He called me “sunshine.”
I called him “doc.”

Sometimes, it’s not the choices we make that save us — it’s the mistakes.

My name is Amara.
This is the story of how I almost lost myself to a man I never even met.

It was 2020 — the year the world paused, and loneliness grew wild like an untended garden.
I wasn’t looking for love. If anything, I was too busy surviving — work, family, my own tangled thoughts.
But one evening, in a moment of weakness, I responded to a message that seemed harmless enough.

Dr. Ismael.

A doctor. Polite. Smart. The kind of person who asked about your day and actually listened.
He wasn’t like the others who threw compliments like cheap candy.
He spoke of books he had read, surgeries he had performed, dreams he had beyond medicine.

I was intrigued. Cautious, but intrigued.

For weeks, we spoke every evening, our voices threading together a false intimacy.
He called me “sunshine.”
I called him “doc.”
We shared fears. Laughed over stupid memes. Fantasized about all the places we would travel once the world reopened.

Eventually, he asked if we could meet.

The First Time:
I canceled an hour before. Work had been brutal. I was drained, sweaty, and barely human.

The Second Time:
I overslept. By the time I woke up, my phone had 17 missed calls and a dozen worried texts.

The Third Time:
Family emergency. A real one. I had to rush home without explanation.

Each time, he was understanding.
Each time, he forgave me.
Each time, he said, “Don’t worry, sunshine. I’ll wait.”

It was comforting — too comforting.

The guilt built up slowly. I started questioning myself.
Maybe I was too careless with someone who truly cared?
Maybe I didn’t deserve someone so patient?

He never shouted. Never accused.
Instead, he became… sadder. Quieter.

The sweet messages turned into long sighs over the phone.
Late-night texts filled with loneliness and “maybe you’d be happier without me” types of goodbyes.

I promised we’d meet for real this time.
I picked a Saturday. Cleared my schedule. Told myself I wouldn’t mess it up.

And then… I got scared.
No excuse. No emergency. Just pure, heavy anxiety that made it impossible to leave my house.
I texted him a lie: “I’m not feeling well. Let’s reschedule?”

He left me on read.

The silence the next day was brutal.

Then, at 3 a.m., my phone exploded with messages.

First a text:
“I’m sorry for being a burden.”

Then another:
“I wish I had been enough for you.”

Then a call I was too scared to pick up.

And finally, a photo.
A blurry image of a hand with blood streaks.
A caption: “Goodbye, sunshine.”

I sat up in bed, heart pounding, mouth dry.
What had I done?

Minutes later, another message — this time from a number claiming to be a “nurse”:
“Dr. Ismael attempted to harm himself. He’s in critical condition. He keeps whispering your name. He said you’d come.”

I felt the walls closing in around me.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.

For the next two days, I lived in a fog of guilt.
I barely ate. I couldn’t sleep.
I imagined funeral scenes where I was the villain in every whisper.
“She led him on.”
“She broke him.”
“She killed him.”

Then something small — so small it would’ve been easy to ignore — woke me up.

The “hospital” bed in the picture? It had a familiar brand logo printed on the blanket. A brand that only sold home goods — not medical supplies.
The “IV line” in his arm? It was taped on with scotch tape.

I stared at the picture until my vision blurred.

And then the floodgates opened.

I remembered the oddities:

The “nurse” who misspelled ‘cardiac arrest’ as ‘cardic arrest.’

The “hospital” that allowed someone to send photos of a critical patient on WhatsApp.

The overly dramatic wording — like something out of a bad soap opera.


It hit me like cold water:
None of it was real.

Fury replaced guilt.
I blocked him on everything.
Changed my number.
Warned my friends.

Later, through whispered gossip, I learned the truth:
Dr. Ismael was no doctor.
He was a skilled manipulator, drifting from woman to woman, weaving grand tales of tragedy to snare their sympathy.
One woman lost money.
Another lost months of her life nursing his lies.
I had only lost my guilt — and gained my freedom.

Today, I look back and smile at every canceled meeting.
Every plan that fell apart.
Every no-show and every bad excuse.

Because if I had met him — if I had seen him face to face — maybe I would have been trapped deeper.
Maybe the fake IVs would have turned into real bruises.
Maybe the emotional blackmail would have turned into something far worse.

When it’s your turn, when life hands you a choice wrapped in guilt and desperation —
Listen to your gut.
Choose yourself.
Every single time.


—

THE END