"Is this Mr.Samuel?", the person on the other end of the phone enquired?
'Yes, this is Samuel'.
"Miss.Eva was in an accident and her condition is critical. She has listed you as her emergency contact. Can you please come to Mount Sinai Medical Center immediately?".
For a second I felt as if the whole world was crumbling down around me. Eva was so happy when she spoke to me in the morning. She had promised to soon introduce me to someone very special, I was sure its the guy she was dating and now this. I ran down 10 stories of my office, feeling too agitated to wait for the lift.
In the subway, I kept thinking about her. She was just four years older than me but always acted like my mother. We lost our parents in a car accident when I was twelve and she was sixteen. Our grandparents took us in. But because she didn't want to be a burden on them she kept on taking part-time jobs to take care of her and my basic needs.
I was always the nerd. She used to say she wants me to just focus on my studies and become somebody our parents could be proud of. She was so happy when I was selected in Dartmouth for a Business administration course. I was saving up for years after graduating and we were supposed to leave for our Europe trip which I planned as a thank you gift for all that she had done for me in two days.
I got down at my station and rushed to the hospital. By the time I arrived, they had already taken Eva for surgery. She was crossing the road when an uncontrolled SUV crashed into her. She had severe head injuries and her condition was critical.
I have never felt so helpless in my life. Not even when my parents died because I still had her. If something happened to her I will never be able to live with myself. So for the first time in fourteen years, I got down on my knees and prayed.