Chapter 1786 Do You Blame Aunt Susan
Similar to the last time, Susan had also been brought to the apartment by Ian. After he fetched a basin of hot water for his aunt to wash up with, Ian proceeded to inspect the wounds she had on her before he hastened along to find her some first aid.
“Hang on, Ian. There’s something that I’d like to ask.”
With her eyes in a state of consistent puffiness, Susan called after him, and only then did Ian turn around to still himself in front of her.
“Go ahead.”
“I-I would like to know if you were ever angry? Over this matter?”
With her head raised, the barely twenty over year old girl could no longer hold herself together when she finally dropped that question, and from her eyes, tears came pattering off as soon as she did.
Is he upset? That was what she wanted to know.
She supposed that Yasmin was someone that he fancied, so would he be resentful of her for forcing the former to quit school?
Susan regarded him unflinchingly as he listened, only to see a look of serenity about the boy.
“Why should I be? I know that you must have your reasons for doing what you did, Aunt Susan, so all I want to hear is an answer from you. Just tell me what it is.”
His calmness was astonishing, seemingly never in doubt whatsoever as to whether she might be acting in his best interest, as though what she had done behind his back was something that was merely pedestrian.
Susan was dumbstruck.
All of the grievances she had piled up inside finally proved too much for her to handle, bursting forth from her chest like a river that had overflowed its embankments. Sprawled over the table in front of her, she then started to bawl uncontrollably.
How could she not be considered a child? She had only just turned twenty-one.
Susan’s crying persisted for a good several minutes before she gradually recollected herself. Throughout, Ian stood steadfastly beside her with nary a word and refrained from interrupting until her emotions finally settled…
“I-I did this because… I feared that she might harm you,” she eventually said between snivels.
“Harm me?” Ian sounded somewhat surprised. “Why? Do you think that by allowing her to work with me this past period, she was going to affect me in some way?”
“No… It isn’t like that. It was because… she’s the older sister of one of your late associates, Ian. Do you remember Duncan, that good friend of yours? She’s his sister.”
Susan finally revealed that secret to the one before her.
After she finished, she kept those pair of teary eyes transfixed upon him extremely nervously, as though fearful of what sort of effect that revelation might have on him.
In truth, her predictions were spot on.
That youth staggered backward and regarded her with eyes widened when he heard it. He held that expression for a brief couple of seconds and became pale as a sheet.
It was truly unsettling.
“Ian…”
Susan was so spooked that she instantly felt an impulse to slap herself, but like water that was thrown out, there would be no taking back the words that one had uttered.
In the end, Ian lumbered off stiffly back to his own room and shut the door behind him. He did not reemerge again the rest of the night.
Scared witless, Susan was completely beside herself while she kept vigil outside his doors. Many times over, she tearfully pleaded with him to come out, but her efforts proved futile as there was no discernable reaction elicited from within.
When Timothy returned and got wind of that matter, he got so upset that he nearly wanted to strike his own sister.
“What have you been doing all this time? Why haven’t you brought this up for discussion with the rest of us? This is just great, the way the situation has evolved. You can’t even go back to school, and should anything happen to him, you won’t even have a place here with the Jadesons either!” he raged on in a right fit.
That was correct. The one thing that that pair of siblings dreaded the most was not being able to remain with the Jadesons.
Susan turned impossibly ashen-faced.
Amidst their relentless squabbling, the door that had been closed the entire night suddenly opened.
“Are you all right, Ian?”
Susan immediately left her own brother behind and ran over when she saw that, meticulously scrutinizing from tip to toe the youth who had finally reemerged.
She was genuinely concerned for him.
Okay. He’s okay. The Ian who stepped out was not in as bad a shape as she had imagined.
“I’m fine,” he replied, pursing his mildly dehydrated lips. “You don’t have to worry about that issue with school, Aunt Susan. I’d take care of it for you, so you should head in for class later with Uncle Timmy as usual.”
Susan did not know how to respond to that.
“Also, don’t concern yourself too much about Yasmin, as I don’t think we did her brother wrong in any way. It’s beyond my control even if she were to really find out about it in the future and choose to hate me for it.”
It was unexpected that he would have gained such clarity and repose after spending the night processing this.
Susan was instantly delighted.
“This is just wonderful. I’m glad that you think this way, Ian. Sorry for underestimating you, thinking you to be more fragile than you actually were. For that, I owe you an apology,” that magnanimous and understanding aunt immediately apologized to her own nephew.
Surely Ian would not blame it on her.
The ability to assess issues with a greater sense of objectivity was something that came with age, so perhaps he had indeed grown in maturity in this respect over the years, compared to how he was in the past.
Henceforth, the trio’s relationship reverted to the harmonious way that it formerly was.
