Chapter 1

The screech of tires was the last thing I heard clearly.

Then, a monstrous impact, a universe of shattering glass and metal screaming.

Darkness.

Then, blurry lights, frantic voices.

"Mount Sinai West, ETA two minutes! Two critical females, MVC!"

My hospital. Ethan's hospital.

I tried to focus. My head throbbed, a deep, sickening pain. My vision swam.

Brooke. Where was Brooke?

She was next to me in the ambulance, moaning, her leg bent at an awful angle. A compound fracture, I registered, even through my own haze.

Ethan. He was Chief Ortho Resident. He' d be on call.

The ambulance doors burst open. Familiar faces, ER colleagues.

"Ava? Oh my God, Ava!" Sarah, one of the nurses, her face pale.

"Headache," I managed, "severe. Disoriented."

They rushed us into separate trauma bays.

Then I heard his voice, sharp, commanding. Ethan.

He went to Brooke' s bay first. I could hear him.

"Compound tib-fib, get her prepped for OR one, stat!"

A moment later, he was at my gurney. His face was a mask of professional concern, but his eyes flicked over my facial cuts, dismissive.

"Ava, stop being dramatic! Brooke's leg is shattered, she needs the OR now!"

His words hit me harder than the crash. Dramatic? My head felt like it was splitting open.

"Ethan," I tried, "my head..."

"You're shaken up, Ava. Expected. I need to take Brooke. She' s critical." He was already turning away.

Betrayal, cold and sharp, pierced through my pain. Five years, living together, and this was my value. Less than his stepsister's broken bone.

He chose her. Not me.

The ER team started on me, lights too bright, questions too fast.

I felt a strange detachment, a cold wave washing over me.

Dr. Ramirez was saying something about a CT scan.

Then, nothing.

A sudden, painless snap.

I was floating, looking down.

At myself. Ava Miller, ER Physician, lying still on the gurney.

My own colleagues were working frantically, chest compressions, someone shouting for epi.

"She's coding!"

Ethan was in the OR with Brooke. He didn't know. He wouldn't know until it was too late.

It already was too late.

I watched them, a silent, invisible observer, as they tried to bring me back.

Their efforts were futile. I knew.

The monitor flatlined. A long, unbroken tone.

The sound of my death.

My spirit, or whatever this was, felt a faint tug. Towards Ethan.

I was tethered to him, an unseen shadow.

He was in the scrub room, pulling off his gloves, sweat on his brow. He looked tired but satisfied. Brooke' s surgery was a success.

A nurse, Maria, approached him hesitantly. "Dr. Hayes... about Dr. Miller..."

"What about her?" he asked, curt, impatient. "Is she still making a fuss?"

"Her sister, Olivia, she... she made arrangements, Doctor."

Ethan frowned. "Arrangements? So she went off with Olivia? Furious, I bet. Fine. Let her cool off." He still thought I was just angry, overreacting. He didn't understand.

He still believed Brooke' s story, the one she' d sobbed out before they wheeled her away. That I' d said something reckless, distracted the driver. A hit-and-run. Brooke always knew how to play the victim.

I drifted, weightless, watching him.

My body was gone. This new state was... empty.

I remembered a pact we made, years ago, young and idealistic. Whole-body donation. Our skeletons to our respective departments. Orthopedics for him, Emergency Medicine for me. A dark joke then. Now...

The thought didn't even feel morbid anymore. Just a fact.