Love In Silhouette

❇「Chapter 30」❇

"He didn't come home...uuh, okay." I said slowly, processing the thought.

I hope he's okay tho.

"That's fine; he'll be back today right?" I sipped on my water bottle as I skipped down the stairs, Mrs Onawale right beside me taking the steps in her usual graceful manner as opposed to mine.

"I don't know for sure; but I think so." The burly pleasant woman replied.

"Okay then. Thank you." I nodded. "I'll be stepping out for my workout soon; I should be back shortly."

"Alright. I'll let Mary know so she doesn't go putting anything together yet."

"Oh no, Mary's my gee, she doesn't prepare anything until I ask her to, so you don't need to bother." I winked.

"I'll take note of that in the future then." She chuckled before bowing slightly and taking the left turn at the foot of the stairs heading for the kitchen.

I remembered I promised to send Arinola pictures of her paintings once I hung them up. So before I went to sleep yesterday, I hung them up and did just that. As I made to open my WhatsApp and foward them all to her, a notification popped into my screen. It was a news article from Instablognaija; I glanced at the headline. 'Nonye Kalu, wife of co-founder of ZeTech, Nnadozie Kalu is rushed to the hospital after sudden slump at the mall.

A certain ringing sound quickly filled my ears, drowning out every sound around. I swallowed the saliva in my mouth that had immediately turned salty. My phone still in my hand now hanging limp by my side began vibrating and my ringtone blarred through its speakers. I weakly lifted it to my face to check who was calling; 'Asher'

"Hello?" I croaked.

"What is wrong with your phone? I've been trying to reach you for the past forty-five minutes." His voice spat through immediately I swiped the button.

"I'm sorry." I dropped emotionessly and waited for him to tell me what I had already heard.

"Your mom is in the hospital Charlie, she slumped at the mall."

"I heard." My respose seemed to rile him at that point and I heard him suck in a sharp breath.

"You heard? And you're just saying it like that. After hearing, isn't the next sensible thing to do to check the hospital she may be in and get here immediately instead of waiting for my call and then telling me 'I heard'. Gosh sometimes I can't believe you Charlie."

All I could think of was my mom on the hospital bed and how it probably was my fault she's there. I'd told her never to call me again and blocked both her and Dad incase she tried to reach me through him. I don't think I caught a word of Asher's rant except for the last sentence '...Sometimes I can't beleive you Charlie'. I didn't care.

"I...I'm sorry,...I zoned out. Is she okay?" I blurted absentmindedly.

"You're hopeless." He sighed barely audibly. "Never mind. I just texted you the address. Please don't do anything stupid and get here immediately." Without another word, he dropped the call. I pulled my hair out of it's ponytail shaking it off as I broke into a jog back to the house.

***

I looked frantically around the hallway but didn't see anyone, so I hurried up to the receptionist at the desk. "Nonye Kalu please; I'm her daughter." She had already made to begin opening her files when she heard the name. "Oh I'm sorry, please this way." She hurridely stood up and got out from behind the desk while her colleague took over.

She pushed open a door to a room numbered '56' and stepped aside so I could walk in. "Thank you." I whispered.

Mom was lying on the bed with an oxygen mask attatched to her nose and her hand in Dad's who was sitted beside her. He didn't look up at me. Asher on the other hand was shooting dagger gazes my way. Okay now, I was just plain pissed. Doesn't this guy get tired? I was tempted to hiss at his silly behaviour but thought better of it and ignored him instead. I walked past him to kneel by my Dad's side.