Chapter 5
1080 Words
(SOPHIA POV)
The taxi drove steadily.
I sat at the back, holding onto my bag tightly,
My eyes were fixed on the back of the driver’s head, but I wasn’t really looking at it.
What I was really seeing was so much more distant, my thoughts were scattered across the events of that had taken place today.
So much had happened…too much. From one surprise to the next, it felt as though I had been caught in a storm, tossed around without being given a second to even catch my breath.
But out of all of it, there was one moment that stood out. One moment that had left me reeling.
“Adrian Cross”
The name echoed in my mind, and with it came the image of him standing there, tall and composed.
He had looked exactly as I had imagined he would, only more so.
His chiseled features, his striking blue eyes, the air of authority he carried….it was all so magnetic.
He wasn’t just beautiful; he was breathtaking.
And yet… he hadn’t recognized me.
Not even a little flash of recognition crossed his face when our eyes met.
Not a single sign that he remembered the frightened child he had once been,
nor the desperate girl who had pulled him from danger all those years ago.
I didn’t know how I felt about that. Should I be sad? Relieved?
I thought about it.
There was nothing I could have done to remind him, not without risking everything.
The consequences were too predictable, too certain. Mrs. Hart would have called me an opportunist on the spot, accusing me of trying to take advantage of her Vip customer.
And Adrian himself? He would likely dismiss me as someone who had simply heard the story and decided to fabricate a connection.
No one would have given me the time to explain, let alone prove myself.
The thought tightened my chest.
I adjusted my grip on my bag and shifted my eyes to the window. .
The city blurred past.
It felt surreal, sitting there in the taxi, heading back to the hospital where my brother waited, while my mind kept going back to the memory of Adrian Cross.
Would he have even believed me if I had tried to remind him? Would he have cared?
A mask of doubt covered my face.
Perhaps it was better this way better that he didn’t remember.
Better to leave the past buried, even if it left me feeling invisible, as though our shared history had been wiped clean.
The driver muttered something under his breath as he slowed for a red light, and I blinked, saying nothing.
I couldn’t dwell on this.
Not now. My brother needed me, and that was what mattered most.
But no matter how much I tried to focus, the image of Adrian Cross remained, a shadow in the corners of my mind.
The boy I had saved was now a man…a grown man whose path had crossed mine once more, even if only briefly.
Taxi rumbled on, I listened absentmindedly,
But then, something else that had escaped me surface in that moment…it was the memory of that call.
“One hundred thousand dollars…” I murmured.
The figure echoed in my mind, impossibly large and yet strangely tantalizing.
A hundred thousand. I only needed a fraction of that….just a quarter. And my world would transform.
My brother’s hospital bills, the endless debts, the constant burden pressing down on my shoulders... all of it could vanish with a single stroke.
But I scoffed softly, shaking my head as if to dislodge the thought.
“What could I do?” I whispered . It was absurd even to entertain the idea.
People like me didn’t get breaks like that. We weren’t even allowed to dream beyond the narrow margins life had given us.
It was almost as though people like me were condemned to suffering.
It was why thinking about solutions that were so far out of reach felt like rubbing salt into an open wound.
I decided to focus on the present, and on what mattered.
My brother. I needed to prepare myself to see him, to finally learn what was wrong and what needed to be done.
The taxi rolled to a stop in front of the hospital.
I reached into my bag for the fare. My hands trembled slightly, whether from exhaustion or anticipation,
I couldn’t tell. I paid him, murmuring a quick thank-you, and stepped down.
The first thing I noticed as I turned was my parents.
They were standing near a corner by the entrance,
My father’s shoulders were hunched, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, while my mother stood beside him, holding a handkerchief to her face.
The tear-streaked redness of her eyes was impossible to miss, even from a distance.
The moment they spotted me, they rushed toward me like a tide crashing against the shore.
“Sophia!”
my mother cried, her voice trembling as she closed the distance between us.
Before I could say a word, she gripped my hand,
Her gaze locked onto mine, desperate and raw.
“James’s case is far worse than we thought,”
she blurted out,
“The doctors said… said he needs urgent surgery,”
my mother stammered, her voice breaking with each word.
I stared at her, unable to breathe.
“Surgery? For what? What’s wrong with James?” My voice came out sharper than I intended, my panic making my words tumble over one another.
She wiped at her tears with a trembling hand
“It’s his heart, Sophia. They said… they said he has a defect something congenital they didn’t catch before. His heart isn’t pumping blood the way it should.”
I froze, the air around me seeming to grow thicker. My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
My father stepped closer, his voice heavy and grave.
“It’s going to cost forty thousand dollars, Sophia. And they’ve only given us two weeks.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. Forty thousand dollars. Two weeks.
I gasped, the sound sharp and involuntary.
“What?”
I looked between them, their faces etched with despair, and felt my own resolve begin to c***k.
The ground beneath me seemed unsteady, the world appeared to be spinning way too fast as the enormity of the situation sank in.
“What?” I could not help but repeat.
- Writer
