Take My Breath Away

"Rat-a-tat-tat." Debbie was startled by a sudden knock at the door. It was already well past her usual sleeping time and she wondered who could it be at this ungodly hour. She had just unzipped her down jacket. She had no choice but to zip it up again.

"Who is it?" she called out.

"Young girl, it's me." It sounded like the voice of the village head's wife.

Her guess was right. When Debbie opened the door, she saw the village head's wife and her handsome son standing outside.

The woman smiled pleasantly on seeing Debbie and asked, "Young girl, did I wake you?"

Debbie shook her head. "No, it's okay. I hadn't slept yet. Is everything okay?" she answered, confused as to why these two were paying her a visit at night.

The woman turned towards her son. He immediately lifted up something from the ground and handed it to Debbie. "This is our electric warming fan. My mother and I have brought it to you so that you don't get cold," he told her coyly.

"But...no... I can't take this. This is too generous." Debbie was deeply moved. As far as she knew, there was not even a water heater in the village. How on earth did they manage to procure an electric warming fan for her?

She didn't want to prove a burden to anyone, but the village head's wife was having none of it and straightforwardly asked her son to carry the fan into Debbie's room. Before Debbie knew how and what, the boy had already plugged the fan into a socket and the room was filled with the slight hum of its motor.

"Thank you so much! But if I keep the fan in my room, what about you? You'll be cold at night without it," Debbie protested, though she wasn't entirely ungrateful. If she had guessed right, then this might have been the only electric warming fan in the whole village.

With a genuine smile, the woman responded, "We're used to this weather, young girl, but you've come from the big city. You can't fall asleep at night without it. Please sleep tight. We should get going now!"

Then, she held her son's hand and they left together, leaving Debbie to her confused thoughts.

With the warming fan on, the room was soon filled with a warm ambiance. Sitting at the edge of the bed in her thoughts, Debbie even forgot to lie down.

She was confused. 'Why does the village head's wife treat me so well? Is Jared's joke true? Does she really want me to stay and marry her son? Truth be told, her son is quite handsome. But...I'm married. I have Carlos. If that's why this whole special-treatment-thing is going on, I'm afraid their wish can't come true, and it's got to stop, ' she mused.

As it turned out, she couldn't be farther from the truth. This was proven when she went to get some hot water.

It wasn't only the village head's wife who was treating her so well. Debbie found that almost every person of the village who was a part of her life at the moment was being very kind. Even the owner of the house which she was staying in gave her special care. When she walked out of her bedroom and told the hostess that she wanted some hot water, the hostess immediately brought three thermoses to her bedroom.

That wasn't the only thing she did. Earlier, she had prepared a new basin and a clean towel for Debbie too. At the moment, Debbie hadn't thought too much about these new things, because she believed that all the other schoolmates had the same things as hers.

The notion was broken rather abruptly when after washing her face and wiping her body, she slipped into the bed again. Much to her surprise, the bed didn't feel cold. And the fan couldn't have warmed the bed; it was too low for that.

Debbie sat up and took a careful look. It wasn't until now that she noticed there was an electric blanket on her bed. And moreover, someone had turned it on in advance, so it was already warm enough now.

A suspicion rose inside her heart again. Unable to hold back her curiosity, she took out her phone and texted Jared and Dixon. She asked cautiously, "Hey guys! Do you two feel cold in your rooms?"

After waiting for a long while, she received Jared's reply. "Of course we feel cold Deb! I couldn't bear it so I've come to sleep in the same bed with Dixon."

Before Debbie could return him a message, she received a voice message from Jared. "Dude, what the fuck! It is such a cold weather here and I'm freezing to death. What's more, that jerk Dixon asked me to stay in the quilt to warm the bed for him. I'm so pissed!

But I need to stay with someone to keep warm when I sleep, so I have no choice but to tolerate that guy." Though her friends were cold, Debbie couldn't help bursting into a guilty laughter.

She could vaguely hear Dixon's complaint in the background of the voice message and it was really comical. "Jared, are you a snake? Why is the bed still so cold? You've stayed in it for a long while!"

Judging from their words, Debbie was sure that they didn't have an electric blanket.

'Am I the only one who has it?' she wondered. To confirm her guess, she texted Gail too. She couldn't sleep right now anyway if she couldn't figure the whole thing out. She wrote, "Gail, are you asleep?"

