His gaze fell upon the makeshift bandages adorning his shoulder—messy and uneven, barely covering the wound well enough to stem the bleeding.

Suppressing the urge to smooth out the wrinkles of the bandages, Mitchel directed his attention back to Marlowe. "Did you bring me back from the beach? Thank you."

Marlowe, keenly observant of Mitchel's lingering weakness, held back any comment, her lips pursed. She thrust a bowl of soup into his hands, her expression stern. "Here, drink up and then get going. I don't want my grandfather to find out I've hidden a mystery man here."

Taking the bowl of soup, Mitchel set it aside momentarily, his focus shifting to checking his pockets as he searched for his phone in vain.

Upon realizing it was missing, he sighed inwardly, figuring he had been unconscious for quite a while now. If he didn't call soon, his friends and family would start to worry, especially his grandfather, who couldn't handle the stress.

Even if his phone were with him, he guessed it would unlikely be functional after his ordeal.

So, he turned to Marlowe and asked, “Can I borrow your phone to make a call?"

“My phone?" Marlowe echoed. Then, she seemed to recall something as her brow furrowed. "Oh, I don't have a phone."

"What?" Mitchel's confusion deepened at her revelation, his instinctive frown mirroring his disbelief. “How can someone not have a phone in this day and age?"

At that, Marlowe thought about all the annoying messages and issues that having a phone had brought her. She replied impatiently, “I said I don't have one. My phone service got cut off a while back because I couldn't afford to pay the phone bill. So, I just decided to stop using it altogether."

Her explanation rang true. Ever since her phone had been out of service, she had chosen to remain disconnected from the constant stream of messages and issues that had plagued her life. She felt better that way.

Feeling a sense of desperation creeping in, Mitchel asked, “Do you have a landline at home?"

Marlowe shook her head in response. "No, but there's a public phone booth outside."

A public phone booth?

Taking a moment to steel himself for what lay ahead, Mitchel took a deep breath. “Alright, could you lend me some money then? I need to make a call and arrange for someone to pick me up."

"Sure, I can spare some cash. It's best to get someone to collect you sooner rather than later," Marlowe said, reaching into her pocket and retrieving some money, which she handed to him without hesitation.

Mitchel was somewhat speechless seeing all that cash. How could someone who seemingly had so much money at their disposal claim to be too broke to pay a simple phone bill?

After eagerly accepting the money from Marlowe, Mitchel expressed his heartfelt gratitude before swiftly getting out of bed. He needed to use the public phone.

However, upon standing up from the bed, he quickly noticed a sharp pain shooting through his foot, causing him to wince in discomfort with every step he took. His foot was injured, too.

But he just glanced at his foot expressionlessly as he limped out of the room.