Suppressing the pain in my heart and the burning sensation, I took a cab toward the hospital.
I have to end this imprisonment called marriage even if I have to go back crawling to Dad
I chose to ignore his calls as they dropped every minute and his mother's furious text.
They never know my worth, or what I left behind at my father's house to be here with them.
Three fucking years!
"Madam, your soy milk..." the waiter offered upon my arrival.
They knew me here as a regular customer after blood donation, to get some milk before going home.
This was also my meeting place with Frank to prevent anyone knowing our relationship.
But today, I wasn't here to replenish energy or wait for him. "A shot of tequila instead, mixed but not much."
"You changed your taste..."
I smiled at him, shaking my head. "No. I'm no longer foolish. My taste didn't change; I did."
He looked at me like I was mad but left anyway.
Frank arrived before the waiter was back, stern, expressionless, and his gaze cold.
"All thanks to you. I lost that patient; now I have to refund that 5 million that I have used to pay part of the loan."
"You took the loan, not me," I said, lifting my eyebrows to remind him, my drink now here. "Why do you feel bad because you paid it?"
Frank, but his lips, the first time I would see him so frustrated. "You're drinking tequilla now?"
I took a sip. "What is wrong if I do? I'm not pregnant, right?"
"But the blood..."
"...is none of your business anymore, Frank."
His jaw tightened but he didn't raise his voice because he never did. He was an expert at manipulation. "Aria, don't be ridiculous. Your blood is RH NULL, and one drink will crash your immune system further, and you know this."
"I know a lot of things now," I said and took another sip so the burn could match the one in my chest. "Like how you had the money to pay off that loan all along and like how Dorcas got my contact and like how she ended up in your bed."
He looked frozen but didn't show it.
"Dorcas is a colleague, and she was tired, so she rested," he said flatly.
"On your shoulder with no shirt?"
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "You're being dramatic, and you know..."
"Three years, Frank!" I interrupted him. "Three years of bleeding for you and cooking for your mother and paying bills you said were 'ours,' and I'm the dramatic one?"
"Where is this coming from?" He ran a hand through his hair like he was tired of me. "Is it because I paid the loan? I was saving for something important—"
"Me?" I cut in because I needed to know. "Were you saving for me?"
Silence.
"Frank, did you ever care for me like I was your wife?"
He said nothing again, but I continued. "The reason why you care for me was because I donate blood. Your caring for me was like a patient, not a wife!"
Then the restaurant door swung open, just as I concluded my words. Dorcas entered.
"Frank, darling, you left so suddenly—" She stopped when she saw me, but her smile didn't fall, like she was expecting this. " Oh. Ary is here..."
Frank's head snapped toward her. "What are you doing here?"
"You weren't answering your phone," she said and draped herself over his shoulder like a scarf. "So I got worried."
I watched them and waited for the knife in my chest to twist, but something strange happened instead. Nothing twisted because the knife was gone and there was just an empty hole where it used to be.
"Get off me," Frank muttered and shrugged her away. "You're making things worse."
Dorcas pouted, but it was fake. "Me? I didn't ask her for a divorce because you did that yourself by being..."
"Enough." Frank's voice cracked with shame. "Aria is emotional right now, so she doesn't mean any of this."
I set down the tequila and looked at him sharply. "I mean every word."
He turned to me, and for the first time, I saw something real in his eyes—FEAR.
"You can't leave," he said quietly. "The hospital and my reputation and the RH NULL program..."
"Your reputation," I repeated because I wanted him to hear it. "Not mine."
"Aria....."
"I said no."
I stood up, and the room tilted slightly because the tequila was working faster than it should, and my body was weak from too many donations and not enough food. But my legs held.
"Where are you going?" Frank stood too.
"Away from you."
Dorcas laughed, and it bounced off the walls. "Let her go, Frank, because she'll come crawling back like she always does."
I looked at her and really looked. "You can have him and the loan and the blood debt and his mother's cooking demands. All of it."
Her smile flickered, but she didn't speak.
Frank grabbed my wrist, and his fingers dug in. "You're not thinking straight, so sit down."
I pulled back. "Don't touch me."
"Don't be stupid, Aria, because you have nowhere to go."
I wanted to tell him about my father and the company and the life I threw away for him, but my head was spinning and the words wouldn't line up, so I just said, "Watch me."
Then I walked out.
The cold air hit my face like a slap and I didn't have my coat because I left it at the Armstrong house but it didn't matter since I wasn't going back there.
The subway entrance was two blocks away, and I had enough change for a ticket, and my father's number was still memorized even after three years of not dialing it.
Taking one step at a time, my breath hitched.
The stairs down to the platform felt endless, and each step was heavier than the last because the tequila burned in my stomach, and my vision blurred at the edges.
"Just a little further," I whispered, walking slowly, ignoring strange stares.
I finally reached the bottom, and, thankfully, it was empty, and I could have the whole bench to myself to sit and get my head straight.
I took the first two steps, but my eyes shook. Then the floor rushed up to meet me before I could hold myself back, and I crashed to the floor.
I heard someone shout and felt hands catch me before my head hit the ground. Strong arms, war, and nothing like Frank's cold grip.
"Hey...hey, miss? Can you hear me?" A deep masculine voice yelled.
I tried to open my eyes, but everything was watercolors and shadows.
"Call an ambulance," the voice said to someone else.
I wanted to yell NO.
Frank has connections with all the hospitals in town; he could always find me.
~~~
I woke to white ceiling, white sheets, and white light all over me.
Then the sharp, antiseptic scent of the hospital followed.
Panic clawed up my throat, but then I saw the door, and the nameplate "Dr. Frank Armstrong" popped up on my face like an unwanted advert.
No!
I tried to sit up, but my body was still weak. Every muscle ached like I'd been drained completely—which I almost had.
"Don't."
That voice....
Frank walked in with a clipboard in his hand and a white coat around his shoulders and a stethoscope around his neck, like the picture of professionalism.
"You collapsed at the subway," he said without looking at me because he was reading the chart instead. "Severe anemia and dehydration and alcohol in a compromised system, so you could have died."
"I didn't ask you to save me!"
He finally looked up, and something flickered across his face, but it was too fast to name.
"Your divorce papers," he said quietly. "I won't sign it."
My heart stopped, but it was still beating somehow.
"You heard me." He set down the clipboard. "You're my wife and my blood bank, and you're not going anywhere."
The door opened and a nurse stepped in. "Dr. Armstrong, the family is here."
Family?
Frank's expression shifted from cold to something almost smug.
"Good. Let them in."
The door swung wider.
And my father walked through.
