Chapter 7: False accident

Her heart is racing, pulses throughout her body are beating fast, and while turning her head in every corner, patients who have blood flowing on the floor while medical employees are dragging its hospital metal beds. She is thinking about her friend, who has just been told earlier that she was in an accident due to a car crash.

"Annie," she mistakenly calls, building its metal bed as she assumes it's her. 

"Ma'am, stay on your side. It's not Annie. It's my sister." The boy stops her when seeing she's weeping in the wrong person.

When she widens her eyes, she analyzes her mistakes, saying, "Sorry."

Ava Nicole doesn't even think the right thing to do. Her surroundings look rolling as her mind is not stable to overcome it. Annie was her best buddy a long time ago. The memories they have shared don't compare to other peers she had. She can't bear to lose her now.

She runs towards the customer service table, panting like a racer wants to win.

"Ms., do you have a patient named Annie Presto?" she asks, but someone also says the same sentence.

They are shocked with each other, staring deeply as they uttered together the same inquiry.

"Boss?" she says.

 

"Ava?" he responds.

They both ran in the same place, searching with the same person, and called to go at the same time. How about the MESA event?

"Sir, ma'am, we couldn't find her name here. Maybe you are mistaking the hospital name," the representative says.

Both are blank. Is anything sabotaging them?

Their minds are communicating like what? Is Annie playing trick on them? Oh, very smart but full of stupidity.

"Who calls you to be here?" Ava asks her boss while they are heading back, going outside the hospital building.

"It's my bodyguard. He says that Annie calls her that she was accidentally crashed by an opponent car who lost its brake. I suppose she is here because this is only the hospital the company is paying in," is his reply.

"What about you?" he adds.

"She's the one who texted me," is her response. 

Right after, she walks faster than him. It looks like the woman is avoiding him. 

"Nicole, where are you going now? I come with you," the man shouts.

She ignores him and continues walking while swaying his hands and waiting for an empty taxi to stop in front of her.

It's disgusting. No one would stop her. Many taxis exceed, but they are full. Ava wants to cope with MESA events where she can maybe find answers to her questions. Maybe Annie is there, or if it isn't, maybe she can help Marianne gain sales.

A car passes by; someone knows her. But when the window opens, a sweaty face reveals itself.

"Go inside. You have no protection on your body. The weather is hot. It's not good for your skin."

Ava has no choice. It's not appropriate for them to be in one car, but she has to go with him. Besides, they are heading to the location. No worries at all.

When they arrive, A-Kezha Mall counters aren't that full. Participants are preparing their props to exit, including Marianne, who is looking exhausted with her untie frizzy hair and deformed facial looks.

"Marianne, how was it going?" her boss asks, bothering things that maybe it didn't go well.

Marianne ties her hair and fixes herself to show clean and beautiful in his sight before saying, "Oh, hello, sir Hallway. Why are you late today? The event has just finished before you are here."

"And, whose that woman beside you?" The woman gets jealousy for the first time. She has no knowledge that the lady with her boss was his ex-wife. That way, her mood changes.

"Oh, she is Ava Nicole Hillson. You know Mr. Hillson right? He is her father." Marianne covers her mouth with her hand, reacting so shy because of her judgment of her earlier.

Mr. Hillson is one of the richest people in the entire Germany who invested a long time ago in the company she's working in, and the one she dreamed to be her father is also the one she has the most respect for. Though unrealistic, but now she sees the daughter of him, which she thought was a raggage girl somewhere. She bows down out of shyness, realizing her mistakes.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Hillson. I thought you were the one who destroyed my job earlier. I'm really sooooory ma'am," she exaggerates the most words for emphasis.

"It's okay. I understand," Ava humbly accepts her apology.

Suddenly, Gerald holds Ava's arms, distinguishing how many people are approaching them. It seems that they know him already. The thing that he hates the most is going outside. Because mostly they drag him for picture-taking or video greeting until he suffocates of the overcrowding in her presence.

"Ava. Come with me. In three, two, one, run!"

"Sir!" Marianne shouts, heard in the whole department store.

She assumes that her boss will ride her back to the company, but the named Ava is being brought back by him. What would be their relationship?

Sh*t!

Marianne's mind now is running guesses as a woman instinctively analyzes the whole situation. She thinks of the possible reasons why her boss drags that girl, but it ends with they truly act like a couple.

"Aaaaaaahaahaaha! I lose his heart again."

***

Ava Nicole drops in the location where her investigation officer is heading in. There, the man in a black jacket holds a brown envelope waiting for her, sitting in the chair with a round table connecting to it.

She is supposed to receive the result of the investigation clearly from the picture of the man—the father of her son (Dylan).

During the healing process in Germany, her parents hired a private investigator for her case for son's sake. She plans to tell him the result of their activity. It was mutual understanding, but on the night of lovemaking, her eyes were tied with black, thick lace, making her not see the man who first got her virginity.

"Ma'am, I bring the pictures you have requested to me earlier. These are the clearest copy I secretly requested to the nearby CCTV's where the man is posting before you met him," the investigator bravely states.

"Thanks for the cooperation. I will immediately deposit your salary when I get home." The man nods so as his boss, who has hope to nearly see the image she longs to recognize.

Opening the envelope, gradually picking one picture to another, she imagines those things they shared together. The caressing, the kissing, and the push and pull breaking of her watermelon are remembered by her. She misses it so much.

But the face of the man in the picture is not really clear. He wore a black cap that covered his whole face and earrings of a white petal flower, which may be helpful as the core whoever should have it.

"Do you have other vivid captures other than this? I can't recognize him surely with only this," she says, asking for a clearer copy to confirm her guesses.

"Ma'am, I have only one copy here in my phone that I forgot to print. Maybe it can help you to easily recognize him."

The man handed his phone to ease their confusion. Ava is so excited to see it that she quickly opens the image with wide eyes.

Her heart is racing; pulses are beating loud, which makes her breathe heavily. She looks at the picture steadily while her hands are shaking, which makes her companion bother her.

"Do you know him now, madam?"

She blinks at the man then looks back to the picture, saying, "Y—yes. I really know him so well."