fix her life. Their betrayal had killed her.
Yet she felt she was reborn.
The moment she realized it, her thoughts and questions plagued her once again.
Why? Why was it always so difficult? Why did love have to slip away from her hands the moment she felt she grasped it?
She failed to understand love. Every single time. She vowed to herself to never search for love ever again.