The messages remained unseen.
Still, she sent another text later that night.
‘How are you doing? I guess you’re very busy with work. You haven’t been picking up my calls, so I stopped calling. I don’t want to disturb you, but I thought maybe I could text you instead.’
Her fingers paused weakly over the keyboard before she typed one final line.
‘Did you get my message? I was hoping you would reply.’
The messages remained unseen.
No response ever came.
A week before her surgery, Amara texted him again.
The pain inside her head had become so severe that she could barely even sit up from bed.
‘I was very sick today. My head wouldn’t stop hurting and I vomited so much.’
She typed slowly while lying weakly beneath the blankets.
‘I’ve been lying in bed for the past five days. I couldn’t even look at sunlight anymore, so I asked the maids to install blackout curtains in the room. I stay in complete darkness now because it hurts less that way.’
Her trembling fingers paused briefly before continuing again.
‘I can’t eat anything. Every time the pain throbs inside my head, I feel nauseous again and throw up. But today I feel a little better. ‘
Then slowly, her expression softened painfully.
‘I miss you so much.’
The words alone made her chest ache.
‘I wish I could see you. I haven’t gone this long without seeing you since we got married. This is the first time we’ve been apart for more than a month.’
From then on, she kept texting him regularly.
Small messages.
Tiny updates about her day.
Sometimes she told him about the hospital visits.
Sometimes she told him how much pain she was in.
Sometimes she simply told him she missed him.
Those messages slowly became the only thing keeping her emotionally together.
Because whenever she texted him, even without replies, it felt as though he was still beside her somehow.
Like she hadn’t completely lost him yet.
Especially during the nights when the pain became unbearable and she lay awake crying silently into her pillow, she needed someone.
And the person she needed most was him.
She didn’t want to worry her parents. Juliet was already doing too much for her.
