A Graduation Gift novel Chapter 223

Cassandra stood at the side of the road, holding the phone in her hand and dumbfounded. She didn't know what had just happened.

She heard something loud. Where could it have come from?

Suddenly, she had a good guess on what had happened so she turned around and ran back to the Garden Villa immediately.

The wind blew across her face as she breathed heavily and quickened her pace.

Her heart was beating rapidly and she could only see darkness but she held on to the one person who was keeping her going.

It was Rufus! Rufus!

Rufus could feel his body aching all over when the terrible car accident happened. But nothing could compare to the ache his heart was nursing.

"Cassandra..."

Rufus murmured the little woman's name. A glimpse of a familiar figure was suddenly running towards him.

Was it Cassandra? Or an illusion?

Rufus couldn't tell who the figure was because he couldn't even open his eyes. Before he knew it, he had already fainted.

Cassandra saw Rufus's Range Rover crash into a wall from a distance—the front of the car looked quite damaged.

Her chest tightened at what she'd seen; her heart began to beat so fast that she felt it would jump out of her chest anytime soon.

She ran and ran until she'd closed the distance between them.

When she arrived at the car, she saw Rufus slumping over the wheel. His legs were stuck inside the car and he looked terrible. It was hard to digest the entire scene.

Cassandra felt as if someone had grabbed her heart and crushed it—she couldn't breathe.

She tried to ram the door open but it was locked and she couldn't break it from the outside.

She then tried to smack the window hoping that Rufus would wake up to the noise but he didn't even flinch. He wasn't moving at all. Did he just faint or was he...dead already?

Cassandra was crying and shrieking, "Rufus, wake up! Don't leave me! Rufus!"

What Rufus had said before came true.

He said the only way he'd let Cassandra leave him was if he died.

'I won't leave you anymore, Rufus! Don't do this, Rufus! Wake up!' Cassandra shouted in her heart.

She quickly made a call then continued to look for a way to break inside the car. However, they were in a deserted area and no one was even passing by. She started to get desperate.

Suddenly, an idea came to her. She dialed Rufus's number and hoped that the ringing would wake him up.

It didn't work. Rufus just lay there, unmoving.

"Rufus, wake up! Please! You're scaring me!"

Cassandra shrieked through tears as she tried futilely open the car. She was starting to get worried as Rufus had already stayed in an oxygen-deprived space for too long and his legs had been stuck for a while now too.

She came up with another idea—she used her keys to try to break the window open from the corners.

She just kept trying and trying. Eventually, the window started to show some cracks, but her hands were already red and swollen.

She continued to hit the window through gritted teeth. When enough cracks had shown, she took a deep breath and landed a clenched fist through the window. The window shattered into pieces.

Cassandra stuck her hand inside the window and swung the door open from the inside—all the while, her hand was shivering. She reached inside the car and grabbed Rufus's body in an attempt to drag him out of the car.

Rufus was tall and big while she was short and slim—she wasn't strong enough to move him.

But this didn't stop Cassandra from trying anyway—this was an emergency after all. She gathered all her energy and soon, she was able to drag him out of the car in one piece.

She laid Rufus down on the road and started to resuscitate him—she tried pumping his chest hard and fast with her hands, then blowing air into his mouth.

She continued doing this as she wished in her heart that Rufus would open his eyes to look at her. However, Rufus remained lifeless.

She fought through the tears that rolled down her cheeks and into her mouth; she fought through the bitter taste in her mouth; she fought through the exhaustion—but to no avail, Rufus remained unmoving.

Cassandra was starting to lose hope. She was crying, scared and desperate.

'This is all my fault, Rufus! I never should've said all those things to you, I'm so sorry! Open your eyes and look at me! I won't leave you anymore, please don't leave me like this...'

Cassandra cried in her heart that was filled with regret.

If she only knew that this would happen, she would never have attempted to break up with him. She thought she was doing the right thing. She'd been thinking over this break up for quite awhile—now she just wished she'd thought it over one more time.

