How Things Changed Forever.. PART - II

CH 53: Being Paranoid

It was Monday morning, and Hillary stood in front of the mirror, adjusting the collar of her coat. Her movements were a little slow, but far better than how she felt Saturday night—when just walking had made her legs tremble.

She wasn't back to normal, not even close. She'd already skipped swim practice for two days now, despite the National Championships being twelve days away, but she knew she'd needed it to get back to normal. Her body still ached faintly, but she could breathe without wanting to cry, and that felt like progress.

She reached for her school-bag and paused. Her old phone, with its chipped paint and cracked screen, sat forgotten on her desk. Her father had temporarily fixed her old phone and transferred all of her mobile's memory into it when she told him she'd lost her phone. Made up a whole story of how it had slipped her fingers near a drain and fell into it. They'd had a bit of laugh laugh over it.

Her phone blinked again, with dozens of unread notifications. Messages were flooding her inbox and the club's page ever since the concert ended—some from friends and guests, while most were from total strangers who'd attended the fundraiser and loved it. Compliments, emojis, heartfelt congratulations. Some people had tagged her in stories or shared pictures from the event, writing things like "Best night ever!" or "So proud of what the club pulled-off!"

Their fundraiser had gotten a lot of media attention, since Chris Royson was a budding performer and people loved physiotherapists. The club had also been receiving numerous offers for sponsorship deals and collaborations for their next fundraiser.

Hillary felt overwhelmed every time her phone buzzed. She hadn't had the strength to look at her phone yesterday. Sunday had passed in a blur of sleep and more sleep. She remembered crawling into bed Saturday night, barely awake. Her body had crashed. She slept through entire Sunday.

Guilt tugged at her chest for not replying sooner, but she consoled herself—If they were good, they'd understand that she'd taken a bit of time off. If they were already pissed that she hadn't gotten back to them sooner, what was one more day?

But the most important of all her worries was yet to be resolved. She still couldn't remember what happened to her the day before, no matter how much she thought about it. Shd remembered going to swim practice, remembered practice and taking the performance tests, but after that, absolutely nothing.

She didn't have any external bruises to show her what happened before Kai found her. Dev had said she'd had some residual water in her lungs, and her salt balance had gotten screwed up due to excess water ingestion, but that didn't make much sense either.

Those were signs of drowning, and she was a goddamn national swimmer! She wasn't even near a water body when she woke up in that alley.

She shuddered remembering the cold. That was what really got her. The temperatures that had dropped too fast. Her cold urticaria flare up was the worst she'd ever experienced ever, given that she was usually prepared for it. She still couldn't fathom the thought that if not for Kai tracking her down when he did, she'd have died.

Everything after that felt like a hazy dream she'd lived through. She had managed the entire fundraiser on auto-pilot, not really registering anything.

Her sweet oblivious parents had tiptoed around her all Sunday, assuming she was just tired from all the running around and the cold urticaria. She'd told them that she'd had two reactions the day of the fundraiser—mild ones, she'd clarified, and conveniently left out the major one she'd had the night before.

And they'd believed her. Told her to sleep in as much as she needed. She felt guilty to misuse their trust this way, especially ever since Dev was that specific for her to tell her dad. But what was there to tell?