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.
Odette frowned, her gaze piercing and filled with disapproval. Her voice cut through the tense air, each word a blade aimed at me.
"Verena, you’re the only doctor here with experience treating brain-dead patients. Is your career really worth more than saving your husband’s life?"
"Especially when he ended up like this trying to save you!"
Her tone grew sharper, laced with both judgment and disbelief. "Saving lives is a doctor’s duty, your duty. And this isn’t just any patient. This is your husband!"
"Brain death has a 99% fatality rate. Are you really willing to let Matias die just to protect your job?"
The weight of her words crashed over the room like a tidal wave. Milana and Alastor turned ghostly pale, their faces drained of all color. Without hesitation, they dropped to their knees, their trembling hands reaching toward me as they pleaded, their voices broken with desperation.
I kept my gaze fixed on the screen, ignoring the chaos around me.
“Defeat!”
The game’s failure notification blared from my phone, loud and mocking. I stared at the screen as the crystal shattered into pieces, then flung the phone aside in frustration.
“This is all your fault! You just couldn’t shut up, could you?!”
“That was my promotion match, and you ruined it! Buzzing around like flies, so damn annoying!”
Alastor knelt at my feet, trembling. His once-proud face was now creased with desperation as he looked up, his voice weak and pleading.
“Verena, please… As long as you save Matias, we’ll give you anything—anything you want…”
Around us, the crowd began to stir, their whispers swelling like ripples in still water. Realization dawned on their faces, their expressions shifting—some with pity, others with suspicion.
A few elderly women exchanged disapproving glances, their faces pinched with judgment as they looked me up and down.
Before I could speak, the door to the hospital room burst open.
A young nurse came rushing out, her face drained of color, panic etched in every line of her expression.
“Dr. Hewitt, Dr. Hewitt, his blood pressure just dropped! He might not survive!”
Her voice wavered with a sharp edge of panic.
Odette turned to the nurse, her eyes flashing with irritation before she shifted her dark, penetrating gaze back to me.
“Verena,” she began, her tone hard, “I’ll ask you one last time: are you sure you won’t go in to see him?”
I held her gaze, silent.
The wound on my wrist pulled painfully, fresh blood trickling out, vivid and red.
Under the weight of Odette’s stormy gaze, I slowly nodded, the action deliberate yet filled with resolve.
Seeing this, Alastor grabbed my arm in a desperate, frantic motion. Before he could utter a word, Milana’s wail cut through the air, raw with emotion.
"How can you be so heartless?"
Her voice cracked, trembling with grief.
"Matias dated you for seven years, never once caring that your family was poor!"
"He’s handsome, well-educated, with countless women vying for his attention, yet he chose you, he insisted on marrying you!"
"From the moment you two began dating, wasn’t everything you ate, everything you wore, bought by my son?"
"When you married, you brought nothing, a poor family, no dowry, but we never looked down on you."
"Even your tuition for your master's and doctoral studies came from Matias’s pocket! Now his life hangs by a thread, and you..."
Milana’s words sliced through the air, each one heavier than the last, dripping with sorrow and fury.
By the end, she could no longer hold back, her sobs spilling over in a torrent of despair.
The crowd could no longer hold their tongues. One by one, voices rose in condemnation, their words sharp with disapproval.
"Young lady, is your job really more important than this? You can always find another job, but if your husband dies, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!"
"Exactly! He treated you like gold, loved you with every ounce of his heart, and now you’re just going to turn your back on him? How can you forget where you came from?"
"Saving lives should always come first, especially since he got hurt trying to save you. What’s there to hesitate about? I just don’t understand!"
"How could she be so cold-hearted?"
The whispers around me grew louder, a wave of judgment crashing over me.
I sat motionless on the bench, my lips pressed tight, unyielding like a stubborn rock.
When I didn’t respond, Alastor, on the brink of collapse, clung to my pant leg, his grip desperate as he begged.
"Verena, how about this?"
"You go in and save him, and as a token of our gratitude, we’ll transfer the house and the car to your name..."
At the mention of the offer, I finally raised my gaze.
Noticing my expression soften, Alastor’s face lit up with relief, his chest heaving as he pounded it in victory.
"Verena, don’t worry, I swear on it!"
"As long as you save Matias, the house, the car, even all our savings, they’re yours!"
A ripple of astonishment spread through the crowd.
Everyone was moved by the depth of Alastor’s fatherly devotion.
I looked down at him, my thoughts calculating quietly behind my gaze.
The combined worth of his house, car, and savings easily ran into the millions.
Selling my career for that wasn’t the worst trade.
But, I raised my eyes again, my voice softening with a touch of reluctance.
"Alright, I’ll save him. But..."
Alastor’s face brightened instantly, his eyes locked on mine with an eager hope.
I drew out my words, speaking deliberately, as if each syllable weighed on me.
"But you’ll need to sign a contract with me first. Without that, what if you decide to go back on your promise?"
At this, Alastor’s smile faltered, disbelief flashing in his eyes.
Milana couldn’t hold herself back any longer; her voice quivered with raw emotion as she cried out.
"Matias is in critical condition! How can we waste time on a contract?"
"My poor son! How could he end up marrying someone so ungrateful?"
I gave a helpless shrug, my tone unwavering.
"No contract, no surgery."
The crowd murmured again, their voices thick with condemnation.
Some of the more fiery onlookers looked as though they were about to lash out in their frustration.
Just then, another nurse burst through the door, her uniform streaked with blood.
Her voice shook, a mix of shock and urgency in her words.
"The patient just lost consciousness. Before he did, he asked me to deliver a message."
"He told me to stop pressuring Verena. He knows how hard she worked to get this job."
The mention of Matias losing consciousness sent Milana collapsing to the floor, her grief too heavy to bear.
Her face was ashen, her body trembling so violently that words seemed impossible to form.
Tears streamed down Alastor’s face, his pain evident as he dropped to his knees, his head bowing to the ground with such force it seemed he might choke on the weight of his own grief.
Between clenched teeth, he rasped, his words barely escaping.
"His life is on the line. I’ll keep every promise. Just... please..."
I glanced at the elderly couple, their faces etched with worry and exhaustion, and for a brief moment, doubt clouded my mind.
My parents had passed when I was young, and the concept of familial love had always felt distant.
But when I met Matias, things were different. He had introduced me to his parents early on, and their warmth had been something I’d never known.
The Campbells, so kind, so genuine, had never once made me feel inferior because of my background. They had taken me in as one of their own, showing me a care that left an impression I could never forget.
