Chapter 2 Chapter 2

"Wake up, Dad, wake up!" I shook my father insistently after he collapsed onto the floor. While I tried to wake him up, my mother called the ambulance. Over the phone, the paramedics asked her to check whether he still had a pulse.

He wasn’t moving. It looked like my father had died. I started crying desperately while holding him against my chest. It didn’t take long for help to arrive. The plate of mac and cheese turned cold, and it wasn’t because I had come downstairs late.

Nobody ate that food because my father got sick. My mother and I followed him into the ambulance, searching for answers. I wasn’t wrong, my father had no pulse.

He had suffered a cardiac arrest, and the nurses were fighting to save his life. While my mother and I sat squeezed together on a narrow ambulance seat, we could practically see life slipping away from my father’s body.

It felt as if every attempt to revive him turned into a cruel game played by the universe. The universe gave him back to us for a few seconds and then pulled him away again almost immediately, leaving my father unable to breathe.

Every movement the nurses made hurt me. I could feel every violent thrust of those hands pressing against my father’s chest. I wanted to close my eyes while at the same time needing proof that he was still alive.

How could a glass of water make my father collapse like that? I kept asking myself, completely confused by the situation. While I sobbed without any tears left, my mother was the one who suddenly broke down crying.

Until that moment, she had stayed strong. She hadn’t cried once and had supported me while my father lay in my arms on the floor. But after so much time passed without him waking up, my mother finally lost control.

We arrived at the hospital, and before we even stepped out of the ambulance, a medical team was already waiting for my father. The situation was far more serious than I had imagined. They rushed away with the stretcher carrying my father the second the ambulance doors opened. My mother and I tried to follow them, but we were stopped as soon as we reached the reception desk.

"We need the patient’s documents," the receptionist said coldly, her metallic voice blending with the sound of the old keyboard clicking.

"I need to know if my husband is okay," my mother shot back after hearing that question. I was sure she hadn’t brought any of my father’s documents. Who remembers paperwork during an emergency?

"How were we supposed to remember that during an emergency? You can make his file first and I’ll bring the documents later. Please, help my father," I replied more firmly than my mother, my voice only one step away from turning into a scream.

"Calm down, miss. The medical team is already treating him. I just need some information to complete the hospital registration. As soon as possible, you’ll need to bring the documents."

That gave me a little relief, but when I looked at my mother, she still seemed terrified. I realized one of us would need to go back home to get those documents.

We waited at the reception desk anxiously for any information about my father. I was starving, and my stomach started hurting. But I refused to think about eating anything at a moment like that.

I held my mother’s hand tightly, and together we started praying. Between tears and desperate pleas, all we wanted was for my father to survive. Even inside the ambulance, it had seemed like he wasn’t going to make it. And every time I thought about that, I cried even harder while praying.

After a while that felt like hours, a doctor approached us. Just like in movies and TV shows, he wore a white coat and carried a clipboard.

The doctor looked deep into our eyes and asked whether we were alright. It felt like he didn’t want to get straight to the point, and I knew doctors usually acted like that when they had to announce someone’s death.

I started crying harder, barely listening to what he was saying. "Easy there, miss, what happened?" he asked while crouching down in front of me and looking directly into my eyes.

Between sobs, I asked about my father, already expecting the worst. Then he smiled, and I couldn’t understand why. I wiped my tears aggressively with the palm of my hand, squeezing my eyes shut to stop crying, and immediately reacted to that smile.

"Why are you laughing? Do I look like some kind of clown to you?" I snapped furiously at the doctor. In seconds, the pain I felt for my father transformed into anger directed entirely at him.

"Calm down, miss. Your father is fine. Well, now he just needs to wake up. He suffered a cardiac arrest, but he’s recovering. We’ll need warm clothes for him," the doctor answered while speaking to my mother instead of me after my aggressive reaction.

My mother and I looked at each other, and this time we cried out of relief. My intuition had been wrong. My father was alive. Thank God.

The doctor left the reception area, and I offered to go home to get the documents and warm clothes for my father. Meanwhile, my mother would stay at the hospital waiting for me.

"Do you want me to bring you some mac and cheese?" I asked my mother. I hadn’t eaten anything either before my father collapsed at the lunch table.

"No need, my daughter. If I get hungry, I’ll eat something here at the hospital. Go quickly, your father needs you."

I decided to call a rideshare car to get there faster. On the way home, I told Rebeca everything and explained that I wouldn’t be going to college after what happened to my father.

"Girl, I’m feeling awful. My father is hospitalized, I can’t go to college today," I wrote in the message.

Rebeca hadn’t seen the message yet, and I got lost scrolling through my photo gallery, trying not to think about my father or my college project. Suddenly, I found some pictures of the boy I had used to create that secret AI agent, inspired by one of the most handsome wolves on campus.

He played football as a wide receiver, had a muscular body covered in tattoos. Besides that, the young man was a pure wolf, meaning both of his parents carried Alpine wolf genetics.

Only then did I realize I had secretly archived dozens of his pictures, all taken from Instagram. While I kept scrolling through the images, Rebeca sent me a message that completely froze me. I couldn’t even react inside that car.

"Why did you send me a picture of my boyfriend?"