“Miss Lauren Walter, we’re calling to inform you that your father has officially gone over two weeks without providing the payment for your father’s treatments. He’ll be taken off treatment in the next five days if the payment isn’t made.”
“No, please. I—”
The loud beep came, signalling that the woman on the other side of the phone had hung up.
“Oh, God. No, no, no,” I muttered to myself, wiping my stray tears. “Fuck!”
I walked back through the backdoor and into the kitchen of the restaurant where I worked as a waitress.
I took shaky breaths, wiping the cold sweat off my forehead as I walked towards the manager’s office.
“Come on in,” his gruff voice responded right after I knocked on the door.
The door creaked open, revealing the man with his salt-and-pepper hair and matching moustache sitting behind his desk. There was a toothpick in his mouth and he sat almost lazily. The customized, illuminated nameplate on his table, which a lot of the staff laughed at behind his back, drew my attention and caused me to read the name silently—Bart Freeman.
“Walter, what brings you here?” he questioned, his brows raised in suspicion.
“I’m sorry I came here unannounced, but I have no other option. My father’s still in the hospital.” The tears made their way out of my eyes, and I wiped them almost immediately.
“He is? Lung cancer still?” Bart’s eyes widened, seeming genuinely surprised as I nodded to confirm.
“I would like to request an advance,” I admitted.
“An advance?” His southern accent seeped into his words as he leaned against his desk and spat the toothpick aside. “Lauren, you know what happened the last time I gave someone an advance. Gabe took my money and never stepped foot in here again. He ran away! I can’t do that.”
“You know me, Bart. You know I would never run away. My parents are still here. I don’t even have anywhere to run to.” I went on my knees and laced my fingers together in a plea. “Please, just this once. I’ve saved up some, and I’ll add the advance to the money I saved—”
“There ain’t nothing much I can do for ya, kid. Just take your pay for the day and hope for the best.” He shrugged, grabbing an envelope containing my day’s salary.
I took it from his hands and walked away. Before I could open the door, he started to mutter to my hearing. “Poor kid. Father’s in the hospital, mother’s an addict. Lord knows which one’s worse.”
I took my bag from the counter and walked out of the restaurant, taking my phone and dialling the number of the one person who had been helping me get through this—Conrad, my boyfriend.
I rubbed my face and sighed as it went straight to voicemail.
“Hey, this is Conrad. Please leave a message.”
“Conrad, I’m sorry to be saying this for the millionth time ever, but I need your help. The hospital called. They said they’ll take my father off treatment if I don’t pay up in the next five days. I have some money saved up and I’ll be going to pay up. I would really appreciate it if you helped me with anything. Please call me when you get this.”
Conrad’s father owned a multi-billion dollar company with chains all over the United States, but it still made me ashamed to ask him for money.
I got into a taxi and tapped my feet continuously, fiddling with my phone and finding something to busy myself with on my way to the apartment I lived in with my mom.
I started to cry again, and I could almost feel the taxi driver’s eyes boring into me from the rearview mirror.
“You okay back there, ma’am?” he inquired.
“Yeah, just a bad hair day,” I lied, wishing it really was something as easy as that.
I got out of the taxi even before he could hit the brakes, paying him and rushing off as the driver yelled at me to be careful.
I rushed into the apartment and found my mother passed out on the floor beside the only ugly yellow couch we had, her mouth wide open with drool seeping out of it. An empty syringe sat by her, a sure confirmation that her dealer had made a visit.
I walked into my room and found it all turned upside down
“No, no, no,” I chanted as I rushed to my closet, which had all of my clothes completely taken out of it.
The closet now stood empty, and I bent in a panicked fit, prying through the clothes on the floor and praying that the money I had hidden in the closet would still be somewhere in there.
“Mom!” I called, running back into the living room and shaking her awake. “Where’s the money I put in the closet? Please don’t tell me that’s what you used for drugs.”
She only responded with animalistic grunts, pulling away from my grip.
“Fuck!” I cursed aloud, running out of the house and sending another voicemail to Conrad to inform him that I was on my way to his house.
This time, I cried in the taxi without even hiding it until I got to Conrad’s house. Thankfully, the driver was less concerned.
I ran up to Conrad’s door and opened it with my spare key. He was one to sleep early and I already felt bad for rushing into his room, as I thought he would be asleep by then.
As soon as I opened the door, I immediately wished I hadn’t.
My boyfriend was right on top of another woman, both of them having sex without a care in the world.
My words and my feelings all knotted in my throat as they both turned to look at me, a mix of surprise in their eyes, but not as much surprise as I felt, seeing who the woman was.
“Shirley…” My voice was decibels below what could be considered a whisper as I called out to the woman I had known as my best friend since high school.
Conrad was cheating on me with my best friend.
