Cal Jackson's new life as a rockstar fails to account for one thing: the existence of the girl he loves.
*****
"What are you thinking about?" she asks.
"A song," I say. "A new song."
I stare at the ocean as I sing the song that I wrote, something th...
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I spend the rest of the day inside my hotel suite in Florida. Dean and Owen keep me company, settling on the couches in the living room. The atmosphere is tense.
"Died?" I ask in disbelief.
"Died," Owen reports the information I've asked him to gather regarding Amelia. "Her father died due to diabetes."
My heart freezes in place. "When?"
"Two years ago," Owen says. "A few months after they arrived in New York, he died because of kidney failure."
A few months after she left?
I can't help but assume that her father had been diagnosed with the disease before. How long had been having problems with his blood sugar level?
As though he can read my mind, Owen adds, "Based on the medical records I've found, he was already admitted into a hospital in Florida before they left the town. He'd been having the disease for quite some time."
It means that Amelia had known about her father's health issue before she disappeared from my life. A horrible feeling stirs inside me, and Owen stares at me with concern.
Fuck. My bodyguard has seen everything crazy about me, starting from dragging Amelia into my penthouse before kicking her out, crying like a baby in front of my sister's grave, and now digging information about Amelia like I'm some kind of an obsessed ex-boyfriend.
Owen might be more concerned about my mental health rather than my safety. I bet that he doesn't even think that I need physical protection. Yet, emotionally, I'm as concerning as a patient in a lunatic asylum.
Dean watches me with interest, probably having the same thought.
"Her father's disease worsened when he failed his new business due to conflicts with his acquaintance," Owen says. "Sadly, the stress was the major factor that caused the complications preceding the kidney failure."
"Business failure?" I ask. "What happened to Amelia and her mother after that?"
Owen sighs. "They lost everything."
That one sentence makes my heart sink.
"The business bankruptcy caused them to lose all their assets, including their house," Owen says. "Amelia and her mother found a cheap apartment as a shelter to live in, but they're struggling to afford the living costs, trying to escape debts every month. Her mother has been running a small food catering, but only after Amelia found a new job in the restaurant that they could finally breathe in relief. If Amelia hadn't found any rewarding part-time job, she would have had to drop her college because she wouldn't have been able to top up the loan."
Silence falls. I'm at a loss for words.
I'm aware that Amelia's situation has changed drastically compared to the one when she was still together with me -- since she never had a problem with money before -- but I've never thought that her father was sick.
