Sentenced to Marriage

Chapter 4

I couldn’t sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Aren’s face and his body sketched by my imagination. I had been living a sexless life for three years, but seriously? I wasn’t some starving cavewoman, and most of all, I had my dignity. I would never let some arrogant rich boy touch me in real life like that.

The next day, I showed up at work looking as if I had died and resurrected twice. I used half of the concealer I had to cover the enormous dark circles under my eyes. It helped just enough so I could stop resembling a panda. I managed to fix my face, but it was harder to fix the mess inside me. I was anxious. I didn’t know how I would react if I saw Aren Lan again, especially after dreaming of his… Well, I needed to start acting like a sane person, which was hard considering that I jumped nervously each time I heard a bell ringing and customers walking in.

Luckily, he didn’t show up that day. The same happened the next day and the day after. My life went back to normal. Aren Lan’s face faded in my memory, which helped stabilize my emotions. I was almost certain that our paths would never cross again. We might have been living in the same city, but, considering his wealth, he inhabited a different universe.

That day, my shift was shorter. I took off my apron and rushed to leave Manhattan for my other, computer-related job. Our workshop was in the basement of an old tenement house in Brooklyn. The building was neglected and almost completely abandoned, with only an old lady and the owner living there. Nonetheless, Norton, Alan, and I couldn’t even dream of a better place. Of course, we had put a

lot of work into adapting this place, but no one bothered us, and the rent was low. We couldn’t have asked for more.

The three of us met online a few years ago. Two issues brought us close: the fact that we were from New York and that we loved computers. After some time, we learned to have another thing in common… None of us had a diploma, although we all had mad skills.

Alan Harada was a genius hacker. He could win against any type of security. Unfortunately, he was once convicted after drunk hacking one of the banks to impress a girl. After it had happened, he was disinherited by his conservative Japanese family. Well, at least he got laid the other night… Like me, Norton Edavane could have been an amazing programmer, but he didn’t have money to study. Certainly, he could have gotten a scholarship, but his social skills were far worse than mine, and his agoraphobia hadn’t been helpful either. Now we were working together, fixing computers, and providing online advice. We were able to make some nice profit from time to time, but it was a freelance job while the bills came steadily every month. Nevertheless, we all loved our work in the workshop. It was our safe haven, our home, the only place where we could all breathe…

“We’re getting evicted.” Alan waved a piece of paper in front of my eyes as soon as I walked in.

I stepped back, blinking in shock. “What do you mean by evicted?” I laughed nervously, still hoping it was a joke.

“Mr. Welsh sold the whole building,” Norton explained in his usual, emotionless way. “Those who bought it plan to renovate it and turn it into a hotel.”

I leaned my back against the wall. My knees turned weak, and my head began to spin. I wouldn’t bat an eye if something had happened to Café Dorado. It would be bothersome to look for another job, and I would miss working with Monique and Marco, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. THIS was the end of the world. Where else in New York would we find a place to rent for five hundred dollars a month?!

“This cannot be happening…” I mumbled.

“Oh, but it is.” Alan nodded agitatedly, looking at me with his narrowed brown eyes.

“But where would Mr. Welsh live now?” My mind was desperate to prove that his choice was absurd.

“He is moving to New Jersey. He’s buying an apartment next to where his son lives,” Norton informed, and I could see anger flashing through his composed stare.

It sounded like a logical move, but I was determined to find flaws in Mr. Welsh’s choice. “But what about poor Mrs. Gordon? She doesn’t have a family, and she’s like 90 years old or something. Isn’t it too cruel to evict a lonely old lady like her?”

Alan gave me a wry smile. “She died two days ago.” Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Oh,” I breathed out along with the last ounce of hope I had.

I swayed my way to the couch before collapsing. Norton and Alan joined me there, sitting on my left and right sides.

“The new owner gives us time until the end of the month. Then we have to move out or pay twenty times the rent we paid.” Alan gritted his teeth.

“We won’t earn a cent if we pay ten thousand dollars a month for the rent! Not to mention that this place looks like a den!” I snapped.

