جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 10

“I’m sorry, Miss Hayes. The results confirm it is cancer.” It was loud in the kind of way that gets into your teeth and sinks deep into your cranium. Every moment fades into oblivion, which seems more like the effect of the drink, but I know better. The bar was packed, not shoulder-to-shoulder, but thick enough that the air was hot and heavy, soaked in the smell of sweat, spilled beer, cheap cologne, and that lemony disinfectant they swiped across the counter every hour like it made a difference. It just never did. Or maybe it was me. Neon signs buzzed above me, radiating everything in sick blues and reds. A jukebox fought a losing battle with the crowd noise, blaring out some old rock song no one was listening to. The laughter became the music and the pleasure, the rhythm. Oh, I hate this place… I was hunched at the far end of the bar, where the light didn’t quite reach and no one bothered to look too long. My stool wobbled every time I shifted, but I didn’t care. The wood u

A few hours ago…The world was a color of black and white, of pleasure and sin, and the blend of gray dispersing in the air like incense. Faint old rock music bled through the bar, mixed with laughter and screams through the night’s stillness. However, the silence of the night was louder than the noise, and even louder somewhere parked at the far edge of the lot, gleaming under harsh yellow lights. It was like a beast at rest but never asleep. A world of its own.Its placement was deliberate, far enough to command space, close enough to remind the world it didn’t belong. Even the blind could tell it was possessed by someone wealthy. Those bloody-rich rouges kept concealed in the dark as they carried out their ruse.Inside a car buried at one end, sat a cognizant figure. It was eerily silent, not the comfortable kind, the kind that stretched taut and unrelenting, pressing in on everything. The leather interior, black on black, held the chill like a coffin and its tainted glass refl

I didn't know what to say. Well, apart from the fact that ‘Felix’, my ex-boyfriend, was part of the reasons I drank to a stupor last night. A sigh escaped her lips, breaking the silence after. “I was scared, Livia. I tried calling you, several times, but you weren't picking up. I even called Doctor Josh, cause I thought you might be there, and imagine my panic when he said he hadn't seen you since after you visited your mom that afternoon. Then Felix?” She gave me a look that had so many questions in it. What? How? Why? And then… when? Felix and I have been together for almost seventeen years and still counting if not for how things ended up yesterday. I was going to be his fiancée that day, because he proposed, right at the spot where we had our first kiss. God, it was memorable. It was supposed to be memorable until the doctor’s call which came right before the encounter. Two days ago, I was confirmed to be diagnosed with cancer. The tumor had advanced now, so deep as a st

I was twenty minutes early.Which, according to the internet, was fifteen minutes too early. But being poor, hungover, and desperate made me want to arrive as if punctuality alone could cure cancer or cover hospital bills.Well, maybe it could. Perhaps I’m just about to find out.One Vanderbilt towered above me like a monument to wealth and precision, all glass and steel that reflected a version of me I barely recognized. It wasn’t exactly how it was featured and described in magazines, painted high against the sky, in TV shows, and on billboards. Staring at it in person made me realize this was another world entirely.More perfect. A real-life fantasy.Self-doubts kicked in, and I paused midway, letting the Manhattan breeze spank my figure. It seems like it was mocking me. Well, I didn't care.My desperation was far greater than my greatest insecurities. Giving up felt like walking away from an opportunity for mama’s treatment and I wasn't going to let it ruin my biggest shred of ho

The moment his lips touched mine, I swear I saw white clouds, the burst of stars, and the dead butterflies in my stomach resurrected into billions, working their way somewhere below my abdomen.It was just a kiss, but it felt like a brand, something powerful yet something I couldn't describe. He trapped my body against his, one hand settling on the elevator wall and another anchoring my waist close as he preached the gospel of his lips.His lips on mine were something I couldn't explain. Demanding, fierce, and in control, like the leverage holding us both was something he couldn’t let go of.His mouth tasted like whiskey. That was it. That was something I couldn't place my hand on, buried in the lips of a total stranger. One which I feared, I might have gotten a tint of knowledge.No warning.No permission.Just heat. Explosive, soul-ripping heat.His kiss didn’t ask because it took. His lips moved like a man who knew exactly what he wanted, and exactly how to take it. Nothing was ge