Chapter 4

The fluorescent lights of the hospital emergency room were an unforgiving white. They buzzed with a low, incessant hum that seemed to drill directly into my skull. A doctor had set my arm, a clean break of the humerus, and now it was encased in a heavy plaster cast, a stark white symbol of my defeat. The physical pain was a dull, throbbing ache, a constant reminder of Mark' s casual brutality. But it was a distant echo compared to the storm raging inside me.

I lay on the stiff gurney, staring at the ceiling tiles, counting the little holes in them. One, two, three... anything to keep my mind from replaying the scene at the studio. But it was useless. The images were burned onto the inside of my eyelids: Chloe's mocking smile, Mark's sneering face, the cold lens of the camera.

I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, I heard voices from the hallway, just outside the curtain of my cubicle.

"Is he going to be okay, Doctor?"

It was Chloe's voice, thick with a flawless performance of concern.

"The break was clean, but it's a serious injury," a tired-sounding doctor replied. "He'll be in a cast for at least six to eight weeks. He's lucky the bone didn't shatter."

"That animal," Mark's voice chimed in, low and full of fake outrage. "I can't believe that mugger did this to him. Alex was just trying to get money for Chloe's treatment. He's a hero."

A mugger. That was their story. They had already crafted the narrative, painting me as a tragic victim and themselves as the worried loved ones. It was so audacious, so completely twisted, that a humorless laugh escaped my lips. It came out as a dry, ragged cough.

The curtain swished open. There they were, the two of them, their faces a perfect mask of sympathy.

"Alex! You're awake!" Chloe rushed to my side, grabbing my good hand. Her touch made my skin crawl. "We were so worried. We came as soon as we heard. Mark told me what happened. Some guy attacked you for the money?"

I just stared at her. I saw it all with a horrifying new clarity. The way she bit her lip to feign anxiety, the way Mark stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder in a gesture of supportive protection. They were actors in a play of their own design, and I was the unwilling star.

My mind flashed back to a year ago, on our first anniversary. I had spent my entire month's savings from the diner to buy her a delicate silver necklace. I had cooked her favorite meal, pasta with a simple tomato sauce, because she said it reminded her of her childhood. She had cried, telling me that no one had ever been so thoughtful, that she loved me more than anything. I had believed her. I had held her and felt like the luckiest man in the world.

That memory, once so warm and cherished, now felt like a cruel joke. The sincerity I had seen in her eyes was just a reflection of my own. Every "I love you," every shared secret, every promise for the future was a lie. A calculated move in a long game of revenge.

"Alex? Baby? Can you hear me?" Chloe's voice pulled me back to the present. She was stroking my hand, her brow furrowed. "You must be in so much pain."

I looked at her, at the face I had adored, the face I had woken up next to every morning, and I felt... nothing. The love was gone, burned away. The rage was gone, cooled into something harder, colder. All that was left was a vast, empty space where my heart used to be. I was a hollowed-out shell.

"I'm tired," I said, my voice flat and emotionless. I pulled my hand from hers.

Her face flickered with surprise, but she recovered quickly. "Of course, you need to rest. We'll be here. We won't leave you."

They were going to see this through to the end. I knew, with a chilling certainty, that the public humiliation was still on the table. They wouldn't waste the footage they had. They would just change the story. 'Brave boyfriend attacked after selling heirloom for sick girlfriend.' They would spin it. They would make me a tragic figure in their narrative, and they would be the heroes, basking in the sympathy it generated. The video of my breakdown would be their grand finale.

I closed my eyes, feigning exhaustion. I could feel them watching me. I listened to the soft murmur of their voices as they settled into the chairs in the corner of the cubicle, their presence a suffocating weight.

Later that night, after they finally left with promises to return in the morning, I pushed myself up. The hospital was quiet. I found my clothes folded on a chair, my wallet and phone placed on top. I got dressed with my one good arm, the movements slow and clumsy.

The phone buzzed. It was a text from Chloe.

`Get some rest. I'll be there first thing in the morning to sign your discharge papers. We'll get through this together. I love you.`

'Together.' The word was a mockery. I knew what would happen. She would take me home, play the doting nurse for a few days, and then, when the time was right, they would release the video. This was their final, crushing blow. And I was supposed to just lie here and take it.

But I wasn't the same person who had walked into that studio. The naive, trusting Alex was gone, shattered on the floor along with my arm. The person who walked out of that hospital, into the cold pre-dawn air, was someone new. Someone who had nothing left to lose, and a promise to keep. A promise I had made to myself.

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