Chapter3 Wait for the Next Sunrise
1803 Words
Skyscrapers pierced the clouds, glittering like spears of glass. From the top-floor corner office, Adrian Kade stood motionless before the wall-to-ceiling windows, looking down at the city tucked beneath the drifting mist.
He had just finished a two-and-a-half-hour meeting—slow progress, sloppy reports, a room full of incompetence. But the storm brewing beneath his expression had nothing to do with work.
Manny’s nanny had vanished.
The woman who was supposed to keep a vigilant eye on Manny had somehow allowed him to slip away—and remain missing for five long hours. Instead of reporting it immediately, she panicked and fled. She knew exactly what Adrian’s anger looked like. No wonder she ran.
He had hired her in the first place because she cooked excellent Chinese food—one of the few things Manny would willingly eat. The boy was finicky, and only the rare dish pleased him; he was already small for his age, and Adrian refused to let negligence shrink him further.
But that woman’s disappearance wasn’t his priority now. He needed a new nanny. Quickly. Adrian never had time to look after a child, nor did he understand how to. His world ran on precision, not patience; efficiency, not tenderness.
He picked up his phone. “Colin,” he said, his voice clipped and commanding. “Find a nanny. One who can cook Chinese food well.”
Colin Puth—the longest-surviving assistant out of a long graveyard of former ones—exhaled silently. “Yes, sir. I’ll try my best—”
“Don’t say ‘try,’” Adrian cut in sharply. “Give me a timeframe.”
Colin winced. “…I can aim for a week.”
“Three days,” Adrian corrected. “That should be enough.”
There was a beat of helpless silence. “…Of course, Mr. Kade.”
“Thank you, Colin.”
This job is going to kill me, Colin thought.
---
The new hospital room was undeniably luxurious. A private suite, a private bathroom, and nurses who suddenly seemed much more attentive. Only Mary Harris didn’t understand why.
“Lila, we can’t afford a room like this,” Mary said anxiously, half-ready to climb out of her bed. Lila rushed to soothe her. She had no idea how to explain this. If she told her mother the truth, Mary would worry herself sick and probably beg Lila to quit her jobs, maybe even stop treatment altogether.
“Sweety, tell me what happened,” her mother pressed.
“Mom, I’m sorry… I’m not entirely sure myself. Let me make a call, okay? When I come back, I’ll explain.”
Lila slipped out into the hospital garden and found an empty bench. For once, she didn’t hesitate.
She dialed Adrian Kade.
It rang. And rang.
Just when she thought no one would pick up—
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice.
Lila straightened instinctively. “Hello, Mrs. Kade.” She didn’t know why she addressed her like that—it slipped out before she could stop it. “This is Lila Harris. May I speak with Mr. Kade?”
A brief, chilly silence.
“…Why?”
The tone made Lila feel like there was a hostess handing a guest a glass of plain water and immediately asking, What do you want?
“I’d like to discuss the payment he made for my mother’s treatment. It’s… it’s too much money. I don’t feel right accepting it. If possible, I’d like a repayment schedule. I will return it, I promise.”
“Why would he pay your mother’s bills?” The woman’s voice sharpened, confusion bleeding into suspicion. Lila froze. Mrs. Kade didn’t know. Then explaining the whole story herself felt… intrusive. Wrong. Something a stranger had no right to do.
“Mrs. Kade, I—I may be overstepping. If this is inconvenient, I’m very sorry. I only wanted to say I intend to repay the—”
“I have to go, Miss Harris. I’ll relay the message. Thank you for calling.”
The abruptness felt like draining the last sip of water from a glass only to have the hostess say, Goodbye.
“You had a call earlier.”
Elara Voss carried a golden, sunlit beauty—her thick blonde hair shimmering over her shoulders like a stream of molten light. Adrian pulled a tissue to dry his hands, then checked his phone. No missed calls.
“You answered it?”
Elara shifted uneasily. “Yes… The caller wouldn’t hang up, and you were in the washroom. I thought it might be important.”
“Who was it?”
“A woman. Lila… Harry?”
“Harris,” Adrian corrected immediately.
Elara’s brows rose. “So she is someone important to you.”
“What did she say?”
“She said…” Elara paused, weighing the oddness of the words. “She doesn’t want your money. She wants to pay you back.”
Adrian’s brow lifted slightly, “Really. How?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t explain. Why did you pay her mother’s medical bills anyway? Don’t tell me…” She lowered her voice playfully. “You slept with her? Trying to buy your way out? She sounded young.”