“Lauren,” Shirley squeaked, both of them scrambling to cover themselves with the white sheets. “I can explain, it’s really not—” “I don’t know if I really want to listen to you explain why you’re in bed with my boyfriend, Shirley.” I shook my head, turning to Conrad with tear-filled eyes. “How could you do this to me?” He only sighed and looked away in response, leaving me unsure of knowing if he was remorseful. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, Lauren, please.” Shirley attempted to stand up, but Conrad pulled the sheets back so he wouldn’t be naked. Shirley resorted to putting on her shirt and shorts. “Why…?” I questioned nobody in particular. This whole thing had just been thrown in my face and, as much as I needed answers, I didn’t want to hear much from them. “How long?” I said. “How long has this been going on?” “Three months,” Conrad was the one to reply now, his eyes fixated on me without an inkling of guilt. “Oh, God,” I collapsed against the door, squirming as Shirle
“Your father is not responding to the treatments anymore.” The mechanical-like voice of the woman on the other end played on and on in my head for the rest of the ride to the hospital. It took everything in me not to scream in the confined space of that car. She said he was unresponsive. She didn’t say he was dead. I chanted those words in my head until I got tired of hearing them from myself. Perhaps, I was only freaking out for nothing. They must have done something by then and he was now responsive. They must have forgotten to call me and tell me not to panic. As soon as we reached the hospital, I ran into the lobby, where the waiting room was, to find the receptionist with a concentrated look on her face as she read through a file. “Hi, hi!” I called out, reaching her desk like a wild animal. She flinched, frowning at me. “Walter?” She raised her brows, recognizing me. “Yes.” I nodded, panting. “You’ll
It was silent in the car. I was anxiously chewing on my fingernails, taking deep breaths that didn’t calm me as much as I wanted. I had lost my father, and I was about to lose my mother, all in one night. I couldn’t let that happen. “Please drive faster,” I pleaded, checking my phone to see that I had just three minutes left out of the seven minutes to be at home. The driver picked up his speed, thankfully, but I couldn’t tell if we could make it in time. “What’s the matter? I could always call my boss to sort it out for you,” he offered. “It’s fine, I’m fine. You’ve both done enough. This is more than enough,” I declined. Dragging strangers into my mess, even at their insistence, was not something I wanted to do, especially when I knew that my bad luck never ended. They could help me this one time and the next thing to happen to me would be even worse. I didn’t need that on anyone. “It’s really not a problem. He told me to let him know
Shirley had moved in with Conrad. I had only found out about it when I went to Shirley’s apartment, where her neighbors told me that she had moved just that morning. I found myself in front of Conrad’s door later, only to be met with Shirley opening the door. She was wearing a blue shirt of his which almost matched the shade of her eyes, and her blond hair was up in a messy bun. “Wow,” I mouthed. If I were seated in front of a screen and watching myself going through this, I would be laughing at just how impossibly shitty my life was. “Lauren, I…” she trailed off, possibly out of excuses to make. “You don’t have to worry about the apologies, Shirley. I already wished you two good luck yesterday. That’s not why I’m here,” I assured her. “Who’s at the door?” I heard Conrad’s muffled voice from inside the house, followed by his footsteps as he finally made his way out to find me. His brows scrunched in a frown as he
Pain exploded within my legs as the car hit me before the driver could fully swerve to avoid me. I was pushed so far back, my legs going high up in the air for only a split second before I felt a pain in my head as if my head had been cracked open, and that was when I realized that I had landed on the floor and had hit my head against the asphalt. My vision was blurry, and the sounds around me were muffled, as if my head had been dunked underwater. “Mom,” I croaked, trying to see if anyone would understand what I meant – I needed to get to my mother. As if a movie I was seeing had an abrupt end, my vision went black.~ “Mm,” I hummed and groaned as light filtered into my eyes, causing an immense throbbing in my head that would not leave even after I shut my eyes and rubbed my head. There was a rough-textured fabric wrapped around my head, and I only started to take note of it when I had rubbed my head long enough. “What is...” I paused
“What…what?” I stuttered, whipping my head in the direction of Damien, who still had his eyes on the road as if he had not uttered the most life-changing words to me just seconds ago. “Your rent, your mother’s debt, I can help you clear them,” he said again. At the second offer, I came to the cruel realization that none of that could come for free. One thing my father taught me before he died was that humans lived off of transactions – give some, take some. “What’s in it for you?” I asked the question that was hanging in the air the whole time, and I heard him chuckle in response. “You’re a smart one, Lauren,” he commented. “I’m not going to ask for much from you,” he spoke. “I’m only going to protect you from everything that’s happening. You will be taken under my wing as my fiancée to the public eye, and you will separate yourself from everything that binds you to your mother because you’re only going to get destroyed if you keep going around like
Before I could ask Damien about Conrad, he quickly pulled away from me. “I have to take this,” he said, walking away and placing the phone against his ear as he started to speak to Conrad on the phone. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about properly, but the last thing I wanted to do was sneak up on him because I wanted to listen in on the conversation. “Just because I know a Conrad doesn’t mean he can’t know one,” I reminded myself. There were thousands – millions, even – of people who had the same name, and it was only a coincidence that Damien knew someone called Conrad, right? When Damien was done with the call, he returned and carried on with the conversation. “As I said earlier, I want you to turn in your resignation letter to your boss or your manager. The last thing I want is for us to be caught in the ruthless rumours of the business world. If you get to be known as my fiancée, people will want to keep tabs on you from the press. I don
A long and awkward silence filled the table following Katarina’s admission to what Damien did to her. “I don’t hold it against him, by the way.” She raised her hands in surrender. “I mean, it would have been better and less embarrassing if he had just told me before the wedding, don’t you agree?” I silently agreed with her, but I was too lost for words to say a thing. I could feel Damien looking at me, but the last thing I wanted to do was make eye contact, so I settled for looking down at the delicious pastry and popping little pieces of it into my mouth as Katarina kept going. “Anyway, enough about me. That’s in the past, anyway. I wish you two the best of luck in your future marriage. Just…show up this time, Damien. Don’t embarrass the little girl.” “I’ll be on my way now,” she sighed, getting up and checking the watch on her wrist. “You were right, Damien; I do have somewhere to be. I must have forgotten.” My eyes trailed her as she left,