All Chapters of The Love I Couldn't Clock In For: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

8 Chapters

Chapter 1

The infirmary reeked of disinfectant.I opened my eyes. A harsh light glared down from the ceiling. Fluid dripped through a plastic tube into my vein while my stomach cramped in waves.I stared at the Family Attendance Chart on my phone for a full minute. I felt nothing.Half an hour earlier, my hands had been submerged in formaldehyde for anatomy class, and I'd missed six video check-ins with my mother, Rhonda Whiteley. By the time I checked my phone, she'd already docked my allowance into the negative according to her chart.She'd even sent a sixty-second voice message. Her tone was gentle. But every word cut like a knife."Giselle, you've disappointed me so much. Your allowance is zeroed out. Think hard about what you've done."I hadn't eaten in two full days. My blood sugar crashed, triggering a severe stomach spasm, and I'd collapsed stiff as a board outside the anatomy building.I raised my left hand and opened my chat thread with Rhonda. The screen was packed with check-i

Chapter 2

At ten o'clock that night, I made my way to sub-basement two of the med school's lab building. The hallway lights flickered. The air reeked of formaldehyde and rotting flesh.I pushed open the metal door, and a blast of cold air hit me. At the dissection table, a figure in a white coat stood with his back to me, head bent over his work. Under the shadowless lamp, his profile was sharp and clean, and the hand gripping the scalpel was rock steady."Get changed, wash your hands, and glove up in doubles," he said, without turning around. His voice was ice cold.I put on the protective suit and pulled on my gloves before stepping up beside him."The sink over there has more than a hundred instruments that were just used, and next to it is the discard table," he said. "You have one hour to scrub them clean and put them back by number." He stepped back half a pace. "If you're squeamish enough to throw up in my lab, you can leave right now."I walked to the sink. The instruments were cake

Chapter 3

Sean had always looked down on me, and he never bothered hiding his passwords or account details around me. I already knew the passwords to several of his most-used social media accounts.On a cautious whim, I logged into the cloud storage on one of his rarely used accounts. What I found there, stuff he'd apparently saved just to brag about, floored me. Screenshots of IOUs from various online lending platforms, betting records from a sports gambling site, and chat logs where he bragged to friends about blowing through that six-hundred-dollar "dating fund."I downloaded every piece of it immediately, organized it into a slideshow, and saved it to a flash drive, just in case.…I followed the woman down the hallway, my chest tight.She pushed open the office door, and there sat Rhonda, dressed in a dress, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a tissue. The moment she saw me walk in, she shot to her feet, her voice cracking."Giselle, you're finally willing to see your mother. Do

Chapter 4

The lecture hall was packed, standing room only.The moment I walked in, the chatter dropped to a hush. Dozens of eyes swung toward me. I walked straight to an empty seat in the front row and sat down, pulling out my notebook.The bell had just rung when the doors were shoved open. Rhonda stormed in with three relatives in tow. Trailing behind them, shoulders hunched and eyes darting anywhere but at me, was Sean."Giselle, get out here!" Rhonda's shrill voice rang through the hall.The professor at the front frowned and set down his chalk hard. "Ma'am, we're in the middle of a class. Please leave."Rhonda ignored him completely, charged up to the podium, and dropped to her knees. The room erupted."Everyone, judge for yourselves! I busted my back raising this girl, gave her six hundred dollars a month, and she still says it's not enough!" She shrieked, working herself up. "She's out there taking loan-shark money and selling herself! I'm dragging her home today if it kills me. I

Chapter 5

The screen showed Sean's transaction history on an illegal gambling site, along with a loan-shark IOU with his ID photo attached. Beside it, a nauseating breakdown of how he'd spent that six-hundred-dollar "dating fund," blown on nights out at bars and virtual gifts showered on a livestreamer.The lecture hall exploded.Paige shot to her feet, her voice shaking with fury. "Giselle's been starving these past few days, she collapsed from hunger, and this piece of trash of a brother blew all the money gambling and tipping some streamer?!""Call the cops! Get this gambling addict arrested!""Yeah! Arrest him!""That's not a mother, that's a bloodsucker in human skin!"Rhonda, hearing the crowd turn on her and staring at the damning evidence still up on the screen, completely lost it."You ungrateful bitch! I'll kill you!"She charged the podium like a rabid dog and swung her hand at my face. My eyes went cold. I sidestepped and clamped my grip around her wrist, hard enough to stop

Chapter 6

In the blink of an eye, junior year arrived.Over the past two years, I'd climbed from the lab's lowest rung, scrubbing instruments, to standing at the operating table as lead surgeon. All that quiet grinding paid off. I'd published a landmark paper out of Professor Cheshire's lab and started making a real name for myself in medical circles.Between scholarships, research stipends, and patent royalties, I'd put a down payment on a small apartment near campus. I finally had a place of my own.Rhonda and Sean, meanwhile, were falling apart. Sean's five-thousand-dollar loan had grown so large Rhonda had to sell her car just to fill the hole. After that, she'd hung that same brutal Family Attendance Chart around Sean's neck instead.That afternoon, I'd just walked out of surgery when my phone rang. It was an unknown number. The second I picked up, Sean's furious voice came roaring through."Giselle! Did you block Mom? Pick up her call right now!"I gave a cold laugh. "Spit it out or

Chapter 7

Sean was sentenced to three years for large-scale gambling and fraud. Rhonda had to sell the villa just to cover the hundred-thousand-dollar hole he'd left behind.She moved into a run-down rental and scraped by on odd jobs at a grocery store. Word was her mind had started to slip, that she'd grab random young women on the street and demand to know why they wouldn't answer her video calls. Passersby called her crazy.As for me, in my first year of grad school, I got an offer from a top medical research institute. A week before I left, Professor Cheshire took me out to dinner. Partway through the meal, he handed me a folder."Recommendation letters and project contacts for over there. Once you're out of the country, don't embarrass me."I took it with both hands and nodded, meaning it. "Thank you for everything you've taught me these past few years."He picked up his teacup, studying me. "Giselle, you're made of good material. Before, you did this to survive. Going forward, I hope

Chapter 8

Officer Marlon closed the file and let out a heavy sigh. "Even a tiger doesn't eat its own cub. That woman's completely out of her mind."I leaned back in my chair and suddenly laughed, tears streaming down my face.Did she ever actually love Sean? Please. She only loved herself. When Sean could feed her vanity and her need for control, she spoiled him rotten, no limits. But the second her precious son turned into a bottomless pit that only drained her, she raised the knife without blinking."Ms. Kerr, this case involves attempted murder and excessive self-defense, so it'll go through formal prosecution. Rhonda is brain-dead right now, kept alive on a ventilator. Sean used excessive force in self-defense and caused serious injury, so he's definitely going back in, with an even harsher sentence this time."Officer Marlon looked at me, his eyes full of sympathy. "I'm sorry for your loss."I stood up and straightened my clothes. "Officer Marlon, I stopped having family a long time

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