The sound of the ringing, soft as it was, shattered the soft quiet, and pulled Sharon out of the fragments of memory that all carried the same voice, the same tone, the same suffocating weight. At some point, she had slid down the wall at the side and sat down on the ground with her knees pulled together in a hug in front of her chest, her head resting sideways on them, facing the bed.
The interruption from the phone made her raise her head. She wiped the tears that had come out at some point, and answered the call after looking at the identity of the caller:
"Yes?"
Despite her state, her voice showed nothing, or rather, almost nothing, because Glenn, on the other side, paused, before speaking:
"I heard you left the set just now for an emergency."
Sharon complained with a mirthless tilt of her lips:
"Gossips still travel fast, I see."
Glenn calmly replied:
"That has always been the case, even more so in the entertainment industry. Anyway, there has been no loss, and there will be no problem. I have confirmed it."
Sharon's smile turned light:
"Thank you, my dear manager."
The smile on the beautiful face finally carried some happiness, like a soft glow peeking through clouds a little too grey. The conversation died down, neither side saying anything, before Glenn finally inquired, not too careful, now that she had probed Sharon's state:
"Is everything alright?"
Her voice remained strong, like always, like the voice of a woman who was used to fighting her way through society for her goals, but her concern was unhidden. Sharon glanced at the bed at the side, then shook her head softly:
"It's nothing. It was a false alarm."
Glenn seemed to understand something, as the silence that followed seemed to carry her support for the blonde, one unvoiced but guaranteed. She said no more about what happened, and asked no more. She changed the subject:
"Are you still interested in the party tonight?"
Sharon took a deep breath:
"Yes. As you said, there will be resources and opportunities. I will go, don't worry."
Glenn directly said with a sneer:
"If you really wanted resources and opportunities that badly, you would not have turned down that endorsement. Or what? Now that your little company is on the right track, you are not caring about this side that much anymore? You are loosening on the grit you started with and wanting an out?"
The tirade carried so much truth that Sharon could only exhale in bitter helplessness at her torn mask and exhort with a smile:
"Can we not talk about that, Glenn? I allow you to tease me with something else, anything else but that. Whatever you choose, just…"
"Only if you tell me the reason for your change."
The curt answer that came too fast choked the blonde, making her reflexively open her mouth:
"I…"
Unfortunately, the words failed to come out. Despite having looked about to say something, Sharon seemed to have thought better, and after a moment of pause while looking at her mother's form on the bed, she changed her words:
"It is not just a shopping center. That place is more about the technology that rumors say will be unveiled there later, the hype attracting everyone's attention, and I have never endorsed any technological product. I'm afraid to have it clash with my image."
The eye-roll from Glenn on the other side could be felt even through the wireless connection. She couldn't even be bothered to continue the topic anymore:
"I hope you don't believe your own nonsense, because I, for one, do not believe it at all. Try and come up with something better, I can wait."
"Glenn–"
"Alright, enough. See you tonight. I will have your ride ready. Remember to get ready too. Bye."
*Beep*
Sharon lowered her hand. She quietly smiled at the screen of her phone, then turned to the bed she had been dazedly looking at in the silent ward. Taking a deep breath, she psyched herself with a smile that did not look the least bit forced, and stood up. She patted the dust on the parts of her clothes that had been in contact with the ground, donned her mask and her sunglasses again, gave one last look at the bed, then turned around to open the door.
With one step, Sharon left the ward, and let the door close on the burden she had been carrying silently and without any help all these past years. Without looking back, she retraced her path, calmly this time, then took a taxi outside the hospital.
On the way back, she absentmindedly watched the outside scenery scrolling by through the window, a scenery as fast-paced as life in this brilliant but at the same time crushing metropolis. The car slowing at a red light pulled her mind back into reality, making her catch the quiet sound of the radio that set a calm atmosphere sharply contrasting with the sultry hell outside:
"...the traffic this evening might be more congested than usual because the city hall just confirmed that starting at seven in the evening, a few arteries of our city will be closed for maintenance work and renovations that will last between five to seven hours. Everyone should take note of the arteries in question. They are the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the twelfth, the thirteenth, the fifteenth, the…"
As time went on, surprise flickered in Sharon's blue eyes behind the sunglasses. It was already unexpected that roads were about to be maintained and renovated at night, but what was even more surprising was the number of them that would be closed. She turned to the front, but then, blinking, she stopped paying attention.
Pulling her gaze back, she returned to looking outside and stopped thinking, letting her mind leisurely wander to unwind, even if for just a moment, this one short, opportune moment.
_ _ _
_ _ _
*Ring~ Ring~ Ring~*
In a villa in an upscale community somewhere in the city, a phone rang, breaking the silence that had lasted for a while. The noisy device belonged to a dark-haired young man with pale blue eyes, slightly pale skin, and a slim, sportive form faintly visible through the casual opening of the bathrobe he was wearing.
Leaning sideways against the backrest of the long sofa he was sitting in with one leg over the other, to his right, was the floor-to-ceiling window through which the sunlight was streaming in, while to his back was to the bed where a blanket covered two forms, exposing only their long legs and the side of their faces hidden by long, silky hair. The slightly narrow eyebrows on his handsome face twitched, but he still stopped moving his right hand on the keyboard of the laptop displaying stock market trends before him on the sofa, and put down the glass of wine in the left hand he had been resting on the backrest of the sofa after draining it of its contents.
Ignoring the faint sounds of stirring behind him, he picked up the phone on the table beside him, checked the identity of the caller, before he accepted the call, his tone dry and curt, but also, faintly authoritative:
"Speak."