Introduction

My marriage had been a cold, empty room for five years. I was reeling from a devastating loss, sitting in the ER breakroom, when a familiar voice shattered what little peace I had left.

"Mark, are you really going to die for her? For Emily Davis?" David Chase's voice, raw with anger, cut through the hospital air outside my husband' s room.

His next words felt like a physical blow: "All these years, every overtime shift, every missed holiday, every time you let Sarah and Lily down... wasn't it all just so you could hear her voice on the dispatch? Just to hear Emily say, 'Engine 32, you're cleared to return to base'?"

My world tilted. It wasn' t about his job, not his heroism. It was about Emily Davis, his ex-girlfriend. He had covered for her when her family went bankrupt, joining the fire academy to be near her, while I, Sarah, picked up the pieces, paying his debts, loving him for 16 years, waiting for a new beginning.

Then, Lily, our daughter, died. The fever spiked viciously, taking her life in my arms within hours. Mark never knew. He never answered my desperate calls. He was always on duty, always chasing the next emergency-which now I knew was always about Emily.

Why was I just a placeholder? Why was our daughter a casualty of his obsession? I didn't understand. I couldn't understand how everything I believed was a lie. How could I have been so blind?

Something inside me, something that had been dying for five years, finally broke. I pulled out my phone, not to call a lawyer, but my old professor. "Dr. Reed," I said, my voice shockingly steady. "You once told me about a flight nurse program. Is it too late to apply?"