Kapitel 30: Wait What
Chang sat in her chair unmoving. The words repeated themselves over and over in her brain, yet she could not seem to make sense of them.
"My mom... what?" Chang stared dumbly at him. "What did you say?"
"I know you have a lot to process, but you can do that on the flight over." Jian calmly told her as he offered her his hand, pulling her out of the seat she sat numbly in. Pulling a large bill out of his pocket, more than enough to cover the bill multiple times over, Jian left it on the table. Without waiting for his change, Jian started to hustle to his car, with Chang in tow, led by her hand. Along the way, he was stopped short by the weight attached to his hand.
"Jian this can't be right. There's no way my mom...No there must be some kind of mistake." Standing in the middle of the walkway Chang tried to deny what he said, a stricken look haunting her face.
Looking at her, Liang JianAmal kept his face as calm, trying to mask the sadness he felt. Putting a protective arm around her shoulders, Liang JianAmal ushered her to his car. After securing her in the passenger seat, he called his assistant to have him help make the necessary flight arrangements so that they could reach San Francisco as soon as possible.
From the corner of his eye, as he spoke in a terse tone with Luo Jun, Liang JianAmal watched Chang as she looked out the window lost in thought. After ending his call, Liang JianAmal reached over and took one of Chang's hands that lay neatly folded on her lap. Giving it a comforting squeeze, he held it over his knee, rubbing his thumb across the back of her knuckles.
"Everything is fine, do not overly worry yourself over this. It is not good for your health to worry too much." Chang gave him a weak smile in exchange for his comfort, still feeling like an anxious mess inside. The guilt from all the time that had passed without seeing her mother had piled on her now, gnawing away at her slowly.
'How can I not worry though? From the way he was speaking it sounded really bad... What if this is the last time I will see her?' Shaking her head Chang tried to empty her head of those kinds of thoughts. 'No, I can't think like that, my mom is fine. Everything will be ok.'
"I should let Justin and my boss know what's going on."
"Already taken care of. You do not have to worry about anything" He succinctly replied, ending the subject quickly. Chang tried to think of another topic to talk about but could not, so she reached forward to turn on the radio. Every song though made her mood worse and worse until she finally turned it off. Letting out a long sigh, Chang turned her head to the window, trying to lose her thoughts in the dizzying blur on the way to the airport.
Fairly soon they arrived, before she realized. Since they did not have luggage, they only needed boarding passes and identification. Chang remembered then about her lost wallet and phone, having other thoughts pressing it from her mind. Whipping her head to look at him, Chang grabbed his arm worriedly.
"Jian, I lost my ID the other day, I can't board the plane."
"Do you mean this?" Reaching inside his jacket, Jian pulled out an old, faded tan leather wallet. Out from which he pulled her ID.
Astonished Chang reached out and grabbed the wallet. "Oh, my baby! Thank you, I was so heartbroken over having lost this. Wait how did you come to have it?"
Gleeful at first, Chang clutched her wallet to her cheek before catching a whiff of it. Quickly she pulled it away and admired it at arms length with a tear in her eye. After rejoicing at he return of her prodigal accessory, Chang looked at the man beside her suspiciously.
"In an alleyway dumpster, strangest of places, it is not as if you were actually in there either right?" As he spoke in a playful tone, Jian gave her a crooked glance.
"What, me, in a dumpster? Hahaha, no way, I would never do that." 'I will never admit to that!' "I must have dropped it somewhere and it got thrown out accidentally!" Laughing a tad too loudly, Chang waved her hands in front of her vigorously,
Liang JianAmal gave her a grunt in reply, a slight smile tugged at his lips at her vehement denial.
Within a half-hour, they were boarded and the plane started to take off. Looking out the window, Chang watched as Los Angeles became further away and eventually disappeared from sight. It had become special to her over the last year, a safe harbor.
'Goodbye, I wonder if I will ever return again.'
Chang thought of the last time she had seen her mother over a year ago. She had come home to visit, right before she had left for Shanghai. Her mother, LiHua, had been as healthy and energetic as usual. Equally doting and scolding her daughter who was always traveling and rarely came home to visit.
Her mother was a strong figure in her eyes, able to keep carrying on, no matter what. There was no way anything could happen to her...
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein