Chapter 5

Starting my residency at City General Hospital was supposed to be a new beginning. A clean slate. I threw myself into the work, the long hours and endless demands a welcome distraction. The exhaustion was a comfort, a heavy blanket that smothered the quiet, nameless grief that still lingered in the back of my mind.

But freedom, I was learning, was an illusion.

My parents, under the guise of concern for my "fragile state," had hired a driver for me. A stoic man named Frank who was less of a chauffeur and more of a warden. He reported my every move back to them. Where I went, what time I got home. I was a doctor, saving lives, but I was still a prisoner of my family's fear.

One afternoon, I was reviewing a patient's chart at the nurses' station when a familiar, cloying perfume filled the air.

"Well, well. Look what we have here."

I looked up. Emily Vance stood before me, dressed in a designer pantsuit that cost more than my monthly salary. She wasn't a patient. Her family was a major donor to the hospital. A plaque with their name on it hung in the main lobby. She belonged here more than I did.

"I have to say, Sarah, I'm surprised to see you working here," she said, a saccharine smile playing on her lips. "After everything that happened, I thought you'd want to stay far away."

I put the chart down and gave her a polite, professional look. "Hello, Emily. Is there something I can help you with?"

She leaned against the counter, tapping a perfectly manicured nail on the surface. "Oh, no. Just making my rounds. Checking on my family's investment." Her eyes swept over me, critical and sharp. "You've changed," she mused. "You used to have this... fire in your eyes. This pathetic desperation. Now you're just... cold. It's an improvement, I suppose. Less messy."

"If you'll excuse me, I have patients to attend to," I said, turning back to my work.

Her presence lingered, a toxic cloud. The brief, unpleasant encounter was enough to pull a memory to the surface, sharp and unwanted.

I was back in my old apartment. Emily had cornered me there, her eyes filled with a triumphant cruelty. Ethan had just left. He had just told me it was over.

"He was never going to choose you, Sarah," she had sneered, her voice dripping with venom. "You're nothing. Just a little charity case he felt sorry for. He's with me now. He loves me. And you? You're just a sad, pathetic girl who doesn't know when to give up. He will never, ever love you."

The words echoed in my head, as clear as if she had just spoken them.

I felt a sudden, sharp ache in my right wrist. I looked down and instinctively rubbed the spot. There was no mark there now, not after three years. But I could still feel it. The memory of being held down, of bone grinding against bone. The phantom pain was a permanent souvenir from my past.

I clenched my hand into a fist, my knuckles white. It was a subconscious reflex, a physical manifestation of a trauma my mind was still trying to bury.