"Are you happy now?" Arsy's voice shook, but it carried enough force to make Radit turn. "Is this what you wanted — watching my father collapse like that?!"
Radit's glance was fleeting. Empty. No regret. No guilt.
"Arsy, don't start again," he said flatly.
"Don't start?" A broken laugh tore from her throat. "My father just passed out right in front of you, Radit! Because of you! Because of what you said!"
Radit sighed — the sigh of a man enduring a scene he found tedious.
"That's not my fault. I was just being honest with your father."
Arsy's fists clenched so hard her nails bit into her palms.
"Honest?" Her voice climbed. "You think your honesty comes without consequences? My father has a heart condition, Radit! You know that! You've been coming to this house for years — you know exactly what his health is like!"
Radit shrugged.
"That's your family's problem. I never asked your father to get involved."
The words hit harder than anything that had come before. Several neighbors who overheard went dead silent. Some shook their heads in disbelief. Others whispered through clenched teeth.
"Are you even human?!" Arsy screamed.
Radit fixed her with a cold stare. "Arsy, please. Quit acting like you're the biggest victim here. We're done. Don't drag me into something that's not my responsibility."
Arsy stepped closer. Her eyes were red, her face streaked with tears that wouldn't stop.
"If anything happens to my father," she said, low and loaded with menace, "I will never forgive either of you. Not for as long as I live."
Radit held her gaze for a few seconds. Then, without a flicker of expression, he turned to Nadira.
"Let's go, Nadira. We're leaving."
Nadira hesitated. Her eyes darted toward Rahman's body, still motionless on the ground, then to Arsy, who stood there in ruins. But the hesitation lasted only a heartbeat. Radit extended his hand. Nadira took it. Their fingers interlocked. The sight squeezed Arsy's chest like a vise. Tears fell freely now — she couldn't stop them even if she'd tried.
"Get out," Arsy whispered, her voice splintering. "Get out of my life."
Radit said nothing. He pulled Nadira along and they walked away from the yard with steady, unhurried steps — as though there was nothing in this world they needed to regret. The neighbors' murmurs swelled. But neither Radit nor Nadira so much as flinched.
"God, how can they be so heartless…"
"Wasn't that girl supposed to be her best friend?"
"Poor Arsy…"
Nadira kept her head down but kept walking, following Radit without looking back. Not once. And on that night, under the dim glow of the porch light, Arsy watched the two people she had trusted most in the world walk away — leaving her standing in the wreckage of a life she hadn't yet begun to comprehend.
The wail of an ambulance siren finally pierced the distance. Arsy flinched back to reality. She spun around and ran to her father.
"The ambulance! It's here!" someone shouted.
The white vehicle screeched to a halt in front of the house. Two paramedics jumped out, stretcher and emergency equipment in hand.
"What happened?" one of them asked.
"Heart attack!" a neighbor answered.
"He just collapsed!"
The medics immediately went to work on Rahman. One attached electrodes to his chest while the other checked his pulse and blood pressure. Arsy stood beside them, her entire body trembling.
"Sir — what's wrong with my father?" she asked, voice cracking with panic.
"We need to get him to the hospital now," the paramedic answered — quick but calm. "Please give us space."
Rahman was lifted onto the stretcher, and Arsy seized his hand, holding on as if letting go would mean losing him forever.
"I'm coming with him!" she blurted. The paramedic nodded. "Of course."
Without another thought, Arsy climbed into the ambulance beside her father. The rear doors slammed shut and the siren screamed back to life, shattering the quiet of the night. Inside, the harsh white lights made Rahman's face look even more drained of color. Arsy sat beside the stretcher, gripping his hand with both of hers.
"Dad…" Her voice fractured. "I'm so sorry, Dad…" Tears dropped one by one onto the back of his hand. "If I hadn't been so stubborn — if I hadn't pushed for the wedding — you never would have had to see any of this." A sob racked her body. "Please don't leave me, Dad. You're all I have."
The medics worked fast. One monitored the screen while another prepared oxygen. The staccato beeping of medical equipment filled the cramped space, amplifying the terror building in Arsy's chest. Rahman remained unconscious. His hand felt cold in hers.
"Listen to me, Dad…" She leaned close. "You're strong. You've always been strong. You have to be strong this time too."
The ambulance tore through empty city streets, siren lights bouncing off building walls. Arsy stared at her father's face without blinking, as if looking away — even for a second — might let something terrible happen.
"Don't leave me, Dad…" she whispered again and again, like a desperate prayer.
But there was no answer. And inside that ambulance racing toward the hospital, Arsy understood something with devastating clarity: tonight she hadn't just lost her fiance or her best friend. She was on the verge of losing the one person who was her entire world.
The ambulance lurched to a stop at the hospital entrance. The harsh fluorescent lights stabbed at Arsy's eyes — eyes that had known nothing but darkness and fear for what felt like hours.
"Get this patient to the ER, now! Cardiac arrest!" The paramedic's shout echoed the instant the doors swung open.
Arsy tightened her grip on her father's hand, terrified that he would vanish the moment she let go. But the team moved fast. The stretcher dropped to the ground and its metal wheels shrieked against the floor as they barreled down the ER corridor.
"Dad — where are they taking you?" Her voice was hoarse, barely there.
"We're bringing him to the emergency room, miss," a nurse answered without slowing. "Please try to stay calm."
Calm.
The word landed like a cruel joke. Arsy half-walked, half-ran alongside the stretcher, one hand locked on its railing, her eyes never leaving her father's unconscious face — the oxygen tube taped across his nose, his chest rising and falling in shallow, irregular rhythms.
The ER corridor stretched endlessly. Antiseptic stung her nostrils. Footsteps, beeping monitors, and shouted orders overlapped into a wall of sound that pressed against Arsy's chest until she could barely breathe.
When the stretcher stopped abruptly in front of a door marked TREATMENT ROOM — ER, a nurse stepped in front of Arsy and blocked her path.
"I'm sorry, miss. This is as far as you can go. Family members aren't allowed inside."
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