"Please, Rufus! Stay with me, I'm so scared!"

Cassandra bawled as she continued to breathe life back into him.

Suddenly, Rufus's chest heaved. Cassandra froze.

She continued to pump his chest and blow air into his mouth. She had more hope now.

Rufus kept sinking in a cold, dark place. Everything about him felt stuck and frozen as if he was dying.

He couldn't see anything in the darkness but he could hear a familiar voice. Cassandra! It was Cassandra's voice! She was here and she was calling his name!

Rufus wished with all his might that he could open his eyes and hold her in his arms. He wanted to tell her, 'Cassandra, I'm yours and yours only. Don't you ever leave me again.'

However, he didn't have the energy to do so as he couldn't feel his body anymore.

He did feel it when he was dragged out from where he was and someone started resuscitating him. Someone was pumping his chest and blowing air into his mouth. Rufus could tell that it was Cassandra's lips that had touched his cold ones; as soon as their lips met, Rufus felt his heart warm up.

'Is that you, Cassandra? Are you saving me?' Rufus thought to himself.

He could also taste the bitterness of the tears that ran in Cassandra's mouth. He couldn't help but feel his heart ache at the thought of Cassandra crying endlessly.

He wanted to gaze into her eyes, reach out to touch her hair, and tell her that he loved her so much. He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay. Hard as he tried, he just couldn't make himself move. He felt disconnected from his body as if everything was too heavy for him.

Rufus's heart beat quickened when he sensed how scared Cassandra was.

'Are you scared? Don't be scared, darling. I'll protect you, I'm here, ' Rufus consoled Cassandra in his mind.

Her bawling only motivated him to push his body more—he wanted to speak to her, feel her, and hold her.

Rufus felt that he'd been wandering in the dark far too long. Suddenly, a light appeared in front of him. He followed the light hoping to leave the darkness.

Cassandra, meanwhile, was still hoping and praying for a miracle when Rufus's eyes twitched.

"Rufus, can you hear me? Wake up, Rufus, please!"

Cassandra tried to repeatedly pat Rufus's face to wake him up—she was already flurried and worked up at Rufus's stirrings.

At this moment, Rufus finally reached the light—he took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

The first thing Rufus saw when he opened his eyes was Cassandra's crying face.

"Rufus! Thank God! Finally, you're awake!"

Cassandra bawled, her voice shaking. She heaved a big sigh of relief and was grateful that Rufus was alive.

Just in time, the ambulance arrived. All the medical staff hurried to Rufus with a stretcher in hand.

"Excuse us, please,"

the staff said to Cassandra as they rolled Rufus onto the stretcher.

He wanted so bad to speak to Cassandra but his body was still in so much pain that he was unable to even make a sound. The only thing he could do was look at Cassandra and he did—he never removed his gaze, not even for a second.

Normally, Cassandra disliked the ambulance siren. It was sharp and it wasn't calming at all. But this time, when she heard the ambulance, it sounded like music to her. This was what was going to save Rufus. They were going to make sure he was okay.

"How's he doing? Is he seriously hurt?"

Cassandra stayed with Rufus even inside the ambulance. He was being given oxygen through a mask and his heartbeat was being monitored by the ECG machine. During the whole time, Rufus was just staring at her, not making a single sound.

"We'll know when we get to the hospital but his legs are probably broken,"

a paramedic said, frowning. He was busy studying the images on his medical device.

Cassandra reached out and held one of Rufus's hands which were normally warm. But in this instance, it was ice cold.

She gazed back into his eyes, biting her lower lip.

"Please contact his family right away. We have to do surgery on him and they're the only ones who can authorize that."

Upon hearing that, she grabbed Rufus's phone because she didn't have any contact with the Tang family anymore—she'd deleted their numbers a long time ago.

Unlocking his phone, she went straight to the contacts list. There was a 'family' tag in his contacts and there were only three people on it:

Jasper, Michelle, and Cassandra.