CHAPTER 482: YOU HAVE TO GIVE SOMETHING IN RETURN (1)

Tears blurred Rocky’s vision as he stared at her still face, seemingly oblivious to all the chaos around her, his heart in his throat. His entire world teetered on the edge with every second, as many hands got to work on her.

’Ava, please! Ava, please! Ava, please!’ This was his silent prayer.

And then, the beeping returned. It was faint at first. Then it got stronger.

Rhythmic.

"She’s stabilizing," someone said, relieved.

The team didn’t leave immediately. They adjusted meds, checked stats and spoke in low voices. It was a close call. Too close. Rocky had been through this numerous times, but each one felt worse than the previous. It was as if Ava was preparing him for a final goodbye. Rocky did not know what he would do if that day really came. Ava was his life, in its literal sense!

Rocky moved back to her side, barely able to stand, his knees weak. His face was pale and tear-streaked. He did not even bother to wipe, and the health personnel around were used to this.

Some of the females were even jealous of Ava, but none had designs on him.

He held her hand with both of his.

"You scared the life out of me," he whispered, voice cracking. "Please... don’t do that again. Please."

Rocky gingerly kissed her all over the face. They all filed out, leaving the couple to themselves. Rocky’s dedication was very touching. He sat there, back curled into the chair by her bed, her hand still lightly cradled in his. His eyes were shut, not in rest, but in surrender. The kind of quiet that came not from peace, but from fatigue so deep it silenced even tears.

The room dimmed slightly as dusk began to fall outside, streaking golden light across the sterile floor tiles. The monitors continued their steady rhythm .... her heart, the baby’s heart .... two lives suspended in time.

Then it happened. So subtle, so quick, that not even the machines registered it:

A flutter. The faintest twitch of her fingers against his palm. A gentle squeeze—like a reflex, or maybe more.

Like something inside her reaching back, but Rocky didn’t see it. Nor did he feel it as his phone buzzed at the same time, taking away his attention for the briefest of seconds. He let go of her hand but decided not to reach for the phone. He turned and then decided to ignore the vibrating phone.

He had just leaned forward, elbows on knees, head bowed in his hands, lost in thought or prayer or exhaustion—he didn’t know anymore.

By the time Rocky looked up again, her hand lay still. Unmoved. Unchanged.

He stared at her face for a long while, something tugging at him, something... off, maybe?

He tilted his head, brows drawn together.

’No, it must’ve been my imagination. It’s just wishful thinking. That cruel hope again.’ Rocky stood slowly and leaned in, brushing a soft kiss against her temple. "I’ll be back soon. I won’t be long," he whispered.

But as he turned to leave, her finger twitched once more.

Slight. Barely there.

As though her soul had reached for him and missed him by a breath. And still, the machines hummed on, unaware, unbothered.

Rocky walked across the room to his computer and turned it on.

His phone buzzed in his pocket again. Once. Twice. He didn’t want to look. He was emotionally tired and wanted to disconnect from everyone, but then it buzzed again.

With a sigh, he slid it out and glanced at the screen.

’Mum. No, Clara.’

The name stared back at him with all the weight of a thousand things left unsaid. Old wounds. Unhealed fractures. Conversations they never had, and one’s Rocky wasn’t sure he could ever stomach. His jaw tightened.

His phone kept on vibrating. Then silence.

A breath later, buzz, a message.

He didn’t open it. He didn’t want to.

Instead, he turned the screen off and powered the phone down altogether. No space for guilt. No space for her voice in this moment. Not now.

’I don’t have the emotional strength of another Clara drama....’

He stood up, deciding not to work anymore.

’The assignment can wait!’

He walked up to Ava again, then placed the phone beside her bed, face down, and sank slowly into the chair, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead.

"You’re the only one I can talk to right now, my love," he whispered.

Clouds gathered in the dusk outside the window, casting soft, trembling shadows across her face. Still unmoving. Still quiet. But there.

Rocky closed his eyes, just for a second. It was just one.

And missed the next small shift yet again. Her hand now resting closer to his. Rocky finally held Ava’s hand, then closed his tired eyes. He only felt an assurance when he was skin to skin with her.

***

Wendover Mansion....

"Baby! My baby boy!"

Clara shouted,

"Bring me the phone! Did he answer?" Clara shouted at Angela.

Angela, already used to this, walked forward and handed the phone to Clara without a word. Angela retreated a little farther without saying a word.

It was more so even worse in the months after the accident. It was as if Madam Clara’s children had just vanished off the face of the earth. It was the strangest thing that Angela had ever seen in her life.

Clara paced the cramped living room space in her bedroom, arms folded tight against her chest, lips pressed into a thin, agitated line. The phone sat on the table, dark and quiet. Again. She had tried calling again, only to have been met with a ’switched off’ message.

However, Rocky had not called back, nor replied to her message. Heck, he had not even read it!

"What kind of children have I given birth to? What outrageousness is this?!"

Her son had always been a quiet one, sure. But this-this silence was disrespectful. How could he vanish for days, weeks and now months, without a single word?

"Children these days," Clara muttered under her breath, ignoring the faint tremble in her voice. "They think they’re too grown to answer their mother?"

She picked up the phone and stared at his name in the call log.... Twenty calls and he had not picked up even one of them!

Why would he ignore a call ... multiple calls from his mother!?

He had time to ignore her. But not enough to send a text?

Clara’s thoughts spiraled, leaping from worry to indignation and back again. She loved her son to bits and usually cut him some slack when it came to this, but it was a different issue when she could not reach him for months! That had never happened in their life together as mother and son!

’What if something had happened to him? What if he was in trouble?’

But even then, her mind circled back to the thing that had been gnawing at her more than anything.

"He owes me." The sharp and cold thought rose from her chest like a scream she couldn’t voice.

"After all I’ve done for him, I just asked for a little help! Just a bit of money to hold us over till month-end. He couldn’t even do that."

That was the text that Clara had sent to Rocky. She needed him for two things and the most dire one was that she needed money and lots of it. Clara was not used to the type of life she had after her husband, James’s, death. Yes, she had money from her shop, but it was just not enough!

Her tone turned bitter as she talked to herself, louder now, angry instead of scared.

"He can afford to sit in some hospital, fawning over a girl like the world is ending, but his own mother is over here, struggling! Who raised him? Who paid for those books, those clothes? That girl’s not the one who stayed up nights praying over his fever!"

Clara had only heard of Rocky’s girlfriend from some of the servants in her home, but no matter how much she had tried, she could not get more info on this. She had no idea who it was, who had her son wrapped around her fingers!

She caught her breath.

She didn’t even know where he was. That was the next thing she needed to find out.

It infuriated Clara that someone she barely knew had taken up all her son’s time, all his attention, his care.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t right.

"I’m his mother," she whispered, voice cracking. "He should come home."

But her phone still didn’t ring.

And somewhere, deep down, beneath the storm of her frustration, sat a fear she couldn’t quite name ... only that something was wrong.

And if Clara didn’t find him soon... she might lose him altogether. She refused to accept that she had already lost the son, who now only called her by given name. But that aside, Clara needed to complete the second part and find out where her son was, because she had been asked to.... By no one other than Aliya.

Just then, her phone rang, and the caller ID showed: Aliya.

*********

Thank you so much to all for your votes and comments! I hope we can keep it up ^_^

Support the author by reading only on Webnovel :) ~Uploaded only on webnovel by Loctovia ~