Chapter 5: Treatment Plan 

*Amelia

It's been three good days since Adrian left the house, and since then, I'm yet to hear from him, and he hasn't also been picking up my calls.

I know he's doing this just to punish me because I refused to apologise to Melissa after the heated argument we had that ended with me slapping her.

He had witnessed how Melissa insulted my late mum during the argument and also how she accused me of stealing him from her, something he too wasn't even sure if it was true or not, and yet he insisted that I apologise to her, and when I refused, he just took his car keys and left with Melissa, and since then till this morning, I'm still yet to set my eyes on him.

I have tried calling him countless times to ask him when he will be coming back home, but he hasn't been picking up my calls.

Given that I had asked him to treat me like his real wife for one more month, surely he now thinks that I'm so much in love with him to the extent that I can't even live a single day without seeing him and that him deciding not to come back home is a way of punishing me.

It's true that I have missed him for these past few days that he has been absent, but one thing he doesn't know is that I have begun losing interest in him with each passing day, and this began right from the day he confessed to me that everything he has been doing for me since we got married was just so that he won't forget what Melissa taught him about how a man should treat his wife.

Right from the beginning, my main plan was never to fall in love with him till the end of our three-year contract marriage; by so doing, I won't have difficulties leaving him when we finally get divorced and he gets back with his Melissa, who has always been the love of his life.

The main reason why I pushed that plan aside and allowed myself to fall for him was because I believed that he has fallen in love with me and that was the reason why he was treating me the way he was treating me for the past three years we have been married. Had I known that he was doing it just so that he wouldn't forget what Melissa taught him about how a man should treat his woman, I would have stuck to my initial plan. After all, which woman in her right senses would fall in love with a man who she knows very well believes that she created a scandal that could ruin his life and that with the goal of preventing him from getting married to his fiancee and also stealing him for herself?

Well, it's a good thing that I have begun losing interest in him; at least at the end of the one month, I won't have any difficulties leaving. The only thing I will be leaving with is the memories of him pretending to be a real husband to me, and that will also be the only thing that I will be taking to the grave with me.

As these thoughts were running through my mind, my phone that was lying beside me began ringing, snapping me back to reality.

Thinking that it was Adrian who had finally decided to call back, I immediately took the phone and checked the caller ID, only to see that it wasn't Adrian but rather Andrew, my secret personal doctor and also the only person who knows that I am suffering from a terminal illness.

Knowing the reason why he was calling, I hesitated for some minutes before finally picking up the call and placing the phone on my ear.

"Hello, Doctor Andrew, how are you doing?" I asked him after picking up the call.

"I'm doing good, Mrs Darlington. What about you?" He asked me through the phone.

"You already know how I'm doing, so I don't think I need to answer that," I said to him in reply.

"As your doctor, I know how you are doing; that's why I asked to see you yesterday so that we can discuss what to do for you to get better, but you didn't show up," he said to me through the phone.

"Well, I think what you meant is that we will discuss about how to prolong my suffering so that I won't die in less than six months; if not, I don't think my situation is going to get better unless you have found a permanent cure for my illness," I said to him, and with that he sighed heavily.

"Mrs Darlington, I have told you that what you are suffering from is a very rare illness, and even if I don't have the cure right away, there's still a possibility that I can find one very soon, but in order to do that, you need to be alive," the doctor said to me, and I sighed heavily. "Of what use will it be if you have already passed away even before I find the cure? So please, let's meet today so that we can discuss how you will stay alive while I'm looking for the cure for the illness," the doctor said to me, and once again I sighed heavily without saying anything.

Right from when my Mum was sick, the doctor has already told me that there was no current cure for the illness, but he had also told me that he would contact some of his colleagues outside the country to see if any of them have ever encountered a patient suffering from the same illness and whether they managed to find a cure for the patient.

Since he haven't found a cure since then till now, I knew that there was a high probability of him not finding one anytime soon, and because of that, I didn't want to keep my hopes high only to end up being disappointed; that's why I didn't meet up with him yesterday to discuss a treatment plan for my illness.

"Hello, Mrs Darlington, are you still there?" The doctor's voice sounded through the phone, jolting me back to reality.

"Yes, I'm still here. By what time do you want us to meet?" I asked him.

"Well, today is my day off, we can't meet at the hospital, so I will send the address of where we can meet and also the time. "I hope that's okay with you?" he asked me.

"Yes, that's okay with me," I said to him before hanging up and tossing the phone on the bed as I already knew deep down that all this was going to lead to only one thing which is disappointment.