Let’s face it, it was a basement that we filled with computers and cables and other equipment. We were able to work there, but there were no customers allowed for a reason. It was our restricted area. We were meeting with clients outside the workshop, taking their things to fix them at the workshop, and

then bringing them back to our clients again. It was convenient for us, especially for Norton, who had a hard time dealing with other people. I couldn’t believe that it was going to change, and we would have to move out.

“No.” I clenched my hand and frowned. “I refuse to give up like that. We should at least find those new owners and talk to them.”

“The documents say that the building now belongs to Golden Estate Investments, whoever they are.” Norton shrugged restlessly.

“Then I suggest we find them. We need to force them to give us more time at least,” I said decisively.

A wicked grin painted Alan’s face. “I’m on it,” he said and rushed to his laptop.

A second later, his long fingers began to tap the keyboard at a furious speed. I was about to join him when I received a message from Doctor William Crawford, the one taking care of my Grandma.

“We’ve got the results. Please meet me at the clinic when you’re able to,” the text said.

I jumped up to my feet before I knew it. My hands were shaking. My heart started to pound anxiously.

“Guys…” I barely let out a sound as it squeezed through my throat.

They looked at me and already knew. I registered a faint, compassionate smile on Norton’s face while Alan got up, and walked to me to give me a hug.

“Gambatte!” he cheered for me with a warm grin. Then he pushed me out of the workshop, urging me not to waste any time.

I hated leaving them alone when we had a crisis to deal with, but I had to know everything about my Grandma’s condition as soon as possible. I took the bus and texted Doctor Crawford, informing him that I was on my way. Half an hour later, I was running to his office on the fifth floor of Crawford’s Neurological Clinic, a place founded by Doctor William’s father. I knocked on the door, heavily panting. He opened it and invited me in.

“Ms. Bell, have a seat please.” He greeted me with a smile and gestured to a chair in front of his desk.

As I sat down, he went back behind his desk. Doctor William was a kind and brilliant man. His hair was mostly grey, although he was only in his fifties. I guess that his work was taking a toll on him, no matter how much he loved it. He was dedicated, a doctor by vocation, and I would be forever grateful to him for taking care of my Grandmother and ignoring the fact that I paid for her treatment irregularly. He knew how to handle patients and how to talk to their loved ones. Somehow, he always found the right words to say, no matter how hard their meaning was. I would have been completely broken if it weren’t for him.

When my Grandmother’s brain aneurysm ruptured and she fell into a coma half a year ago, I was an absolute mess. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I kept sitting in her room, hopelessly waiting for her to wake up. It was Doctor Crawford who forced me out of her room and brought me back to the land of the living. He used some harsh but logical arguments, letting me know that I would never save my Grandma by sitting by her bed… especially when someone needed to work to pay for her stay in the clinic. Now, I visited Grandma three times a week, plus in special circumstances such as to hear about the results of her tests…

“I have some good news and… bad news, unfortunately,” the doctor said.

I pulled in a shaky breath. “I want the bad news first.”

“We cannot operate using the method we have discussed before. It’s because of the location of the aneurysm…” He grimaced apologetically.

My eyes became watery in a second. I put high hopes in that method. It sounded like a chance for Grandma to wake up.

“But the good news is that her results show that we might have a chance if we use a different experimental method. The procedure has been performed only once, by a friend of mine, a Chinese doctor, Lu Wei Chen. Nonetheless, the method looks promising. Doctor Chen is going to visit New York in a few months, and I think I might talk him into performing his method on your Grandma,” he explained.

I gasped. “Can you do that?”

“I cannot give you one hundred percent, but I will do my best.” The doctor smiled, but then his expression turned serious. “And… there’s another problem that comes with it…”

I gulped, having a feeling about what he was about to say.

“Even with your Grandma’s insurance… the operation would cost you more than a hundred thousand dollars.”

I exhaled in a rush, as if someone had just hit my guts. I had already used all the money I had from the inheritance my Grandpa left me. How was I supposed to get more than a hundred thousand dollars in a few months?!