Chapter 2
I stayed in the hospital for two days. After my last check-up confirmed I was fine, I was discharged. Chloe hadn’t contacted me at all during these two days, not even a message about me being discharged. But thankfully, she did buy me my favorite cake. So I decided to give her one more chance. I placed the cake on a chair and called Chloe, my voice gentle. “Chloe, I’m discharged today. Could you come pick me up?” We silently agreed not to mention my amnesia stunt. There was a moment of silence on the other end. After a while, she finally spoke: “I’m a bit busy over here. How about you come back on your own?” She asked tentatively, and it was my turn to fall silent. Then she offered to call a car for me. I just shot back, “How busy could you possibly be?” My words clearly caught her off guard, because I’d never been so sarcastic with her before. And I knew the company was currently in a restructuring phase; it shouldn’t have been that busy. Yet she was telling me she was busy. I could even hear faint, noisy singing in the background. She didn’t answer, maybe still processing, but I just hung up, laughing at myself a little bitterly. Love or not love, it’s always so obvious. I remembered that summer when I was working out of town. I suddenly came down with a high fever. Drowsily, I called Chloe. Then I fell asleep—actually, I passed out from the fever. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed, and she was tiredly watching over me, her eyes bloodshot. She said she sensed something was wrong with me and rushed over from another city overnight. She hadn’t even had time to change out of her pajamas and slippers. “Alex, you have no idea how scared I was when I was banging on your door and you weren’t answering me.” “When I saw you lying unconscious in bed, I nearly lost my mind!” “Thank goodness, you’re awake now.” She buried her head in my chest, my shirt soaked with her tears. Back then, she really cared about me. But now, all I could say was, things change, people change. I expressionlessly tossed the cake into the trash can. Suddenly, a girl walked up to me and softly asked, “You don’t like it?” I was stunned. She immediately explained, “I’m the little girl you saved back then! I just got out for summer break these past few days, so I’m sorry I’m late.” “I heard you were getting discharged today, so, this is a small gift for you. If you don’t like it… then if there’s anything else you need, I… I’ll do my best to help you.” So, the cake was from someone else. I apologized to the girl, explaining the misunderstanding. Inside, I was laughing bitterly at myself. This time, Chloe and I were truly over.