Once She Came Like a Flash novel Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Charlie fought against the bitterness that clawed at his insides, a bitter reminder of the turmoil he felt as he dialed Lola’s number. His heart raced with a mix of hope and dread, but all he was met with was the cold, flat tone of a failed connection.

He tried again, desperation creeping into his fingers as he pressed the buttons with increasing urgency. Each attempt ended in the same disheartening silence, a stark reminder of how far they had fallen.

Once, not long ago, Lola had his number set to special alert. With just a single ring, she would answer, her voice a comforting balm against the chaos of the world. Now, it felt as though she had erected walls around herself, shutting him out completely, leaving him to grapple with his own spiraling thoughts.

With a sudden surge of frustration, Charlie hurled his phone to the floor, the sharp crack of plastic against the hard surface echoing in the stillness of the car. Rage coursed through him, dark and consuming, as he felt the heat rise to his cheeks.

The noise jolted Edwin awake, nestled in Rose’s arms. The boy’s frightened wails pierced through Charlie’s anger, but he had no patience left to soothe the child. He slammed the car door behind him, the sound reverberating in the quiet night, and stormed away, already pulling up his media contacts in a frantic bid to salvage his reputation.

Edwin turned his tear-streaked face toward Rose, his wide, innocent eyes searching for comfort. But Rose was a ghost of her former self, her complexion pale as she stared at her own phone, the screen filled with a deluge of hate-filled messages. If Charlie had been dragged through the mud, she was sinking in the same mire, her X account overwhelmed by a torrent of vitriol, each comment a sharp stab to her heart.

Once the beloved daughter of privilege, Rose had been cherished and pampered throughout her life. Now, she felt like a rat scurrying through the streets, cursed with every vile word imaginable. As she watched the insults pile up, her heart raced with anxiety, teetering on the brink of a complete mental collapse.

Edwin’s piercing cries rang in her ears, a haunting melody of despair that only heightened her shame and rage. Her face flushed a deep crimson, as if the very essence of her emotions was painting her skin with the heat of her turmoil.

“Shut up! Stop crying!” she snapped, her voice sharp and cutting, devoid of the softness that once defined her.

The boy froze, his sobs abruptly silenced. He stared at her, wide-eyed and shocked, unable to reconcile the loving Rose he knew with the stranger before him.

If it had been his mother, she would have knelt beside him, asking if he was hurt, holding him close until his tears had dried.

Something felt deeply, profoundly wrong, but Edwin pressed his lips together, choosing to weep quietly instead of voicing his confusion.

When Charlie returned, the sight before him made his frown deepen. Rose sat rigidly, her face tight with irritation, her fingers flying across the screen of her phone. Edwin huddled at a distance, his cheeks flushed and his silence heavy with unspoken words.

Then he unleashed the bombshell—Lola’s assets, a fortune large enough to ignite envy among the masses.

The narrative shifted dramatically. Jealousy drowned out any remaining sympathy. The sheer size of the settlement turned eyes greedy, and comments flooded in, condemning Lola as an insatiable gold-digger who had brought about her own downfall. By midnight, the crisis had begun to ease. Netizens were no longer fixated solely on his sins. For the first time in days, Charlie allowed himself to breathe, stretching out on the office couch, exhaustion pulling him into a restless sleep, unwilling to risk another misstep.

But deep into the night, a savage pain ripped through his stomach, jolting him awake. He clutched at his gut, the realization dawning on him that since his return from abroad, tangled in one mess after another, he had only sipped a few drops of water and hadn’t eaten in over half a day.

Before this chaos, Lola had always nagged him to eat, sending reminders that had once annoyed him. Yet now, in her absence, he felt the gnawing emptiness in his stomach, an ache that seemed to echo the void she left behind.

For a moment, he sat in stunned silence, grappling with the implications of his thoughts. And then it hit him—he was thinking about her. After everything, after the humiliation she had inflicted upon him in front of the world, he still remembered the warmth of her presence.

He jerked upright, fingers digging into his scalp as he tore at his hair in frustration. He must have lost his mind. Surely, he had to be mad.