Husband With Benefits-Chapter 841: Heartbreak

Lily knew something was wrong. The feeling gnawed at her, a deep, persistent tension in her stomach making her feel queasy. The doctor had said her father would be okay, so why did she feel like everything was about to fall apart? She couldn’t explain it, but she couldn’t ignore it anymore either. A short nap had offered some rest and with that a clarity that something was definitely up and so the unease had returned as soon as she woke up.

Needing answers, Lily walked quickly to her mother’s hospital room. Her mother lay motionless, her face pale and tired, as if the past few days had aged her years. Lily’s eyes went to the small purse on the chair. She reached for it and rummaged through it, finding her phone. A quick press of the power button confirmed it was dead.

"Figures," she muttered. Glancing at her mother, who remained still, Lily hurried out to the small store downstairs, bought a charger, and returned. She plugged in the phone and waited as the screen stayed black, each second dragging. Her eyes darted back to her mother, who shifted slightly, a frown creasing her forehead. The sight made Lily’s heart ache.

If her father insisted on the divorce after he woke up, things would only get worse. Her mother had already suffered so much—losing Lily’s older sister and then the distance that had grown between them. Their family was fragile, and Lily feared what the coming days would bring. Even though this woman had long stopped loving her, she could not help but feel for her.

She stepped closer to the bed and gently brushed her mother’s hair back, wondering how she would face what was coming. Maybe she could try and convince her father again to give her a chance. With him sick for now, it would even give her mother something to focus on, someone to take care of. That would be good for her.

Her mother’s hand twitched slightly in her sleep, and as Lily reached out to cradle it, rubbing warmth into the frail fingers, a sudden, jarring cacophony erupted from her phone. The continuous, sharp beeping of incoming notifications cut through the quiet room, making her jump. Heart pounding, she hurried to silence it, pressing down on the screen until the room fell silent once more.

But the brief calm was short-lived. A knot of unease twisted in her chest as she glanced at the screen. Dozens—no, hundreds—of missed calls stared back at her, the names blinking urgently. Cai. Meredith. Even some of her former coworkers. Confusion clouded her expression. Why would any of them be calling her, and why so relentlessly?

Her frown deepened, eyes darting over the barrage of notifications. The missed calls were overwhelming, but it was the messages that sent a chill skittering down her spine. She quickly tapped to open her texts, scanning through Cai’s frantic attempts to reach her. The worry in his words was palpable, yet none of them explained what was going on.

"Lily. Are you okay? Call me?"

"Lily? I need you to call me. We need to talk. Is everything alright?"

"You are not in the villa or the guest house? Where are you? Why did you leave?"

"Lily. Please call me. Just let me know you are okay."

"I’m sending a search party for you, Lily."

Lily frowned. Well, she’d known he would be worried but all these text messages did not explain the urgenct. And all those missed calls from strange numbers as well. Meredith. Meredit had sent her about two hundred messages. Hurriedly, she moved to open her chat but even before she could scroll up, her phone started to ring, with Meredit’s name flashing on the screen.

WIth a look at her mother’s still sleeping form, thankfully she’d slept through the entire noise, Lily hurriedly answered the call," Mer? What’s up?"

Before Lily could get another word out, Meredith’s voice crackled through the phone, breathless and frantic. "Lily! What’s going on? Is everything on the internet true? Where have you been all these days? Are you really dating Cai? Is he using you to forget about your sister? Did you—did you actually say you were okay with being a substitute? Is your dad still in the hospital? And you really don’t know what was happening on the internet?"

The rapid-fire questions hit Lily like a series of darts, each one more confusing than the last. She stood frozen, her mouth open, unable to process the flood of words spilling from Meredith’s side of the line. She blinked, her hand clutching the phone tighter, her heartbeat quickening. "Mer? What are you talking about?" she managed to ask, her voice barely a whisper, as she tried to make sense of what was going on. "What’s going on? What internet storm? And what is this about substitute..."

Meredith’s voice faltered, then there was a long pause before she came back, sounding completely stunned. "Wait... you really don’t know?" she repeated slowly, disbelief dripping from her words. "You still haven’t seen the news? The videos? The articles? The online chatter?"

Lily felt her stomach tighten, the unease she had been trying to push down now escalating into a full-on panic. So something had indeed happened. She shook her head, as if somehow doing so would help her understand the madness unfolding. "No," she replied, her voice shaky. "I haven’t seen anything. What’s happening, Mer? Tell me what is going on."

"I don’t even know where to start..." Meredith spoke slowly. "This is really unexpected." Finally, she took a deep breath and started," Lily, baby, just sit down, okay? You might need to sit for this and I’ll explain everything to you. First tell me, how is your father doing?"

Lily sat down and nodded blankly, "He is okay now..."

"And Cai? Did he really visit you? Didn’t he say anything?"

"Cai was here. He arranged a room for me and then said he would come back tomorrow because he had to be somewhere. Tell me what is going on Meredith. Not knowing is scaring me."