CHAPTER 1
Elise's POV.
My eyes were fixed on the center of attention as I got to my shop to witness the endless flow of shock I had seen in days.
“Notice Of Eviction,”
The flyer was glued on my glass door written in red and yellow. I looked around my perimeter, heaving a heavy sigh.
“Great,” I huffed, tearing out the paper. It had been sitting there for quite some hours as I could feel the sun's heat in the paper.
“Good afternoon, ma'am,” a girl with bright eyes greeted me as she carried a tray down to a table occupied by two high schoolers.
They were the only customers in my shop.
“Sheila,” I stared at her, raising the eviction notice at her. “Why did you let this sit out there? You could have removed it,”
“I'm sorry ma'am. I thought you would like to see for yourself before taking it out,” she said.
“Why would you think I'd like to see an eviction notice the minute I walk into my shop?” my voice rose an octave, hands twitching and my shoulders slouched.
“I… I,”
“You know what,” I slapped my hands in my forehead. “Go. Go, serve them,” I pointed at the teenage girls. “I'll take care of this,”
I slumped on a chair beside the counter, wiping off the sweat beads on my forehead. The year was getting to an end but my problems were only getting started.
I had barely sat down for a second when Sheila brought a series of papers for me.
“And what is this?” I asked, eyes bulged at her and voice barely audible.
“The bills you said I should remind you of,” she whispered back.
She placed her arms on the table and exchanged a few glances at the customer. “The customers are complaining about the services here and this morning we had our water cut off,”
“f**k!” I slammed my fist at the table, my ears burning with the information. “Can't I catch a f*****g break!”
Sheila gulped hard, her throat bobbing as she continued to smile; it was the least she could do. Smile. She had done a lot for me anyway even though she was just a worker in my shop.
“Make do with what we can, I'll get this sorted out before tomorrow afternoon,” my hands clenched as I blinked with a warm smile.
She strutted back to the counter to check on the oven and I spread out the bills I had to pay on my table, making calculations with muffled words.
Hours quickly went by and my chest only got heavier as visions began to blur with the numbers that came in total.
“It's not enough,” I hissed, leaning back on my seat, my breath steaming down in a hot flow. “A whole f*****g year and I can't even earn enough to keep this goddamn shop!”
I slammed my fist against the table, causing the mountain of bills to crash down with a rustle.
The taxes, utility bills, rent, and credit cards. They were suffocating. My feet were worn out from working all through the week just to scrape up the few minimum I could, but they weren't enough.
I barely earned a good amount of profit after working tirelessly for a whole year.
“f**k this,” I grabbed my hair in a tight grip, resting my head on the table as tears welled up in my eyes.
I couldn't care less if the girls were staring at me.
“Life can't get any worse, it really can't,” I sniffled. “I should just close the shop, coz I'm better off without it,”
“No, no, don't say that,” Sheila rushed to sit across from me. She placed an iced coffee on the table and curled her eyebrows at me. “You can't give up just yet. You need this shop and I need it too. I need the pay and you… Elise, you can't give up now”
“Look around you, even our darn chair are all worn out," my lips curled downwards as I scraped my fingers on the table.
“Well… well… you,”
She had barely gotten the words out of her mouth when my phone rang through the air with a piercing sound.
I raised my head and wiped off my tears, she handed me my bag and I searched for my phone
As soon as I got hold of my phone, I picked up the call and softened my voice, the brightest smile I could ever fake etched on my face
“Hello Vincent,” I cleared my throat, hoping he wasn't going to find out that I was almost in tears. “Aren't you supposed to be with mom?” I questioned,
“Elise, you gotta come to the hospital,” he replied, his voice shaky and weak.
My mood quickly took yet another turn for the worse.
What could it be again?
“Why? What's wrong?” My heart raced.
“The doctor. He called and it doesn't sound good,” he replied with rapid breaths.
“When? What did he say?” I sprang up to my feet, my eyes circling in its sockets. “Is it bad?” My voice cracked as I felt hot all over my body.
“I don't know, the doctor refused to say anything to me. He requests your presence urgently,” Vincent heaved.
I raked my hands through my hair and breathed out heavily. “Uhh…alright, I close up and head right there now,”
As soon as I hung up the call, I grabbed my hand bag. “Close the shop when the girls are done. Take a break or something,” I stuttered, rushing out as fast as I could.
I had been so distracted from the fact that I had a family member in the hospital. She was all I had and for some selfish reason, my struggling shop was all I could think of and the bills I had to pay.
My mother has been in a coma for months now. Those were the worst moments of life, not having her to run to for advice was the saddest thing I had ever gone through.
She adopted me when I became an orphan after a ghastly accident took my birth parents. Everything was good, they loved me as one of theirs until she finally got pregnant with a child of her own.
I had heard so many stories of how women got pregnant and suddenly turned on their adopted child, but not my mother. She loved me endlessly.
Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same thing for my father. After Vincent's birth, my father… he transformed into the devil's little minion.
I was nothing but a little s**t in his eyes. He said I deserved no education and insisted that I should be auctioned to the highest bidder who took interest in me. He made it clear that I didn't deserve a dime out of his mediocre wealth.
I went through the eyes of a needle.
However, I wished he had only hurt me alone. He started flirting with different women amidst my mother's constant heartbreak. She would cry herself a river of tears for every time she caught him with another woman.
He made our life miserable, abused us but it didn't stop there.
He got involved in gambling and sooner than we thought, we found ourselves living in a tiny apartment.
Things got so strained for my mother that she developed a condition and finally fell into a coma.
Her coma marked the beginning of crumbling in debt. I couldn't catch a freaking break.
Just as soon as I got to the hospital, I rushed to my mother's room, watching her still body as the ECG machine beeped at intervals. Tears welled up in my eyes. It had been almost a month, and she was still unconscious. Breathing but s**t out from the physical.
My lungs suddenly felt constricted, my palms were sweaty and my knees were weak.
Why couldn't I be a part of those women who drove around with shopping bags, glamorous looks, and stunning outfits? They had their life in order.
“Elise Rivers,” a voice echoed behind me.
I shakily turned in its direction, wiping my tears off as soon as I realized it was my mother's doctor.
“Good day, doc. My brother called, he said you needed to talk to me,” My voice clipped.
“Can we have a chat in my office?” he gestured, his eyes darting at my sweaty palms.
“Yeah, sure,” I sniffled.
We got to his office and he offered me a seat. My hands twitched nonstop and I kept pulling at my hair.
He wasn't looking chill either, I knew he had something to tell me.
“Can you just let it out, please. It's killing me, I need to know what's wrong with my mother,” I begged.
He raised his eyes at me and shut his folder. “Well, I can't sugarcoat it, Miss Elise. Your mother… her condition is getting worse,” he paused for a second.
My heart skipped a beat and my breath hitched. “I… understand,” I stuttered. “How bad is her condition?”
The doctor took a deep breath and leaned closer to his table. “She needs intense emergency care, real quick or her body might give up on her. Most comatose patients have a risk of going brain…”
“Stop…” the words slipped out of my mouth as I slammed my hands on my thighs. I couldn't sit and watch him tell me how bad she was getting. I couldn't bear the pain.
I took a deep breath and clenched my fists. “So how much is it going to cost for this ‘emergency care’?”
“Uh, if we add everything in total, we will need a sum of one hundred thousand dollars paid before we can start any treatment,”
“That's… that's impossible.” I leaped up, my vision almost blurry.
A hundred grand! Where the hell am I gonna get that kind of money?
