Falling for his charms

I pressed the call button again for the ...th time and placed the phone to my ear, pacing around the small space in the hospital room.

But all I got was the damn irritating sound of the rings until the phone went dead again—yet again!

How many times had I called?

I had lost count, and the nervousness and the anger were driving me mad.

"Where the heck are you?" I murmured to myself through gritted teeth as I pulled the phone from my ear.

I checked my wristwatch and sprinted out of the room and down the hospital hallway, my white coat flaring behind me as alarms blared in the background. My grip tightened on the medical chart in my hand, the edges biting into my palm while my heart raced with bubbling panic. Streams of assorted feelings surged through me—feelings that I didn’t want to entertain.

I was almost running out of breath from all the sprinting when I bumped into a nurse in the hallway. I grabbed her, my feet still refusing to be planted on the shaky ground underneath. “Hey! Sorry, have you seen my boyfriend?”

The nurse’s brows furrowed at the thought. She took a second to think before she finally gestured vaguely down the hall. “I think I saw him follow Marylyn into a room down the hall some minutes ago.”

“Marylyn?” I asked in confusion.

No. Actually, I was just thinking, and it came out loudly. So loudly that it wrinkled up the nurse’s face in confusion.

Marylyn was my best friend of many years. We had gone through a lot together, sticking together through thick and thin. However, actually, we were not on the same level. She was a rich kid, the only one of her social class who sought friendship from a nobody like me. So it would be fair enough to say that she was with me throughout my lows. The only weird thing I knew about her was that she wished to have a man like mine.

A pure, refined wine! A complete package—that is how she always described him, saying that Vincent was every woman’s dream man. She praised him even for the smallest things and even defended his wrongs. But that was just her telling me that I had chosen wisely. That I was blessed with a good man. It never triggered anything in me.

Except this very moment, when I heard that my man had followed my best friend into a room. Vincent had come to greet me this morning, after going MIA on me for the entire weekend. Something didn’t sit right with me.

“You don’t seem okay,” the nurse pointed out, studying my furrowed face and the uncontrolled rising and falling of my chest. “Is anything the matter?”

"Umh... No,” I responded, shaking the raging wild thoughts playing in my head. “Thank you. Please excuse me,” I excused myself and ran off in the direction where the nurse had gestured earlier.

My stomach twisted as I ran down the hall towards the supply closet. My head felt heavy with the wild thoughts that ran through my mind, while my heart thudded inside my chest. Each step felt heavier than the previous one, anxiety fueling my every step.

Upon getting to the door, a faint sound reached my ears from the inside.

But it was not just any sound.

It was a quiet moan that sent a cold chill down my spine.

I dragged my feet near the door, and immediately I placed my ear against it. I froze.

“V…ooh. Ooh, yes, baby. Like that…aah,” the sound echoed again, even louder now than before.

I couldn’t move and couldn’t breathe for minutes I could not count. The ground beneath me seemed to shake dangerously, forcing me to stay still.

V??? That sound...and that voice...something sounded damn familiar. Too familiar, yet too unbelievable. It was impossible.

The moans echoed again and again while I listened behind the closed door, my fingers lingering on the doorknob while I battled with my divided thoughts. I didn’t know whether to walk in and confirm what I was thinking or just walk away to save myself the pain.