Soon enough, she received Gail's voice message. They were all too cold to type with their thumbs. "Is that really a question? It's so cold in this bad place. How the hell am I supposed to fall asleep? I shouldn't have brought snacks for the kids. I should have brought something to keep myself warm, such as an electric blanket. I don't even want to get on this cold bed..."

Debbie paused. After all, Gail was her cousin. Debbie didn't want her to catch a cold or get some serious illness, so she returned a message. "If you can't withstand it, how about you come to my room and we sleep together?"

After waiting for about two minutes, Debbie received Gail's reply. This time, she had resorted to text. "No way! I will never sleep in the same bed with you! Who knows what your body smells like! Not a chance. Damn! What a bad place here! I can't even find an electric blanket anywhere."

'I have bad smell? Fine! Then just stay in your cold bed!' Debbie angrily repeated Gail's sentence in exasperation. She didn't care about her anymore and decided to sleep.

The next day, the first batch of donated supplies had arrived at the Southon Village. Therefore, Debbie and her schoolmates assembled at a small school and began to distribute the supplies to each household. The supplies were numerous and by the time they were finished, it was already dark. One day had elapsed quickly.

During the course of her interactions, Debbie also met a few children who didn't have parents and were being raised by their grandparents. She silently gave some money to the grandparents of these families.

One of the children's grandmother was so grateful that she even knelt down in front of Debbie, which startled her, and she quickly lifted the old woman up from the ground. It would have been a touching scene, but Debbie didn't feel comfortable with someone in her feet.

On the third day, since the second batch of the donated supplies hadn't arrived, the fifteen university students took turns to give classes to the kids there. They shared a lot of things with the kids that they had never heard due to the poor education conditions there. They also sang a lot of popular songs for the kids.

The shabby classroom had become noisy. A lot of villagers had also come to the school and were even standing outside since there wasn't enough space inside. With keen pleasure, they listened to Debbie and Jared singing songs and then listened to Dixon and Gregory telling stories. Everything the students talked about was new and interesting to the villagers.

On the morning of the fourth day, the second batch of supplies arrived. There were new cotton shoes and clothes in this batch. The university students helped the kids wash their feet and then asked them to try on the new shoes.

Debbie didn't have any mission this afternoon, so she silently went to the yard behind the school on her own. She wanted a breath of fresh air for as long as she could have one. Earlier, she had told the village head's son to help her send out a few postcards. 'Have Kasie and the others received my postcards yet?' she wondered.

She had just sat down on a big rock and taken out her phone which had no signal, when a person suddenly showed up in front of her, blocking the cool sunlight.

She raised her head and found that it was Gus.

He was staring at her without saying a word. Debbie looked around and found nobody else here. Confused, she asked, "What do you want?"

Gus kept his eyes on her without responding.

Debbie got goose bumps by his gaze. "Dammit. Hey, you're a man and I'm a woman. Don't stare at me that way. I'm scared..."

Gus rolled his eyes at her. He snorted, "You're as stupid as all the others!"

Debbie was rendered speechless. What did he want? 'Is he here to stir up some new trouble for me?' she thought.

With that in mind, Debbie put her phone back and stood up from the big rock. She was about to leave but Gus stopped her. "What's going on between you and Carlos Huo?" Gus had happened to overhear someone's words. Whoever it was, the person had said that Carlos demanded people here give special care to Debbie.

With Carlos' name being mentioned, Debbie turned around and spat out, "Wimpy kid, just mind your own business and don't poke your big nose where it doesn't belong."

'What? Wimpy kid? Me?'

Gus' face darkened. If Debbie weren't a woman, he would surely have punched her black and blue now.

After Debbie had walked away, Gus immediately texted his brother. "Curtis, Debbie called me wimpy kid! How dare she do that? I need to go back to Y City now. Arrange for someone to pick me up. I don't want to take that goddamn bus again!"

The signal was really bad in the village, and Gus had to try several times before the message went through.

A few moments later, Gus received Curtis' reply with only a few words. "Debbie is right. Just stay there."

Gus was angry at his cold response. He wondered why his brother always sided with Debbie.

He was sure that Curtis loved Colleen, so there shouldn't have been any untoward relationship between Curtis and Debbie. 'When I return home, I need to ask my father if they mistook me and Debbie when we were born. Could it be possible that Debbie is their biological daughter and I'm the wrong one?'

There were several times when Gus felt like Debbie was Curtis' real younger sister and he himself was the one who had been adopted to protect Debbie.