Chapter 4

Chloe's POV

I finally found the room where my mother, Linda, was staying. When my hand touched the door handle, my fingers were shaking uncontrollably.

Inside, Linda lay on the hospital bed with her eyes closed, her face pale and sunken. Monitoring equipment surrounded the bed, their quiet hums filling the sterile air.

My father, Richard, sat in a chair beside her. His hair had gone almost completely white, far more than I remembered, and his entire frame looked hollowed out with exhaustion.

At the sound of the door opening, Richard looked up.

The moment he saw me standing in the doorway, he froze. Within seconds, his eyes welled with tears.

"Chloe?"

Linda slowly opened her eyes. Her cloudy gaze locked onto my face, her lips trembling as tears spilled over her eyelashes and ran down her cheeks.

"Chloe... I thought I'd never get to see you again before I died..."

"Mom, don't say that."

I rushed to the bedside and took her frail, bony hand in mine. My throat tightened so painfully I couldn't speak another word.

Richard wiped his eyes and stood up. "I'll go get the doctor."

The attending physician walked in shortly after, flipping through her chart and checking the vitals on the monitors. His expression remained grim.

"Ms. Taylor, regarding your mother's condition... to be completely honest, things aren't looking good."

My heart plummeted. "Doctor, didn't you just successfully stabilize her in the ER?"

"We managed to bring her back, yes," the doctor sighed. "However, her underlying heart condition has been deteriorating for years. Each flare-up has been worse than the last, and this episode was critical. While her vitals are stable for the moment, we need to keep her under close observation to see if she can make it out of the woods."

*Deteriorating for years? Each flare-up worse than the last?*

A terrible chill swept up from the soles of my feet, plunging me into an icy abyss.

I knew my mother had a bad heart.

Over the years, every single time I talked to Caleb on the phone, I always asked about my parents' health.

Caleb would always give me the same smooth reassurance: "Don't worry, they're both doing great. Your mom has been in high spirits lately. I'm keeping an eye on everything, so just focus on your work."

He never once mentioned that her condition was recurring, getting worse year after year!

I had trusted him implicitly. Yet he lied to me about this, too!

I stood frozen beside the bed, my hands ice-cold, my fingertips trembling.

"Chloe?" Linda's weak voice pulled me out of the spiral. "Come closer, sweetheart. Let me look at you."

Swallowing the storm of emotions inside me, I sat back down on the edge of the bed.

Linda held my hand, searching my face with overwhelming tenderness. "You've gotten so thin... and your skin looks weathered. You must have suffered so much out there, didn't you?"

"I'm fine, Mom. It wasn't hard at all."

"Silly girl. I know you only tell me the good news." Linda drew a shallow, ragged breath. "My body is giving out on me. I know I don't have much time left. My only wish in this life is to see you get married."

She squeezed my fingers weakly. "Now that you're finally home, find some time to settle things with Caleb. You two have been together for so many years, and he's been waiting for you all this time..."

A sharp, searing pain ripped through my chest, like a serrated knife sawing through bone.

I lowered my eyes, a bitter, hollow smile touching my lips. "Mom... we're not getting married."

Linda froze. Richard looked at me in complete shock.

"What do you mean, you're not getting married?" Linda panicked, struggling to sit up. "Did something happen? Did you two have a fight?"

I opened my mouth, but the words caught in my throat.

How could I tell my dying mother that the man everyone thought was waiting for me had already taken a wife and fathered a child?

How could I tell her that the man our entire family trusted had not only hidden his marriage, but actively concealed her worsening illness, lying to me over and over again?

In everyone's eyes, coming home meant marrying Caleb.

We had years of history behind us. Everyone in our social circle believed he was holding out for me; everyone viewed us as the endgame couple.

And the reality?

He had turned eight years of loyalty and devotion into a sickening, humiliating farce.

But I couldn't say any of that right now.

If I told her, she would worry. The shock might send her straight into cardiac arrest.

Taking a deep breath, I forced a tight smile onto my face. "No, Mom, we didn't fight. It's just... I have other commitments."

I paused, quickly weaving an excuse. "I put in an application for an overseas medical fellowship through the program, and it just got approved. I only have two weeks of leave to spend with you, and then I have to deploy."

"Overseas?"

Linda and Richard exchanged a stunned look.

"Yes," I nodded firmly. "So the wedding will just have to wait."

The words had barely left my mouth when the door swung open with a violent bang.

I turned around to see Caleb storming into the room, his face dark as thunder.

"Who said you're going overseas?"