Adrian’s stare cut like ice—cold, precise, dismissive. He offered no explanation, and he owed her none. To him, Elara was a colleague. Nothing more. Manny’s therapist. Nothing else.
“Dr. Voss,” he said coolly, “I thought you were here to discuss Manny’s next treatment plan.”
Elara’s expression tightened; she wisely abandoned the topic.
When their meeting finally ended, it was nearly 7 p.m. She had deliberately chosen this hour, hoping he might suggest dinner. Instead, Adrian stood, opened his office door, and walked her out.
“Elara,”—he only used her first name outside work, the only sign they’d known each other for ten years— “Next time, please don’t answer my calls. It’s inappropriate.”
---
The phone call with Adrian ended without anything that resembled real communication. Lila walked down the hospital corridor in a daze, dragging her feet toward her mother’s room. She hadn’t even begun to figure out how to explain the bill being “mysteriously” paid. Before she could gather her thoughts, her phone vibrated—Amy Fang.
Amy was a Chinese international student whom she met at the Chinese restaurant where they worked together. And why was Lila working there—at a place that paid barely above minimum wage?Because in the entire city of Dalos, only the Chinese restaurant stayed open until 3 a.m. Except for bars—which were far too dangerous. And night shifts paid more, and the restaurant was the safest place to survive the night.
“Help me, Lila!” Amy’s frantic voice burst out the moment the call connected.
Lila’s heart skipped in alarm. For a second, she thought Amy was in trouble—only for the girl to practically squeal a second later.
“You remember Carlos Bond? The not guy I followed on f*******:? We chatted the whole night yesterday. He just asked me out. Oh my god, I can’t breathe!”
“That’s… great news? Why do you sound terrified?”
“Because I’m at the restaurant right now! I just clocked in—I look like absolute trash, hair all over the place. Lila, can you please, please take my night shift? I’ll give you the pay directly.”
Lila returned to her mother’s room and explained the situation, spending a long time reassuring Mrs. Harris that no one was going to throw them out. Only after her mother finally relaxed did Lila leave for work.
Friday nights were hell at the restaurant. Endless customers. Orders stacking up. Tables filled the second they were cleared. But busy nights meant good tips, and when the shift finally ended at four in the morning, she walked away with a thick handful of cash.
By the time she returned to the hospital, it was nearly five. The sky was a faint bluish silver, the horizon threatening to bloom with sunlight. Lila sat on the garden bench, exhausted beyond comprehension, waiting for dawn. She told herself she wanted to see the sunrise, but fatigue wrapped around her like a warm blanket. The air carried the clean, damp scent of grass soaking in dew. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier…
Until—
A sudden rustle burst from the bushes behind her. The sound was sharp, made louder by the stillness of dawn. Lila froze instantly, breath caught in her throat. Her mind raced in panic—imagining a masked man with a gun, sharp predator eyes fixed on her.
But then… silence. Nothing moved. Her heartbeat finally began to slow. When she was certain the world had calmed again, she forced herself to turn, just enough to look with the corner of her eye—there he was again: that same small, thin figure. Curled up at the base of a tree in a hospital gown.
“Again?” she muttered under her breath.
What kind of cosmic joke was this? Why was she always the one to find this child? She stood up quickly, stepping into the flowerbed without hesitation and making her way toward the boy.
“Manny?” she whispered, unsure, though her heart already knew.
At that exact moment, the first beam of sunlight pierced the darkness—a bright, fiery stroke of orange slicing through the sky. The new light fell on them like stage lamps, as though an audience from miles away watched this strange, absurd, yet quietly poetic scene unfold: Lila Harris, discovering this runaway child in the hospital garden for the second time.
What was he searching for? What kind of irreplaceable thing drove him to sneak out every night? Manny finally lifted his head. His small, pale face glowed under the rising sun, a healing wound crossing his forehead.
“The sun came up,” he said softly. The innocence in his voice was almost crystalline.
That’s what you were waiting for? Lila followed his gaze toward the horizon. And yes—it was stunning. A beauty difficult to describe, one that filled her chest with something warm, trembling, deeply human. She was grateful she hadn’t missed this grand beginning.
Every new day opened a new story.
Some people stepped into a comedy.
Some were trapped in a tragedy.
Some stumbled into a farce, and others were stuck in a mystery they didn’t ask for. Life was unfair, unbearably so. But time—time was the one thing that treated all living beings equally. It took youth and clarity alike from everyone, without discrimination.
And in the end, the only thing you could do was—wait for the next sunrise.
- Writer
