When Neriah opens her eyes again, she sees herself on a bed in a large room, but she knows it’s not a hospital because she’s been there many times and has no one been this big nor its bed this large. Her eyes travel around the room and they spot someone with long brown hair reaching her shoulders, in a grey shirt and black trousers.
Neriah sits up immediately and gets up from the bed when the strange lady turns around and sees her. Her brown eyes immediately show disapproval of Neriah’s action, but she’s careful not to let it get to the extreme.
She takes a few steps toward Neriah, and this sends Neriah completely running off the bed.
“Don’t do that,” she adjoins with a thick British accent, raising her hand in surrender.
There’s a fear in Neriah that she doesn’t let it appear on her face. “Where am I? Who are you? What happened?”
“You came in here unconscious. I just did some test to know what’s wrong, the result will come in soon.” She answers, her hands still held up in surrender.
“Who brought me in?” She asks, still trying to recall the last few things she can remember, which are blurry and not enough.
“I go-got to go,” she says when the Lady hesitates in answering and she knows she’s not ready for lies.
She sees the door and walks towards it when the woman speaks, “Mr Cainan brought you here, but he made me promise to not say a word.”
Anger grows within her, “All the more reason I need to leave.”
“Please—” she begins, her blue eyes weary, but Neriah doesn’t let her say any more.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know the side of Cainan that you know, but I know the bad side. He’s made my life a living hell these past three months. I’ve known him and I’ll be damn if I let all this fool me.” She sees her purse on the table close to the mystery woman.
“I don’t know the side of him you know or the part you want me to know, but he brought you here to help.”
She walks to the table and takes her purse. “Well, you can say that when I’m dead and gone,” and with that, she walks over to the door before leaving.
Throughout the day, she ponders upon what the result the mystery woman was expecting from the lab is. She wonders what they might find out and what Cainan now knows about her health.
Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did.
After hours of thought, she comes out with the truth. If Cainan knows she’s dying, it’s only logical to come out and tell Shawn the truth, as he deserves that, at least from her.
‘Or you can run away a little voice in her says.’
She’s never known herself as a coward, and although she wants to tell him the truth, a part of her fears how he’s going to take it. He’s probably going to be angry, considering how long he’s been in the dark and maybe even furious that I only told him now because Cainan knows. She still can’t leave him hanging and wonders what he did wrong to make her take off without saying a word.
‘Leave him a letter, then run away. That way, he’ll know the truth and you won’t have to see him explode,’ the small voice suggests.
Seem better she agrees and looking at the time she knows she still has time to pack and leave him a letter so she goes to the other side of the room where the wardrobe is and brings out her bag and places it on the bed, she gathers her clothes and other things into it. She stuffs her shoes into the bag and closes it up.
After another thirty minutes of gathering her things together, she knows she is ready to go, and the only thing left is the note she needs to write. She sits down, picks up her notepad and her pen from the table and settles to write the letter when she hears a knock on her door. Her first instinct is to ignore it, which she immediately follows, but the knock comes again, this time louder than the last.
She gets up from the chair and walks to the door. “Who’s it?” She asks, but all she gets in return is silence. She wonders if the knock was actually from her door or her neighbour’s door, but as she turns to go back, the knock comes again. “Damn it! Who’s it?!” she snapped in frustration.
“I think you know who it is. Open up, Neriah.” comes Cainan’s response, causing Neriah’s heart to drop in her chest.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Well sucks ‘cause I’m not leaving here until we talk and guess who will come back to see his girlfriend soon? You guessed right, it’s lover boy—”
Neriah opens the door, not letting him finish his mockery of her already terrible and complicated love life.
Although his voice had sounded like a mockery to Neriah’s ears, his face didn’t look like the one about to make a joke or tease her. “What do you want? Haven’t you done enough?!” she demands, not wanting to sound or come out as weak, which is how she’s feeling.
“Aren’t you going to let me in?” He asks, ignoring her questions.
She chuckles, “Because we are such good friends?”
“You’re right, I’m not and for that I’m sorry.” He apologises, and this is the first time Neriah has heard him apologise.
“You’re forgiven,” she replies, and she’s about to slam the door when he speaks up.
‘’The results came in.” this causes her to draw a sharp breath, but he continues, “I know you’re dying, Neriah. And this may sound cliché, but I want to help you.”