Chapter 6: The Brown's Bredadwinner
"NELSON," Charlotte called out to him in what sounded like a whisper. Her knees were gradually growing weak.
"Why wouldn't I go for a girl who satisfies me? Since you've chosen to be a saint, I couldn't help going for an open option. You can keep up with that for all I care but I can't continue."
"But I gave you my word." Charlotte said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Huh,"
"I promised to let you, but only when we are married." Charlotte said.
All this time... he seemed happy with the idea. And had even boasted about having his wife a virgin.
But the look he had in his eyes as she said those words made it evident that it had all been pretense and nothing more.
"Listen, let's not deceive ourselves," With that, he got out of the bed and grabbed his bathrobe. "There's no man who would put up with a girlfriend who won't even give him pleasure. You had it coming, I tell ya."
He walked past her, brushed shoulders with her, and clicked his tongue.
"Don't act pathetic. It doesn't look good on you."
He left the room, and Charlotte fell to the floor, breaking down in hot tears and mumbling words to herself.
Brenda anxiously and silently left with a swift movement. She couldn't even look Charlotte in the eyes because she knew she had just done the deed that would sever their relationship for good.
After crying for a while and mumbling to herself, asking what she had done wrong, Charlotte got up abruptly, packed her belongings, and left the house.
To think she would be used in such a manner. She couldn't take it. And she couldn't even focus on her heartbreak either as she needed to take care of her mom.
So, to save her mom, she sold her mom's most expensive possessions. The gold earrings she had gotten from her late rich boss, years ago. She had sold it at the exact price she needed to complete the payment to an appraiser down the street.
"Glad that you could raise the money before it was too late, Miss Charlotte," The nurse who was leading Charlotte to her mom's unit said, but Charlotte had been spacing out for a while.
She was the only one left as Jeffery had gone home to tend to their Grandma whose blood pressure was alarmingly rising thanks to stress.
"How's she? How did it go?" Charlotte asked eagerly for an answer.
"Relax miss, she will be fine. But since she is currently unconscious and can go into a coma, there's no telling how her condition may progress or regress. There will be subsequent surgeries but this would keep her out of danger. We hope she will be out of a coma soon." The Doctor explained.
"Can... Can you tell me what really caused all this, Doctor?" Charlotte asked.
"Your mom has a tumor in her head." He answered and Charlotte froze up.
"Brain tu...tumor?!" she stuttered.
"Yes, but it had been dormant for quite some time. But recently, stress and overthinking woke up the tumor and it has been growing gradually for over a month." He explained further. "Thus, resulting in her sudden stroke and collapse. And in the process of that collapse, she cracked her skull resulting in internal injuries."
Charlotte's heart broke hearing all this. It was too much.
The Brown's breadwinner, her mother, had entered a vegetable state.