My Husband Was Brain Dead, Yet I Didn’t Save Him

The car accident unfolded in a blur; my husband lunged forward, shielding me, only to be struck and tossed aside by a roaring truck.

He was rushed straight into the operating room. I, however, remained seated, calmly scrolling through a game on my phone as though the world hadn’t just shattered.

Moments later, Odette Hewitt, my husband’s attending physician, burst through the doors in a frenzy, her face a mask of desperation.

“Dr. Scott, your husband is brain dead! Only you can handle this; please, come with me!”

Her words cut through the silence like glass shattering, her pleading gaze fixed on me.

After all, I was the only doctor in the entire province who had successfully treated a brain-dead patient.

Without glancing up from my game, I replied in a calm, detached tone, “Since the patient is my husband, hospital regulations forbid me from performing the surgery.”

My mother-in-law collapsed to her knees before me, her forehead striking the cold ground over and over as she pleaded desperately.

“Verena, please save Matias! He ended up like this because he was trying to save you!”

I dodged her trembling hands, lifting my swollen right wrist for her to see, a faint, bitter smile curling on my lips.

“Unfortunately, I accidentally severed my wrist tendon today. I can’t hold a scalpel anymore.”

——

Blood slid down my wrist in thin, gleaming streams, its vivid red stark against my pale skin.

Matias Campbell’s parents’ expressions shifted in an instant.

My mother-in-law, Milana Campbell, turned deathly pale, her trembling voice laced with suspicion.

“Verena, how could a doctor like you accidentally sever your wrist tendon? Are you trying to trick us with a fake wound and fake blood because you’re afraid of losing your job?”

Her sharp gaze bored into me, her doubt cutting like a blade. It wasn’t hard to see why, after all, hospital regulations strictly forbade doctors from operating on close family and earning a position at the provincial hospital had taken me years of grueling effort.

Under her piercing stare, I calmly extended my injured wrist, letting the truth speak for itself.

A deep, bone-deep gash marred my wrist, raw, real, and impossible to fake.

Milana’s gaze sharpened as she leaned closer, but the moment the truth registered, her eyes welled with tears. In a breath, she crumbled.

“You… you really can’t perform surgery now.” Her voice cracked, giving way to gut-wrenching sobs. “What’s going to happen to my son? My poor son! Is he just supposed to wait here and die?”

Her wails filled the corridor as she pounded the ground with trembling fists, a portrait of a mother’s grief that moved the onlookers to silent pity.

But I simply smiled faintly, my voice calm, unnervingly steady.

“Then this must be Matias’ fate. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

I lowered my head again, my attention fixed on the glowing screen in my hands.

The battle raged on, and my hero crouched in the shadows of the bushes, waiting to ambush an unwitting enemy. One strike was all it would take to land the fatal blow. But luck wasn’t on my side. My teammates were floundering, and in the few minutes I had been distracted, the game had tilted heavily against us.

A frown tugged at my lips as I refocused, eyes narrowing, fingers dancing across the screen with silent precision.

The indifference in my posture must have been unbearable because Alastor Campbell’s face turned ashen. A man once known for his quiet kindness now stood a portrait of defeat.

Then, with a dull thud that broke the stillness, he fell to his knees before me, his pride crumbling at my feet.

The middle-aged man bowed his back, a back that had never bent for anyone in his life. His voice quivered, raw and trembling with desperation, his reddened eyes locked on me.

"Verena, I’m begging you. Please… save Matias!"

"He’s your husband. You can’t just stand there and watch him die!"

His voice cracked, breaking through the murmurs of the onlookers. "Even if your hand is injured, even if you can’t hold a scalpel, at least… at least guide them! Tell them what medications to use!"

The weight of his plea hung in the air, heavy as stone. Around us, the crowd grew restless, their sympathy impossible to contain. Several young women wiped at their tear-streaked faces, unable to bear the scene unfolding before them.