76 Missed Calls, And He Still Chose Her Dog Chapter 02

76 Missed Calls, And He Still Chose Her Dog Chapter 02

I stood there for a long time.

Then, as if something was pulling me, I pushed open the study door.

A corner of something sticking out beneath the desk stabbed at my eyes.

It was my press badge.

Back then, I was the most promising new reporter at Channel 8 News.

I had been assigned to interview the director of St. Gabriel Medical Center.

But the old director was arrogant and stubborn. He shut me out without a second thought.

After days of chasing the story and staying up late to prepare, my blood sugar crashed and I passed out in the hospital garden.

Adrian was the one who woke me up.

He said once the old director decided to reject an interview, almost no one could change his mind.

I lowered my head in frustration.

The next second, he slipped an orange candy into my mouth.

Adrian winked at me.

“But I respect people who take their work seriously.”

“So interview me instead.”

Only later did I learn that he was the youngest medical professor in the city.

Countless media outlets had tried to interview the genius surgeon of the medical world, and all of them had been rejected.

I was the only exception.

That was how Adrian and I met.

Later, we both got busier.

One day, Adrian looked at me with genuine difficulty in his eyes.

“Lydia, I know being an investigative reporter is your dream.”

“But the elders in our families need someone to take care of them.”

“Could you move to something easier for now?”

“I promise I’ll treat you well for the rest of my life.”

I knew becoming a top surgeon was his dream too.

So I compromised.

I didn’t leave Channel 8 News.

I only transferred from the newsroom to operations.

At least that way, I could still stay close to the work I loved.

On many sleepless nights, I would sit by the bed under the lamp and run my fingers over that press badge.

Every time Adrian saw me do it, he would hold me with guilt in his arms.

Again and again, he said he would never let me down.

But now.

The press badge I cherished more than anything had been shoved under the desk leg.

He was using it to steady a wobbling desk.

I stared at it in silence for a long time.

Then I walked to the safe.

I entered Madison Blake’s birthday.

The door opened.

I suddenly laughed.

On top sat a thick manila folder.

Inside were photos of Adrian and Madison.

Hugging.

Kissing.

Walking hand in hand on the beach.

There were also receipts for the condo he bought Madison, the money he invested in her pet boutique, and the renovation fees and rent he had paid for her.

Her store had clearly been losing money all along.

But he had covered the shortfall again and again.

On the front of the folder was a line written in Adrian’s handwriting.

“I’ll clear the road for your dream forever.”

I stared at that sentence for a long time.

The past five years flashed through my mind.

I had cared for his parents.

Done the laundry, cooked the meals, kept the house running.

I had turned myself from someone who used to run toward breaking news into a quiet background figure in this home.

I thought of my old colleagues still in the newsroom, staying up late to write stories, running to the scene, chasing leads.

That old envy and ache rushed up inside me all over again.

So he did know how to support someone’s dream.

He just never cared about mine.

I photographed every piece of evidence, then put everything back exactly where it had been.

Then I called Rachel Warren.

“Rachel, I heard the newsroom is looking for someone to go to the Eastern European border conflict zone as a field correspondent.”

“No one has signed up yet.”

“If you’ll take me, I want to go.”

Rachel was silent for a few seconds.

Then her voice brightened.

“Lydia, are you serious?”

“When you transferred to operations, I always thought it was a waste.”

“This opportunity is rare, and it’s dangerous.”

“But if you come back, your career path will change completely.”

“You’d need to leave in the next few days.”

“Have you thought this through?”

I looked at the wrecked room and said quietly, “I have.”

After I hung up, I started packing.

There was almost nothing in this home worth taking.

The only thing I wanted was the sweater my mother had knitted for me before she died.

When I was little, she had knitted me a lot of clothes.

Later, I grew up, and she got older.

Her eyesight wasn’t what it used to be.

I didn’t want her working so hard, so I stopped letting her knit for me.

After I got pregnant, I suddenly became afraid of the cold.

My mother secretly knitted me another sweater.

Her eyes were red from the strain, but she only smiled and waved it off.

“Handmade is warmer.”

“I picked good yarn.”

“You love that little one in your belly. I love my daughter too.”

Back then, my heart had ached and warmed at the same time. I hadn’t been willing to wear it.

But now, the sweater was gone.

I thought of the mess Adrian had made while rummaging through the house and was about to call him.

Then Madison’s Instagram Story popped up on my phone.

“I only said the newborn puppies were cold, and someone brought over a sweater.”

“Thank you, daddy, from the babies. And yes, this mommy’s sewing skills are amazing.”

In the video, Adrian and Madison were almost pressed together.

Each of them held several puppies.

And the dog sweaters those puppies were wearing were ones I recognized at a glance.

They had been cut and remade from the sweater my mother knitted for me.