The phone on Steph's bag chimed twice, and Steph groaned in frustration at the disruption.
She was in the hospital room with Max and Travis, and the doctors had just run a few more blood tests on Travis.
"When can we discharge him?" Max asked in a concerned tone as he looked at all the machines connected to Travis's body.
For the umpteenth time, he wished he was the one lying ill on that hospital bed and fighting for his life.
Since his admission, Travis had barely said a word to anyone, and the doctors explained that he might be traumatized by what had happened.
"A day from tomorrow, maybe. We need to get him to talk first," the doctor explained in a loving tone as he looked at the family with compassion.
"Thank you, sir," Max said as he sadly watched his son. The doctor walked out of the room, and Steph's phone chimed again.
'Hey. It's been a while. I miss you,' read Amy's message, and Steph fought back the tears that threatened to flow freely down her cheeks.
"I'm in the hospital. It's suffocating, hahaha, and I know how much you don't like hospitals. I'll look for you when I step out,' Steph quickly replied with a smile on her lips.
'That can do. Send my love to the family,' Amy texted back with a smile. She was hoping Steph would reply just like she had because she wanted the two to hang out at Steph's parents' home.
She was in her room, locked up like furniture. The house looked depressing, but she didn't want to travel to her parents just like she didn't answer any of their calls.
She wanted to punish them with her absence with the assumption that it would push them to the wall and make them spill the truth.
The truth is, Marina had thought of giving in to Amy's demands, but she was afraid of the harm the truth could call.
Amy got back to sadly looking at the photos of Dylan and Camila on their respective pages. She wanted to check every move they made and did that by stalking Dylan's and Camila's accounts using pseudo-accounts.
Once in a while, when her mood was soar, she would post negative and hurtful comments, and though she repeatedly told herself all she did was to save Amy's relationship with Ivan because of Camila, she knew it was more about her.
She still couldn't believe that Dylan had walked out on her. Gosh, they repeatedly quarreled, broke up, and made up after a few days. But the last time they quarreled, Dylan packed up and left, and it made no sense at all.
What had changed then? What did Camila have and do that she hadn't done?
Support Dylan emotionally. Check. Support him financially. Check. Support his academics and dreams. Check.
In the hospital room, Steph was unlocking a new message from an unknown number.
'I helped your family expecting the same from you, but you have gone against your promise. I will ask my lawyers to cancel our agreement and require the full payment of my money within two days,' read the message whose sender Steph could guess was Noah.
She could feel his arrogance, and it made her feel suffocated.
She rubbed her eyes and read the message again, and instantly, her thoughts went to her family.
They still needed Noah, she sadly admitted to herself, but she didn't want the fake relationship anymore because a part of her believed Vera's baby really could be Ivan's. She didn't want to separate a child from its father.
Hell, it felt like the earth had rotated and returned to its previous position, the spot where the snake had bitten Steph once.
Her first-ever relationship with her ex-boyfriend Ken was what others thought as a bed of roses, but there is always more to it than meets the eye.
Ken was a lover of fashion and mostly suggested to Steph what to wear.
They were always almost together everywhere, with matching colors of clothes.
The first year of the relationship was the absolute best, but slowly, the building blocks started falling apart one by one, but that didn't ring an alarm in Steph's mind.
"You got late for our meeting. I have waited. I was almost giving up," Steph told Ken one evening when they met. Ken looked at his watch and mumbled an apology.
"Where were you?" Steph asked, feeling the need to do so, and she saw Ken's body become tensed all of a sudden. "Are you okay?" She asked with concern as she moved to gently hug him. Ken nodded, but she could feel he was still tensed.
"Ken," Steph called out in a sharp voice and with a serious face.