When Pain Runs Bone-Deep

The lights in the ward flickered unsteadily above me. Vaguely, I saw a person in a white doctor's coat running in hurriedly.

"Dr. Steward, there's only one opening left for the operating room. Who should go first?"

I reached out and tugged at Yves Steward's coat. He turned his head and seemed to have frowned at me—I couldn't see clearly.

In the bed beside me, Julia Henderson began crying again. "Yves, am I going to become a cripple? Will the surgery leave scars on me?"

Without hesitation, Yves pushed my hand aside. "Summer, you’ve only got a few cuts on your face and hands. You'll just need some local anesthesia and simple first aid; Julia's bone fracture needs immediate attention. Stop making a fuss!"

My head spun as I watched Yves comfort Julia tenderly, not even sparing me a glance. Weakly, I opened my mouth to speak.

I wanted to tell him that I wasn't trying to make a fuss. I couldn't even remember how Julia got hurt.

I never did anything to her. Why didn't he believe me?

I was willing to leave him on my own accord—I wasn't that pathetic.

I wanted him to look at me.

The hollow rumbling of the hospital bed's wheels echoed down the hallway. The sound hurt my ears.

He never looked back.

With a long beep, my heart monitor flatlined. My soul began to rise from my body.

I saw a nurse calling for the on-duty doctor while rushing toward me with a crash cart. I felt a little guilty,

I was sorry that they would have to file a report on my death, thus adding to the paperwork.

My soul floated upward, drifting into the operation theater.

Yves had just finished scrubbing in and was putting on his gloves.

After all that fighting over the last few days, I finally had the chance to really look at my boyfriend of seven years.

If I were honest with myself, Yves was really good-looking.

Back in school, I had been drawn to the sharp focus in his eyes when he was doing his experiments. It was the reason why I had decided to pursue him, after all.

I hadn't known that he had a childhood sweetheart back then.

Trailing after him, I poked at his back. "You know, a lot of people liked me back in school too. If you had told me that you liked her earlier, I wouldn't have gone after you."

Yves couldn't hear me. After putting on his gloves, he turned and walked right through me, giving me a scare.

I wanted to tell him off, but then I bit my lip.

It didn't matter. He wouldn't hear me anyway.

The doors to the operating theater swung open just then. One of the nurses entered, holding a phone. "Dr. Steward, the ER called and said that one of your patients just coded. Do you want to go take a look?"

Yves did not even pause in his movements. "Tell them to handle it themselves. I'm already scrubbed in."

I sighed. That was just how Yves was—in his mind, nothing was more important than surgery.

However, if he could hear me, I would've told him to go take a look. After all, the patient who was being resuscitated was none other than me, his girlfriend.

Then, I turned and saw Julia on the table and instantly had doubts.

It was hard to say whether my death was more important than Julia's surgery to him.

Fixing Julia's fracture wasn't an easy surgery, but neither was my resuscitation.

Just as he was piecing together the bone fragments, brows furrowed, the door swung open a second time.

"Dr. Steward, the ER is asking for Dr. Leeson to help intubate the coding patient."

Even in the hospital, connections mattered. A top surgeon like Yves naturally had the best anesthesiologist, Alex Leeson, with him in the surgery.