Chapter 266: Fainted
"Good." Michael smiled and also said somewhat helplessly, "Then you guys need to supervise Wendy more, so she doesn’t work too many overtime hours. After all, she’s not in good health."
Then Michael said to Wendy, "Wendy, switch the camera over. I want to see you."
"I’m disheveled at night, so don’t look at me," Wendy refused.
Whenever she video chatted with Michael, she wore makeup because she was afraid that her two children and Michael would worry if they saw her uncomfortable.
Today, it was too late to put on makeup while outside.
Wendy, afraid that Michael would say something else, continued to say, "Well, let’s not talk about it anymore because the food is getting cold. I’ll call you back in the morning before I go to work."
Seeing this, Michael couldn’t say anything else and said, "Okay, well, you guys have a good time. I’ll wait for your call tomorrow."
After the phone call, Timothy laughed and joked, "Mr. Lucas is checking in every day? You are such a workaholic. There is no need to check on you. In your eyes, except for the design drawings, it’s all about designs."
"Timothy, have a rib," Wendy smiled and put the ribs in Timothy’s bowl.
"One rib and you want to silence me, huh? That’s not enough." Timothy said, "At least two."
"I’ll give you three." Wendy gave him two more ribs in a row.
The atmosphere was very harmonious during the meal.
After eating, Todd said, "I’ll give you a ride back. It just so happens that my place is quite close to yours."
"Okay, you guys can go together. I won’t see Wendy off." Timothy lived a bit far from them.
Wendy nodded her head and didn’t refuse.
When they got into the car, Wendy fastened her seat belt and then fell asleep with her eyes closed.
When they arrived, the car stopped. Todd unbuckled his seat belt and said, "Here we are Corrine."
Turning his head, Todd saw that Wendy had already fallen asleep.
Looking at Wendy sleeping, Todd smiled and shook his head. He reached out and tousled the messy hair on her face.
After looking at her face, Todd’s smile slowly disappeared.
Sighing, Todd whispered, "Is that how desperate you are to get back early? Is Michael the one that’s making you feel uneasy, or is it the two kids that are making you feel more worried?"
Wendy’s desperation was beyond any of their conceptions.
As he looked at her haggard face, Todd’s head slowly approached but stopped an inch away from her.
His heart pounded rapidly, and Todd jerked his head back as he came back to his senses and realized what he was doing now.
What was he doing?
Taking a deep breath, Todd softly got out of the car, then went around to the passenger seat, opened the door, and unbuckled Wendy’s seat belt.
Carrying her carefully, he walked step by step towards the elevator.
When he arrived home, Todd found the keys in Wendy’s purse.
With Wendy in his arms, he placed her on the bed and took off her shoes and outerwear.
Todd pulled the covers over her and tucked her in.
Then, Todd’s eyes caught sight of the alarm clock on the side. The alarm clock was timed for six o’clock. Wendy got up that early every day?
Todd felt some heaviness in his chest.
He then picked up the alarm clock and canceled it.
After doing this, Todd then softly exited the bedroom and closed the door.
After being carried all the way upstairs from the car and placed in bed, Wendy didn’t even wake up.
How tired had she been for the last two weeks?
***
It was eleven o’clock when Wendy woke up the next day.
She opened her eyes and looked out the window at the bright sky, and her brain, which was not yet awake, instantly cleared up.
She picked up the alarm clock on the side to check the time.
When she saw eleven o’clock, she blinked and thought she had misread it.
She looked again carefully, and it was still eleven o’clock.
Her alarm clock at home had been turned off?
Why didn’t it go off?
Wendy recalled the events of last night.
It seemed that she had dinner with Todd and Timothy, and afterwards Todd drove her home.
When she was in the car, she seemed to have fallen asleep.
Was it Todd who carried her upstairs? Did he turn off the alarm clock too?
Wendy reached up and pounded her head. How could she fall asleep in the car?
And how did she get home without even waking up in the process? This was too embarrassing.
She didn’t have time to think about it carefully. She immediately got up from the bed, and then simply packed up to go to work.
This morning, she had a morning meeting to attend.
In the past two weeks, Wendy had never been late, and was even the earliest person in the entire design department.
When she was late today, the company group was buzzing with chatter.
"Miss Swift hasn’t come today? Are you surprised?"
"Really? Miss Swift is the earliest person in the company and the last to leave. She sleeps in the office most of the time, so how come she hasn’t come yet?"
"It’s true. Yesterday, we scheduled to have a morning meeting at 8:30 this morning. All of us in the design department have been waiting in the conference room until now."
"We don’t know when Miss Swift is coming, and we don’t dare to leave the meeting room. If anyone knows anything about Miss Swift’s situation, please let us know if we should continue to wait or go back to our normal work?"
