Chapter 5

Elias stepped forward and gathered the kitten's body into his arms. Adeline didn't want it, but he did.

He tore off his jacket and roughly tied it around his wound, then drove the kitten to a park. After he buried it, he sat beside the little grave in a daze for a while before finally getting up and heading to the hospital.

As soon as he walked into the ER, he found Adeline and Ansel making a scene. "He's badly hurt! What gives you the right to refuse to bandage him?"

The doctor beside them tried to explain. "I've told you over and over, it's just a surface wound! It's tiny, so all he needs is a little disinfectant, and then he can go!"

But Adeline wouldn't have it and insisted on a bandage. They were still at a standstill when she spotted Elias. "Perfect timing. You're a surgeon at this hospital, aren't you? Hurry up and bandage Ansel!"

His coworkers noticed Elias too. "Dr. Penrose, what happened to your arm? Are you hurt?"

Elias didn't answer. He walked over to Ansel and looked at his wrist. The cut was so faint it was barely visible, and if Adeline had brought him in any later, it probably would have healed on its own.

Out of professional integrity, Elias replied, "He doesn't need a bandage. It's nothing serious."

Adeline's eyes suddenly welled up, and she glared at him resentfully. "You're all ganging up on Ansel! Are you only going to be happy when he's dead?"

In the heat of the moment, she grabbed a scalpel from nearby and pressed it to her own neck. "If you don't bandage him, I'll kill myself right here!"

Everyone panicked. One of the doctors tried to calm her down. "Okay, okay, just calm down. I'll bandage him."

Adeline pointed at Elias. "Not you. I want him to do it!"

Elias didn't want to put his coworkers in a difficult position, so he gritted his teeth through the pain in his arm, picked up a pair of forceps, and began wrapping Ansel's wrist.

Ansel looked down at the sweat beading on Elias' forehead and couldn't keep the smirk off his face.

"The bandage is too tight. It hurts. Do it again."

Elias kept his temper in check and redid the bandage again and again. Each time he was about to finish, Ansel found something else to complain about. After more than a dozen tries, Ansel and Adeline finally left.

A wave of dizziness suddenly hit Elias, and he collapsed to the floor with a thud. His coworkers rushed over to help him up, and only then did they notice that the jacket wrapped around his arm had long since been soaked through with blood.

Elias' three wounds took more than 20 stitches altogether, and they eventually healed into three ugly scars.

A coworker told him the infection had gone untreated for too long, and the inflammation was what caused the scarring. The coworker's words carried a note of pity, but Elias didn't pay much attention. None of it mattered to him anymore.

After he left the hospital, he went home to pack his things. He gathered up all the recipes he'd once studied for Adeline's sake, along with every gift he'd ever given her, then took everything out into the yard and burned it.

The flames were dancing in Elias' eyes when Adeline came home. "What are you burning?"

"Nothing," Elias said flatly. "Just some stuff I don't need."

Adeline didn't press any further. It suddenly dawned on Elias that this home had meant nothing at all to her.

But then Adeline turned back around. "Oh, right. The anniversary of my dad's death is in a few days. You're coming with me to the countryside to visit his grave."

It was a request Elias couldn't refuse. After all, it was on that same day seven years ago that her father had given his life to save him.

On the day of the trip, he bought a big haul of fruit and snacks and loaded them into the car. It was a habit left over from taking care of Adeline, because he always worried she'd complain about being hungry on a long drive.

Only as he shut the car door did it occur to Elias that he no longer needed to keep up this habit.