Chapter 3 #2
That only made Amara’s tears fall harder.
Tears rolled silently down her cheeks one after another, soaking her face as she pressed her trembling hand over her mouth to stop him from hearing her break down.
“I’ll come soon,” she whispered quickly. “Dad, don’t worry. I’ll visit in a day or two, okay?”
There was a brief silence on the other end.
Then Jonathan’s voice softened.
“Amara, what happened?”
Amara froze.
“Are you alright?”
Her grip on the phone tightened.
“Does your injury hurt again?” he continued worriedly. “The accident happened a year ago… it shouldn’t hurt anymore.”
His voice grew increasingly worried.
“Does it hurt somewhere? Tell me honestly. If it does, we’ll visit the doctor again.”
Amara lowered her head.
Her eyes slowly closed.
The pain in her head had been getting worse lately.
The sudden blackouts.
The dizziness.
The sharp headaches that left her unable to think.
At first, she had assumed it was because her body had become weak after losing so much blood during the accident.
But now…
After the diagnosis…
The reason had become horrifyingly clear.
It was because of the tumor growing inside her head.
Slowly destroying her.
Still, she forced herself to lie again.
“Everything’s fine, dad,” she whispered. “I’m doing well.”
Her voice almost broke apart by the end.
“I’ll visit soon, okay? I’m going to hang up for now. I need to take a bath.”
“Alright,” Jonathan said gently. “Take care of yourself. I’ll wait for you.”
His loving voice nearly shattered the little control she had left.
The call ended.
The moment the line disconnected, Amara’s hand loosened. The phone slipped from her fingers and fell onto the floor carelessly.
***
The hospital was terrifying.
The white walls felt terrifying.
The white lights felt terrifying.
Even the smell of antiseptic in the air made fear crawl deeper inside Amara’s chest as she sat quietly outside the doctor’s office.
Every sound inside the hospital echoed clearly in her ears. The distant beeping of machines. Nurses walking through the hallways. The wheels of stretchers moving across the floor. Quiet conversations between doctors somewhere nearby.
Footsteps.
Doors opening and closing.
She could hear everything.
Yet somehow, she felt numb to all of it.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the freezing metal seat beneath her, her knuckles slowly turning pale.
Her heartbeat was painfully fast.
Amara had always been terrified of needles. Ever since childhood, even the sight of one was enough to make her nervous. But over the past few days, needles had pierced her skin so many times for blood tests, medicines, and endless scans that the fear had slowly faded away.
Blood tests.
IV drips.
Scans.
Injections.
At some point, that fear had been replaced by something far worse.
The surgery.
The thought of entering that operation room and never waking up again terrified her so badly that she could barely breathe sometimes. Every time her eyes lifted toward the closed doors down the hallway, her chest tightened painfully.
For the past month, doctors had explained everything to her repeatedly. They talked about risks, complications, surgery procedures, recovery, medicines, and precautions until her head hurt from hearing it all.
There had been endless tests and so many instructions that she barely had time to process any of it properly.
If Juliet had not stayed by her side through everything, Amara knew she probably would have never agreed to the surgery at all.
She was too terrified.
Even after everything she had said to Elias before he left for his business trip… even after asking him for a divorce… even after forcing herself to walk away with whatever little self-respect she had left…
Fear still broke her in the end.
Because when a person became terrified of dying, pride no longer felt important.
So a week after Elias left, she called him.
He never answered.
She tried again the next week.
Still no answer.
Then again.
And again.
And again.
Every single call went unanswered.
At first she tried convincing herself Elias was busy. Then she told herself he was probably angry. After that, she simply stopped trying to understand the reason because it hurt too much.
Now as she sat quietly outside the doctor’s office waiting for the final date of her surgery to be confirmed, her trembling hand slowly reached toward the phone resting beside her bag.
Her fingers paused over the screen.
She hesitated only for a few seconds before unlocking the phone and scrolling through her contacts until Elias’s name appeared again.
Her chest tightened painfully.
Still…
She pressed call.
The ringing sound echoed in her ears.
Amara held her breath, her leg bouncing restlessly against the floor.
But the call never connected.
The silence afterward only made the anxiety inside her chest worse.
Her fingers tightened harder around the phone.
She swallowed hard and tried again.
Still nothing.
Her anxiety immediately spiked.
