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“Because you don’t have money to spare?”

“Because I’ve already reached my quota of pro bono cases for the year.”

Ellis shakes her head. I can hear her disappointment in her voice.

“Unbelievable. You can do one more. You just don’t want to.”

“Right. So I’m throwing it away. That’s what you said I do, right?”

“This is a person’s life we’re talking about.” Ellis’s voice rises a notch.

“Well, we can’t save everyone, Smithson,” I tell her. “The sooner you learn that, the better.”

“But we can try. We should try.”

“And we do try to save the ones who ask us to save them, the ones who pay for us to save them.”

“Bullshit.”

I give her a stern look. “Smithson, I will not tolerate such language in my OR.”

“But you – ”

She stops as the heart monitor starts beeping.

Shit.

“He’s crashing! Get the cart here now.”

I get off my stool and stand over the patient’s chest.

“Dr. Knight, what can I do?” Ellis asks me.

“You’ve done enough,” I tell her. “Now, get out of my OR.”

She gasps.

“Get out!” I shout at her before grabbing the defibrillator. “Charge to 300. Clear!”

~

Forty minutes later, I step out of the OR. I pull my cap off my hair and lean against the wall as I let out a sigh of relief.

“How’s the patient?” Ellis asks me.

She’s standing right in front of me, her cap still on.

“He’ll be fine,” I inform her. “We were able to stabilize his heart and take out the tumor.”

She, too, lets out a breath of relief as she pulls off her cap and holds it against her chest. “Good.”

“What you did wasn’t fine, though,” I tell her.

Her eyebrows arch. “What I did?”

“Questioning my decision.”

“You mean regarding the pro bono surgery? I just don’t understand why – ”

“Let me be clear,” I cut her off. “I do my best to save everyone who ends up on my operating table. I just don’t let everyone on it.”

“Because they can’t afford you?” Ellis puts her hands on her hips. “You know, when I heard you only did surgeries above a certain price, I thought it was because you like to challenge yourself. You do the difficult procedures everyone else is afraid to do. But you know what? I was wrong. You only do expensive surgeries because you’re greedy. You only do surgeries for money.”

“Ellis,” I warn her as I feel my temper rise.

“You’re selfish,” she goes on. “You don’t deserve to be a doctor.”

“And you think you do?” I ask her. “You’re a child. You use your heart way too much.”

“And you’re heartless!” Ellis shouts at me. Then she draws a deep breath and pauses. “Then again, I already knew that. After all, if you had a heart, you wouldn’t have thrown me away like a used condom.”

“It had nothing to do with heart. It was sex. That’s all. When are you going to grow up and realize that, huh?”

She doesn’t answer.

“See, that’s the problem with you, Ellis. Everything’s personal for you. And maybe that’s working for you right now, but eventually it’s going to backfire, and what will happen then, hmm? I’ll tell you.” I hold her arm. “You’re not going to survive.”

Ellis wrenches her arm away and narrows her eyes. “Watch me.”

Then she stomps off.

Chapter 5 ~ Pain Killer

Ellis

Who does Rainier think he is?

I ask myself the question as I tack a smiling reindeer to my bedroom door, replacing the sunflowers.

I know he’s an esteemed neurosurgeon who’s been in practice for several years now. I know he’s my boss and the owner of the hospital I work in. I know I slept with him. That doesn’t mean he knows me, though, and that definitely doesn’t give him the right to say I don’t deserve to be a doctor.

I let out a deep breath.

Fine. Maybe I shouldn’t have said the same thing to him. I didn’t mean it anyway. I was just so upset that even though he’s so rich, he won’t do a pro bono surgery on one patient. He’s already reached his quota? What does that even mean?

I’m not a child. I know that the healthcare industry is a business. I know that hospitals need money, that everything in the hospital down to a cotton ball costs money. I know, too, that doctors need money to live, to provide for their families. But can’t Rainier do just one more surgery for free? After all, it’s almost Christmas.

I go to the couch and rest my head to stare at the ceiling.

Oh well. It’s none of my business. Why do I care? If he wants to be one of those doctors who only treats patients for money, that’s not my problem.

As for me, I know what kind of doctor I’m going to be. I may or may not deserve to be a doctor, but I am one, and I’m going to do my best to save as many lives as I can. I’m not going to turn away anyone who needs my help. That’s how I’m going to survive – by knowing I’m saving lives, that I’m helping others. Not just that, I’m going to thrive.

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