"Since when have your problems been a bother to me? There is something more to it. Why won't you tell me what the problem is? I call, and my calls go unanswered. My messages go unanswered. You expect me to be okay with that?"
"No," Carey said, then kept quiet.
"Anyway, I am very busy with something very important right now," Karen answered when she realized that there was no further explanation.
She had moved far away from her friends since she didn't want them to hear that she had problems with Carey.
"Why? What's the important thing?"
Karen looked behind at where Angie was sitting. She thought of not opening up to him.
'No, I am not that kind of person. I don't do an eye for an eye. Maybe, if I talk to him, he will also talk to me,' she thought to herself, running her fingers on her hair.
Without stopping herself, she told Carey that her friend was really in need of her but that she would come home as soon as Angie was strong enough to stay on her own.
"Oh. That's sad news. I'm so sorry to hear that. Take your time," Carey said. He got off on the call, and Liz called him.
"I can't see you today," Carey said. His consciousness was bothering him so much.
He did love Karen, but he was also feeling attracted to Liz. It didn't help matters that Karen was far while Liz was near him.
Carey and Liz's relationship was to end the day it had started, but they both couldn't get off each other.
"Do you have a wife?" Liz had asked Carey after the first night together.
He shoved before her his left hand and added that he was as single as one could be.
"You don't look like someone single?"
"Why is that so?" Carey asked, laughing.
"You just don't look like," Liz answered, shrugging.
"Tell me more about you," Carey asked.
"How about you find out? Consider that your assignment."
"I will consider it a failure even before I do it," Carey answered, and Liz laughed.
Liz was from New York, born and bred there. Liz had only told Carey where she worked and that she was Ken's friend.
"Now that you seem to be so hooked into Liz, what happens when Karen comes back?" Ken asked Carey out of concern.
"I will cross that bridge when I get there," he said.
He wasn't willing to admit to himself that there was a part of him that had been awakened by that affair and that things wouldn't be smooth as Ken assumed.
Carey's relationship with Karen could be termed as smooth and good compared to his other relationships.
His previous relationships lasted months at best. Richy, on the other hand, was a woman's person. He had the looks, and he knew what to tell them.
He knew what to do to make them stay, and they did.
Carey wasn't so lucky hence when he got his eyes on Karen, he never wanted to let go of her.
"That doesn't sound fair at all. Karen will be here before you know it and woe onto you," Ken said.
"Will you just shut up for once?" Carey asked, annoyed.
What did it matter to Ken if Karen came back and found him in limbo?
It was his damn relationship.
"It wasn't anything personal. Calm down."
~
Evans' family arrived at the hospital. The doctors were still monitoring Evans, who hadn't regained consciousness.
Angie couldn't even believe that she was so worried sick that she couldn't do anything else.
Day and night, a family member or Angie alternated sleeping in the room where Evans had been admitted.
On that particular night, the nurse had walked out after monitoring him, and there had been no change.
Calvin was in the room, looking on with heaps of faith, but when the nurse didn't say anything, he knew that nothing had changed.
"Please let me watch over him. You've been sitting here all night," Angie said, walking into the room.
"I am okay. I will stay here until he finally wakes up," Calvin said assertively.
"Then the two of us will stay here," Angie countered back.
"You don't have to be so stubborn about it."
'I know you're worried, but you need to calm down and also watch over your health. The doctors are trying their best, and we're praying that everything turns out all right."
They talked for a while until Calvin finally let her watch over him.
On that chair beside the bed, Angie sat. She held Evans' hands and placed her head on the bed, and started talking to Evans as though he could hear her.
She cried herself to sleep beside him, and when she woke up, her hands weren't on Evans.
She looked up in shock to see whether he had moved, but he was just like he had been before. A nurse walked in and rushed towards them.
"Is there any problem, miss?" the nurse asked as she looked at Angie.
"I thought he moved," Angie said in a low voice as she looked away, her eyes filled with tears.
The nurse held her on the shoulder reassuringly.
She had witnessed cases where loved ones of patients imagined such things, and she looked at Angie reassuringly and smiled. Angie smiled back with teary eyes.