She quickly tried again, gripping the phone tighter this time, but once again the call failed to connect. Her breathing slowly became uneven as panic crept into her chest.
She lowered the phone and shut her eyes tightly for a moment before quickly opening her contacts again.
Then she called Felix, Elias’s secretary’s number.
The phone rang several times.
Amara held her breath tightly in her chest.
As the ringing continued, disappointment slowly began settling inside her again.
Just when she thought Felix wasn’t going to answer—
The call connected.
“Mrs. Creed?”
Felix’s familiar voice came from the other side.
Relief instantly flooded through her so strongly that her eyes almost burned.
“Felix…” she whispered quickly.
The relief in her voice was impossible to hide.
“Where’s Elias? I want to talk to him.”
Her voice softened helplessly near the end.
On the other side, Felix sounded slightly surprised before answering politely.
“Yes, Mrs. Creed, please give me a moment. Mr. Creed is currently attending an important meeting, but I’ll inform him that you have called.”
Amara immediately straightened in her seat.
Hope rose inside her chest so suddenly that her fingers trembled around the phone. She could hear movement from the other side. Footsteps. Voices speaking in the background. A door opening somewhere nearby.
Then finally—
“Hello?”
Elias’s deep voice came through the phone.
The moment she heard him, something inside her nearly collapsed.
“Elias…” she whispered softly, her voice breaking slightly. “I want to—”
Before she could finish, sudden noise erupted in the background.
“Mr. Creed!” someone called urgently.
“Mr. Creed, we need you right now!”
“There’s a problem!”
“It’s urgent, sir!”
“Hurry, please come with us!”
Several voices overlapped loudly in the background.
Then Elias’s voice came quickly through the phone again.
“Give me a few minutes. I’ll call you back.”
His tone was rushed. Distracted.
And before she could say another word—
The line disconnected.
The soft beep of the ended call echoed loudly in Amara’s ears.
She stared silently at the phone in her hand. For a second, her heart sank painfully inside her chest. But then—
A small, hesitant smile slowly appeared on her face anyway.
At least he answered this time.
That thought alone was enough for her to hold onto the phone tightly without even realizing it.
So she waited.
Her fingers remained wrapped around the phone as she sat quietly outside the doctor’s office, her breathing soft and uneven.
Minutes passed.
Then more minutes.
Doctors walked past her.
Nurses rushed through the hallways.
Patients’ families whispered nearby.
The clock on the wall ticked endlessly.
But the call never came back.
The tiny smile on her lips slowly faded little by little. Disappointment settled heavily inside her chest. Still, she kept holding the phone in her hand absentmindedly, as though waiting for it to suddenly ring.
“Mrs. Amara Creed?”
The sound of someone calling her name finally pulled her out of her trance.
Amara blinked and slowly looked up.
A nurse stood right in front of her holding several documents against her chest.
Amara quickly rose to her feet and stepped closer.
“We need a few more details filled out,” the nurse explained gently while glancing down at the papers in her hands. “Who should we contact if anything happens during the surgery?”
The words instantly made Amara’s heartbeat drop.
If anything happens?
Her eyes slowly lowered toward the phone still held tightly in her hand.
The screen remained open on Elias’s contact.
Their picture together was still visible on the wallpaper.
A painful ache spread through her chest.
For several long seconds, she simply stared at the screen silently before finally taking a shaky breath.
Then she lifted her head and answered quietly.
“My best friend. Juliet Gray.”
Her voice sounded calm now.
“She has complete authority over whatever happens to me during the operation. You can contact her. She’ll be here.”
Then she quietly gave Juliet’s number to the nurse.
The nurse gave a small nod before taking the documents back from her hands.
“Alright.”
Then she walked away.
Amara remained standing there alone.
The phone in her hand stayed silent. The screen remained dark.
No missed call.
No message.
No callback.
Nothing.
Slowly, her fingers loosened around the phone as disappointment settled heavily inside her chest. The hospital suddenly felt colder than before.
She lowered herself back onto the metal chair quietly, her shoulders slumping in exhaustion while her eyes remained fixed on the dark phone screen resting in her hands.
And finally…
The sadness overwhelmed her completely.
After that day, Amara never called him again.
But the sadness remained.
The pain remained.
And the hope inside her chest still burned so painfully.