“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 have to wait. He’s being attended to.” She gestured at the waiting area for me to go sit down.
I saw the driver walk into the hospital with his phone against his right ear. I walked over to him, faking a smile as he hung up the phone. “Thanks for bringing me all the way here. You can go now. Please send my regards to your boss for his kindness.”
“I have been instructed to stay here with you and watch over you,” he responded.
“Oh, no. You really don’t have to, I swear.” I tried to wave him off, but he only stepped further into the lobby and sat in the waiting room.
People were already looking at us and the last thing I wanted was more attention, so I gave a defeated sigh and sat beside him.
“Has Walter made it yet?” a nurse asked as she walked out of the hallway leading to the other rooms and the ICU. I recognized her voice as the one that had spoken to me over the phone.
“I’m here,” I replied, standing up sharply and rushing towards her. “How’s he doing? Is he responsive now?”
The nurse, with a regretful smile, handed me a piece of yellow paper. “It’s for you.”
I opened the paper so fast, it almost tore.
Lauren,
It’s Dad. I know you’re trying your best to help me with this, and I really appreciate it, but it’s not working. I feel it coming. I might die soon. You really should use your money to take care of yourself.
I want you to find a way to disconnect from your mother because she will only pull you down and there’s only so much you can take.
I’m proud of you for how far you’ve come. I’m sorry I couldn’t be strong enough to give you a better life. I’m sorry you had to miss college to take care of us.
Love,
Dad.
“Where is he? I need to see him. This isn’t true. I made the decision not to go to college, it’s not his fault.”
“I’m sorry, Lauren.” The nurse shook her head, her eyes holding pity for me.
“Don’t be sorry. Just take me to my dad.” I tried to walk into the hallway, but the nurse held me back.
“Maybe you’re not in the best condition to see him right now. You should sit and wait for a while.”
“Okay, but tell me one thing. I need you to tell me that he’s alive and responding to treatment,” I requested, even when I knew from the note and the way she was looking at me that it would be nothing but a lie.
“Lauren.” She shook her head at me, gently leading me to sit beside the driver, who was trying his best but failing to not overhear the conversation.
“I can’t,” I cried. “I can’t do this. He didn’t die. That’s not possible,” I sobbed, bending over and covering my face with my hands as I squeezed the only thing left of him—the note.
“I’ll be right back,” the driver announced as his phone rang and he walked off to pick it up.
There was a lingering question that I didn’t know how to answer; what now?
I had spent a lot of time and effort in trying to make sure my father would beat the cancer and that was the major thing that kept me alive and moving. Now that he wasn’t there, what now? What was there to do? Where could I go from there? How could I tell my mother through her constant drug-induced daze?
“This can’t be happening,” I said to myself, reading the note two more times before I folded it and kept it in my purse.
The driver made his way back to where I was and sighed. “I’m really sorry for your loss. I can drive you home if you want.”
Just when I was about to politely decline and tell him that I would go by myself, my phone rang with my mother on the caller ID.
“Perfect,” I muttered, sarcasm dripping from my tone as I picked up the call.
“I really tried to help, Lauren. I was going to make us rich. We were supposed to be rich!” she screamed frantically, rushing through her words and slurring so much that I almost missed what she was saying.
“Mom, what are you talking about? What did you do? Please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid.”
“I was going to sell them. I don’t know what happened. I lost them. I didn’t steal anything, I swear—”
She gasped as she was cut off by a sharp sound, almost like a smack across her face.
“Seven minutes.” I froze as I heard the unfamiliar voice of a man on the other end. “You have seven minutes to get to your house and get your thieving mother acquitted. The more time you waste, the higher the chances of you finding her corpse when you open the door.”
The line went dead.
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,
“What uncle?” I asked, frowning at Conrad as I walked out of the kitchen with him to prevent the assistants from hearing us and finding out what exactly was going on. Damien couldn’t possibly be the uncle that Conrad was talking about, it didn’t make any sense. “What do you mean your uncle owns the place, Conrad?” I asked as we got to the privacy of the living room. “Where is Uncle Damien, and what are you doing in his house?” The truth hit me with a pang in the chest, and I could barely keep my feet grounded as I stared at Conrad, hoping to open my eyes all of a sudden and find myself in bed to realize that I was only dreaming, but nothing was going on. “He went out for a business meeting,” I answered his first question, shoving his second question aside, even when I knew that he was not going to let it slide that easily. “What are you doing in my uncle’s house, having breakfast, Lauren?” he asked again, glaring at me. “I… He’s sheltering me.
“You seem to have made up your mind so quickly,” Damien observed, and I didn’t know what it was supposed to imply, but I nodded at him in response. “I thought about it as I went over to work. I realised that it’s not the right thing to do. I don’t want this to turn into something that it’s not. I know how fast this could turn awkward, just the way it was earlier. I don’t want it to be this way,” I admitted. “As much as I’m not one to help you make decisions or force you to take mine, I’ll have you know that I don’t see Conrad very much, and you won’t have to. If that’s what bothers you so much, I just thought to let you know about it. Besides, you only have so much time to think about it. You have nowhere to go right now, Lauren.” “I know that, but I’m going to keep working and—” “And how much does your job pay you in a day for you to get by? You can’t up and find an apartment right now, Lauren, and we both know it,” he carefully reminded me of my st