Chapter 1

My phone buzzed, and a message from Sophie Morgan appeared on the screen.

The girl I had financially supported for ten years.

I opened it.

“Eliana, there are some things I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time.

“You’ve supported me for ten years. I was grateful once, but you know better than anyone how little that money actually amounts to.

“You want me to return to Bellmont and work at the county hospital for three years? Do you even know which hospital my advisor recommended? St. Catherine’s Medical Center.

“You gave me a few hundred dollars, and now you think you can bind me to a three-year commitment after I earn my PhD? Don’t you think that’s disgusting?

“You never genuinely wanted to help me. You were investing. You treated me like a stock, buying me and waiting to cash in later at a profit.

“I’m sick of the way you always look down on me.

“Starting today, I don’t want your financial support anymore. I’ll pay you back tenfold someday.

“And I’m not going to that hospital either. You can forget about it.

“You’re fake. Selfish. Disgusting.”

Message after message appeared on the screen.

Before I could type a single word, another message came through.

“Oh, and I posted a screenshot of that $600 living allowance you gave me online. Let everyone see what it looks like when someone tries to use money to control another person.”

A red exclamation mark appeared beneath the message.

She had blocked me.

I stared at the screen, my fingers slowly going cold.

Ten years.

An entire ten years.

It had started the summer she turned eighteen and was accepted into medical school. Now she was in the second year of her PhD.

Ten years of tuition, housing, living expenses, textbooks, research materials, graduate-school prep courses, PhD application fees...

I had never once asked her to sign an IOU.

I had never demanded a written promise from her.

My only condition had been that she return to Bellmont and work at the county hospital for three years after graduation.

I took a deep breath and placed my phone facedown on the table.

Memories of that summer ten years ago came flooding back.

That evening, I had gone to Bellmont General Hospital to visit my aunt, who was staying there.

A crowd had gathered at the far end of the hospital corridor. A nurse was shouting for someone to call a doctor.

A girl was being wheeled out of the emergency room, her wrist wrapped in thick layers of gauze.

A middle-aged woman followed behind her, sobbing hysterically.

I stood by the corridor and watched the stretcher pass.

Later, I heard her story from one of the nurses.

The girl had just been accepted into medical school. Her acceptance letter had already arrived, but her family couldn’t afford the tuition.

Her father had died years earlier, and her mother, Rebecca Morgan, worked as a supermarket cashier. Rebecca had spent two months trying to scrape together the money, but couldn't save enough money for her to study medicine.

The girl thought her life was over.

If she couldn’t afford to go to college, she might as well stop living.

So she had cut her wrist.

Fortunately, she had been brought in for treatment in time, and her life was saved.

I stood outside the hospital room and looked through the half-open door.

She was lying on her side on the bed, facing the wall, her shoulders trembling.

Her mother sat beside her, holding her hand, tears filling her eyes.

The two of them sat in silence, neither saying a word.

The only sound in the room was the relentless chirping of cicadas outside the window.

I stood there for a long time.

Long enough for the fluorescent lights in the hallway to start flickering.

That night, I went home and checked my savings.

I had been working for eight years. I hadn’t saved a fortune, but I had enough to put a child through college.

The next day, I went back to the hospital.

I got straight to the point.

“I’ll pay for your college. Tuition, living expenses, housing—all of it.

“I only have one condition. After you graduate, you come back and work at Bellmont General Hospital for three years.

“After those three years, you can go wherever you want. I won’t stop you.”

Rebecca Morgan immediately tried to kneel in front of me.

I quickly caught her before she could.

Tears streamed down her face and fell onto the floor.

Sophie nodded.

“Okay. I agree.”