Lily closed her room door tightly, then remained standing before it for seconds, as if making sure that the world outside would not intrude upon this small space.
In this room alone…
She was not forced to be perfect.
She removed her jacket slowly, tossed it onto the edge of the chair, then sat before her desk while still holding her phone with both hands.
The phone screen was illuminated, and Adam’s name was still before her.
The truth that Mr.
Antoine did not know, and the entire family did not know, was that she had not executed his command as he thought.
She had not stopped seeing that foreigner.
On the contrary…
Their meetings were continuing, even if they had become more cautious.
She chose the places carefully, monitored the time constantly, and calculated the way back so as not to raise any suspicion.
It had become like a parallel life.
A life she lived far away from home, then hid completely as soon as she returned to it.
And when she sat before her father…
She could look into his eyes and appear calm to a degree that made no one suspect anything.
But now…
Nothing mattered to her except Adam.
She remembered how he had left the cafe suddenly, and how he had given her no chance to ask him what had happened.
And she remembered that she had tried to call him repeatedly to no avail.
That alone was enough to fill her mind with dozens of possibilities.
She opened the messaging app.
She hesitated for a moment.
Then she began writing quickly.
<Hello Adam, I was very worried about you when you left the cafeteria quickly and left me, so I tried calling you several times but your phone was switched off.
I apologize for anything I caused you or anything wrong I did.
I hope you forgive me.> She stared at the message for a long time.
She read it once.
Then another time.
She edited a comma.
And deleted a word.
Then restored it as it was.
Even in her moments of severe anxiety, she was trying to be precise in choosing her words.
She pressed the send button.
The sending mark appeared.
But the message was not delivered.
It remained pending.
No sign appeared that it had arrived.
She swallowed with difficulty.
She looked at the screen as if waiting for it to change on its own.
Several seconds passed.
Nothing.
She wrote a second message.
<If you are busy it is fine, just please when you see my messages tell me that you are okay.
This alone is enough for me.> She sent it.
It too remained pending.
No arrival.
No read status.
No reply.
Her fingers began moving faster.
<I do not know what happened, but I am very worried about you.> Then she sent another message after less than a minute.
<Even if you cannot speak, send anything…
just any word.> One after another…
The messages were accumulating.
But all of them remained in the same state.
Undelivered.
Lily stared at the top of the screen.
There was no indication that Adam was connected to the network.
It seemed as though he had no internet connection, or that his phone was still out of service.
That increased her anxiety.
She placed the phone on the desk, then picked it up again after only seconds.
She opened the conversation.
Closed it.
Then opened it once more.
She was watching the screen constantly, as if by her persistence she could force the messages to arrive.
She began walking inside the room.
From the desk to the window.
And from the window to the door.
Then back again.
Every few steps she looked at the phone.
Nothing.
She took a deep breath.
Then sat on the edge of the bed.
The phone between her hands.
She could hear the sound of the clock in her room clearly.
Every second passing without a reply seemed longer than the one before it.
She reopened the conversation once more.
The messages were still there.
All of them waiting.
As if stuck in the middle of the road between them.
She lowered her head slightly, and pressed the phone to her chest.
She did not know what was happening with Adam.
And because she did not know…
Her imagination filled the void with endless questions.
Is he okay?
Did he lose his phone?
Did something happen to him?
Or is he simply unable to access the internet?
She had no answer.
And that was what frightened her the most.
In the quiet room, nothing remained with her except the light of the phone screen…
and messages waiting to find their way to a person whose voice had suddenly vanished.