Chapter 2

When we walked out of the police station, a light drizzle had started to fall. Hugo opened his umbrella and instinctively tilted it toward Lorelei.

On the drive home, Lorelei naturally took the passenger seat. She lowered the seat, connected her phone to the Bluetooth, and played some upbeat pop music.

I sat in the corner of the back seat, watching the streets slide past outside the window. The car heater was blasting, but I still felt cold. The cup of hot water hadn't warmed me at all, as the chill had already seeped into my bones.

After dropping me off, Hugo drove away with Lorelei without another word.

I dragged my aching legs home, limping the entire way.

When I pushed open the front door, a small lamp cast a warm yellow glow across the living room. My grandmother, Adeline Wood, was sitting on the couch in her robe.

The moment she saw me, she hurried over, her eyes immediately falling on my bloodied knee. "Oh, Andrea, what happened to your knee?"

Her eyes filled with concern as she pulled me onto the couch and turned to get the first-aid kit.

I swallowed the ache in my throat and wrote in my notebook, "It was too dark, and I tripped. I'm fine, Grandma."

Grandma sighed. With her rough but warm hands, she carefully cleaned my wound and applied some ointment. As I looked at her white hair and the slight tremor in her hands from worrying about me, I could barely hold back my tears.

In this world, Grandma was the only person who truly cared whether I was hurting. Sadly, the man who had once promised to protect me forever had left me alone in the darkest night.

The next morning, sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains and fell across the worn wooden floor of the living room.

Grandma had a routine checkup scheduled before her upcoming heart bypass surgery. The appointment required visits to several departments, and we'd have to wait in line for her turn.

A week earlier, Hugo had promised he'd drive us to the hospital and stay with us the entire time.

I packed Grandma's medical records, thermos, and coat into a canvas tote bag. Then, I sat on the couch and waited for him.

The clock on the wall reached nine, but the doorbell never rang.

Instead, my phone rang. "Andrea, you'll have to take Adeline to the hospital yourself. Something urgent came up, and I can't get away."

I could hear Lorelei's soft, whiny voice in the background, complaining that her foot hurt.

Hugo's voice immediately became anxious. "She missed a step and fell down the stairs. Her ankle is badly swollen. She doesn't have any family or friends here. I need to take her to an orthopedic specialist. Adeline's only going in for a routine checkup. You can handle it yourself, right?"

I clenched my phone so tightly that my fingertips turned white. It felt as though a painful lump was lodged in my throat. I struggled desperately to force out a sound.

"Grandma—"

"Alright, Andrea. Don't be difficult," Hugo cut me off without hesitation. "You need to learn how to handle things on your own. Lori is hurt. She can barely stand. I have to go. I'll call you later."

The line went dead, leaving only the monotonous beeping in the empty living room.

Grandma came out of her room holding one of my old jackets. "Andrea, is Hugo not here yet?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat, walked over, and took the jacket from her. Then, I supported her arm that was joined to a shoulder hunched from years of hard work.

I pulled out my phone, typed a message, and showed it to her. "He needs to attend an emergency meeting at this company. I'll take you there."

Grandma sighed and gently patted the back of my hand with her wrinkled fingers. "Since Hugo is busy with work, we'll just take a cab. Let's not get in the way of his work."

At the hospital, we checked in and waited in line for Grandma to have her blood drawn. I ran from one department to another, weaving through the crowded halls.

Because of my stutter, the people behind me at the payment window grew increasingly impatient.

"Can you hurry up? Are you mute or something?"

Sweat covered my forehead. The more anxious I became, the less I could speak.

In the end, I could only shove the payment slip and the payment QR code on my phone through the window. The cashier impatiently scanned the code and tossed the receipt back at me.

As I helped Grandma sit on a bench to rest, a notification popped up on my phone.

It was an update from Lorelei's social media account. The photo showed an ankle wrapped in gauze, with a bowl of freshly washed cherries right beside it.

In the background was a man's slender hand. A faint scar ran across one of his knuckles.

It was the same scar Hugo had gotten during our freshman year when he'd accidentally cut himself while peeling an apple for me.

The caption read, "People who are truly cherished don't have to endure even the smallest injury alone. Someone will always drop everything to be by their side."

I stared at those words on the screen and felt my eyes sting.

During my sophomore year, I had a severe case of the flu that developed into pneumonia. I'd ended up in the hospital for IV treatment. Hugo had skipped an interview with one of the country's biggest companies just to stay with me.

Back then, he'd gently rubbed my feverish cheek and said to me that my health mattered more than his career.

Back then, his warm light had shone on me alone, unwavering and without hesitation.

Now, he'd taken that light away and left me standing in the shadows where it used to be.