Love At Last

THE ARTIFICE

After much said and done, Gabriel tagged along with us as we drove to the hospital. We took Cayden’s car while he drove in his car right behind us.

“What do you plan to do now?” Cayden asked me when we were together in his car while looking at Gabriel’s through the side mirror.

“Drive to the clinic.”

“What?!” he exclaimed. “Did you delude yourself into thinking you’re actually sick?”

“Calm down and listen to what I have to say.”

“Okay?”

“We go to the hospital, at the ER, serious diagnosis are not made so there will be absolutely no problems getting past that phase. When we get a doctor, you discreetly explain our predicament and plead with him to play along,” I explained.

“Do you think that will work?” he asked skeptically.

“If it doesn’t, we’re all screwed then,” I said in a nonchalant manner.

“What?!” he exclaimed wide-eyed as he turned briefly to stare at me. You’re not even certain your plan will work and you agreed to let Gabriel tag along?

“What would you have had me do? Didn’t you notice he was already cajoling everyone into buying his idea? I had to quench the flames of suspicion before it turned into a wildfire.”

“I just hope this plan of yours works.”

“I hope so too.”

“You really are something, Lily,” he scoffed, I chuckled.

On getting to the hospital, I was given general emergency care in the emergency room – the ER. When filling the consent form, Cayden was filled in as my husband and Gabriel as my friend. In no time, a doctor came to attend to us.

In order to prevent the doctor from blowing our cover, Cayden calls the doctor discreetly and apparently, he explained the nature of our predicament to him.

About fifteen minutes later, everyone – including the doctor – was gathered in my room to receive the doctor’s note. Gabriel asked the doctor to explain to him in details what had happened to me; he didn’t want to hear anything from Cayden. I pretended to be asleep and heard the entire conversation in the room.

“Well, we managed to calm her down. She apparently went into shock and is now asleep,” the doctor said. He was completely in on the ploy. I wondered what exactly Cayden had told him to say. I wanted to laugh so badly.

“Shock?” Gabriel asked. I heard Cayden sobbing in the background; he was being overly dramatic, I must confess.

“Yes,” the doctor replied.

“From what exactly?” Gabriel was proving to be a hard rock. Why wouldn’t he just take what the doctor said and get lost.

“Gastro-intestinal infection,” the doctor blurted confidently. ‘What?!! Gastro-intestinal what?!’ I suppressed the urge I felt to burst into a hysteric laughter. And to think that wasn’t enough, Cayden started wailing and holding on to my hand. His actions made it harder for me to maintain my composure and act properly but I wasn’t ready to turn back when we were almost there. I decided to hang in there until Gabriel left.

“But she’ll be okay right?” Gabriel asked.

“Definitely, she will. I will prescribe some drugs to make her feel better.”

“Can you cut it out already? The doctor said she’ll be fine,” he scolded Cayden. “Thank you doctor,” he shook the doctor.

“No problem, I’m only doing my job as a doctor,” he replied.

“If that’s the case, I’ll get going now,” he scoffed at Cayden and walked out of the room.

When I heard the sound of the door close, I waited for a while to make sure he wasn’t hanging around to eavesdrop. “You can open your eyes now,” Cayden broke the silence after some time and let go of my hand.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“He’s gone?” I opened my eye slowly. “Yes.”

“Thank you so much doctor,” Cayden said.

“It’s okay. I’m always happy to help you break free from bad people,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said and left the room.

“Bad people?” I asked.

“Of course!”

“What exactly did you tell the doctor?” I giggled.

“I told him the truth. Gabriel is a bad person,” he said hysterically and we both burst into laughter.

After we left the hospital, we headed straight to the hotel we lodged to get my things.

I hastily put my clothes in my box and arranged them.

“Can you relax a bit?”

“Time’s already far spent, Cayden. I still need to prepare myself for the competition physically, mentally and otherwise,” I said while folding my clothes and arranging them in my box hastily.

“Thank you for everything today. I appreciate,” he said.

“So you can actually say ‘thank you’,” I teased.

In about forty-five minutes, we were already at the airport, flight tickets booked for the next available flight. Cayden decided to tag along until I got on the plane and left New York.

“What are you going to do when you get back home?”

“What else? Find out how far my staffs have gone with the preparation and spice things up myself.”

“You have high hopes for this, right?”

“I really do. Most importantly, I want to heighten the fame of my cooking skills and improve my business more. Good ambitions, right?” I asked.

“They sure are. I wish you the very best, Lily. I’m sure you’d be able to pull through,” he cheered me on.

“Thank you,” I smiled. “Five minutes left,” I announced on checking the time on my wristwatch. It was five minutes to the time of my scheduled flight. “I have to start going now,” I stood up.

“Okay then,” he stood up and spread out his arms, requesting a hug. It was no big deal so I accepted his request and hugged him.

Moments later, we departed.

On getting home, I had two hours to spare before the competition. I called nana and informed her when I got back, I asked of Jacek and she told me he was doing just fine. I excused myself as I didn’t have the luxury to go home and relax; I headed straight to my bakery.

I inquired of my staffs how far they had gone with the preparations and found out that they hadn’t done much. The second phase of the competition involved the judges coming over to my bakery themselves. Owing to that fact, I decided not to think too much and blame anyone for being lax, I immediately set in to prepare a new recipe to save the day.