"If the design department doesn’t know, who else will know?"
"Miss Swift is here. I saw Miss Swift running all the way into the elevator. You guys be careful."
Wendy ran all the way to the office, then organized the information as fast as she could, then went to the meeting room for the meeting.
When she got to the conference room and saw that everyone from the design department was there, Wendy took a deep breath, bowed slightly, and said, "Sorry, I’m late today."
Wendy’s apology startled them again.
Although the recent Wendy was much more amiable than before, how could an apology come out of Miss Swift’s mouth?
The designers looked at each other and said with a smile, "It’s okay, it’s okay, Miss Swift, you must have been delayed."
"We didn’t really wait long, so it’s okay."
"Miss Swift, if you have something to do, you can go ahead and do your work. We’re not in a hurry."
The polite words seemed awkward and somewhat harmonious.
The morning meeting did not last long. It lasted almost half an hour. After finishing the meeting, Wendy returned to the office and closed the office door directly.
Then she started to draw the designs.
Her lifestyle assistant looked at the closed door with a worried look.
The male assistant winked at her and said, "It’s lunchtime. You should remind Miss Swift to have lunch."
"I don’t dare to." The lifestyle assistant shook her head with a scared look on her face and said, "Who dares to knock on the door when Miss Swift is drawing her designs behind closed doors?"
"But Miss Swift has been like this lately, so we can’t just watch her work so hard that she doesn’t eat."
"Then you knock on the door," the lifestyle assistant said.
"You’re the lifestyle assistant. I’m the work assistant, so you go." The male assistant reached out and pushed the lifestyle assistant.
The lifestyle assistant felt her heart beating a little fast and her expression was a little awkward.
Then she knocked on the office door a few times and said, "Miss Swift, it’s almost one o’clock and you haven’t had lunch yet. Will you go to the cafeteria for lunch, or should I pack it up for you?"
"I have a little more work to do on my design, so I’ll eat afterwards," Wendy replied without raising her head.
They weren’t surprised by Wendy’s words. Because it was like this almost every day.
After the meeting, she locked herself in the office without letting anyone in, and then concentrated on drawing the designs.
Every time, she said that she would eat after she finished this bit of work. But often once she got busy, she didn’t eat a single meal for the whole day.
These assistants did not dare to go in and disturb Wendy. Two assistants stood outside the door and exchanged glances. They were worried about Wendy, but they didn’t dare to knock on the door again.
Wendy’s entire focus was on the draft and her stomach had long been hungry, but she didn’t feel it. But her body couldn’t withstand this long term.
Just after Wendy finished the last stroke, her tensed mind relaxed. The unpleasant feeling in her stomach instantly swept over her. She reached out to cover her stomach, and a fine layer of sweat appeared on her forehead because of the pain.
She bit her lip and braced herself with the intention of calling her assistant and asking her to send in some food. Before her hand touched the phone, the pain drained away her whole body’s strength.
The phone fell to the floor. Her whole body slid off the office chair.
In the last second of Wendy’s lapse of consciousness, she seemed to see Todd push open the office door and walk in.
....
When Wendy woke up again, it was nighttime.
She opened her eyes, and the drip on the back of her hand reminded her that she was now in the hospital.
She turned her head sideways and saw Todd sitting in a chair to one side. "You’re awake." Todd was relieved to see Wendy awake and immediately went forward to help her sit up.
"What happened to me?" Wendy asked.
"Overexertion and low blood sugar caused you to faint, and you’ve missed a lot of meals lately, so you have gastritis and need to take care of your stomach." Todd said with some concern and helplessness, "Can you not work so hard?
"If I hadn’t worried that you hadn’t eaten lunch today and gone to the office to look for you, there was no telling how long you would have been unconscious in the office.
"Your two assistants were standing at the door, but didn’t dare to knock or disturb you, so they could only be anxious outside the door.
"If it wasn’t me, they probably wouldn’t have known that you had fainted."
"Is it serious?" Wendy asked.
"It’s serious!" Todd knew what Wendy was thinking and said with a serious expression on his face, "I’m telling you, for the next few days, you should rest in the hospital and not go to work. If you keep pushing yourself like this, you won’t last three months."
"I feel fine." Wendy smiled and said, "I might have fainted because I didn’t eat on time. I promise I’ll eat every meal on time from now on, okay?"
"No." Todd shook his head and said in an increasingly serious tone, "You have to listen to the doctor."
Wendy was about to say something else when her phone rang. She looked at it and saw that it was Michael calling.
It was after 9:00 p.m. in Rheinsville City, then after 8:00 a.m. in Lake City. At this hour, Leah and Jake hadn’t gone to school yet. They had called her every day before school with Michael.
If she had seen the caller ID before, she would have been happy to get through.
Now, Wendy hesitated.
