Never Your Emergency Contact

In Lauren’s phone, everyone had an identity. My best friend, Jamie, was saved with a tender, glowing nickname: “Jemmy”. And me? I was nothing more than ten unassigned digits. Just a raw phone number floating in her recent calls. I had asked her about it once, early on. She had reached over, fingers threading through my hair with that easy, practiced warmth of hers. “I know your number by heart, Brett. Why would I need a contact card? Besides, Jamie’s like your protective little brother—if I’m going to marry you, I have to keep him happy, don’t I?” Jamie had laughed it off, too, patting my shoulder. “Don’t read into it, man. You’re the one she’s putting a ring on. She knows where her heart is.” Back then, I let myself believe her. I told myself that being unlabeled meant being etched so deeply into her life that ordinary markers were unnecessary. Until tonight. With a fever spiking near a hundred and four, shivering so hard my teeth clattered against the rim of a water glass, I texted her asking if she could pick up some fever reducers on her way home. Her reply came twenty minutes later: “Drink plenty of fluids. I’m stuck at the office with back-to-back client filings tonight.” Ten minutes after that, I dragged myself out to the urgent care clinic across town—only to stop dead on the sidewalk opposite the twenty-four-hour pharmacy. Through the brightly lit plate-glass window, Lauren was standing at the counter. Her coat was unbuttoned, her hair slightly disheveled, her face drawn tight with frantic concern as she compared allergy medication boxes for Jamie, who stood beside her rubbing his red, puffy eyes. I stood on the frozen pavement, the chill sinking straight into my marrow, and dialed her number. Inside the glass, her screen lit up on the counter. Those ten digits—the ones she claimed to know backward and forward—glowed against the dark glass. Without a second of hesitation, Lauren tapped the red decline button. She turned back to Jamie, offering him a small, reassuring smile. “Just another telemarketer. Ignore it.” Listening to the flat drone of the dial tone in my ear, I pulled up our message thread—pinned at the very top of my screen for four years—and hit delete. In her world, I had never been given a name anyway. And nobody notices when an unsaved number quietly stops calling. … I took a cab back alone to the two-bedroom condo we were supposed to celebrate our engagement in next month. The living room was choked with cardboard boxes: personalized favor bags, velvet ribbon, tiered trays of imported sweets, and stacks of embossed invitations. Lauren had handed full creative control of the event over to Jamie. A milestone that was supposed to belong to me was stamped, in every corner, with his aesthetic. Tomorrow was the deadline to mail out the invitations. Lauren had previously remarked that my handwriting was too plain, lacking the aristocratic flourish she preferred. She noted that Jamie had practiced classical copperplate script, so she handed the entire guest list over to him. I hadn’t argued. Who penned the envelopes didn’t seem worth a fight. I walked into the study. A neat stack of heavy crimson envelopes sat beside the desk lamp. I pulled one out from the middle and slid the card from its sleeve. The bride’s name was embossed in gold: “Lauren Powell”. And beneath it, in the space reserved for the groom, the name was inked in elegant, flawless script: “Jamie Cooper”. The front door clicked open, and Lauren walked into the study. Her trench coat carried the faint, sterile smell of hospital disinfectant. “I pushed off tonight’s late meetings and came straight home because I was worried about your fever,” she said, pulling off her gloves. “Why haven’t you been answering my texts?” Before the sentence fully left her mouth, her gaze caught the open card pinched between my fingers. Her expression flickered, but only for a fraction of a second. “Jamie used an old template he designed for a friend when he set up the digital typesetting. He copied the wrong footer line. I was just about to tell you.” “We need to reprint them tomorrow,” I said, my voice dry and rough from the fever. Lauren’s brow furrowed. Her hand came down flat on top of the crimson stack. “Brett, reprinting several hundred custom-embossed cards will push the timeline back by at least a week. Everything is already scheduled.” She looked at me, her eyes steady, adopting that smooth, reasonable tone she used when closing deals. “I’ll have the stationery shop print an insert photo of the two of us to slip inside the envelopes. Let’s not turn a simple clerical error into an ordeal that embarrasses everyone. Jamie already feels sick over it.” As if on cue, her phone buzzed against the polished mahogany desk. She accepted the video call, and Jamie’s face filled the screen. He was curled on his sofa, wearing an oversized, cream-colored shearling jacket. I recognized that jacket instantly. Two nights ago, Lauren had come home past midnight carrying a high-end department store bag. She tossed it onto the credenza, casually mentioning she’d passed a boutique between client dinners and thought the cut was sharp. I had assumed it was meant for me. Now I knew where it had belonged all along. “Brett, I am so, so sorry,” Jamie murmured into the camera. He pulled the shearling collar higher around his throat, his eyes pink-rimmed and moist. “It was entirely my carelessness. I pulled up an old mock-up to save time and completely missed the groom line until Lauren texted me.” Lauren stood behind the screen, silent, not correcting a single word. “To make it up to you,” Jamie added quickly, voice trembling with earnest remorse, “I’m covering the dessert bar for the party entirely out of my own pocket. I’ve already put in an order for those matcha pastries—I know Lauren loves them, and the guests will think they’re exquisite.” I turned my head to look at Lauren. She despised matcha. On our second anniversary, when a bakery mistakenly delivered a matcha mousse cake, she took one bite, grimaced, and chased it with half a glass of seltzer, complaining that the grassy bitterness felt like chewing on pulverized lawn clippings. Jamie, on the other hand, drank matcha lattes every morning. He put his own name on my wedding invitations, wore the jacket she bought, and picked the flavors that pleased his palate. Give it another week, and perhaps he would decide who stood at the altar in my place, too. Seeing my silence, Lauren leaned down and touched the inside of my wrist. “He’s trying to make amends, Brett. Let’s not reprint, all right?” I used to be so undone by that soft, coaxing cadence. Three years ago, the first time she brought me home to meet her father, the old man made his disdain glaringly obvious. When we sat down for dinner, her father had deliberately instructed the housekeeper to remove the chair next to Lauren, leaving me standing in the foyer. Lauren hadn’t raised her voice. She had simply walked into the formal dining room, dragged a heavy mahogany chair across the Persian rug with her own hands, and placed it firmly at her right side. “Sit here,” she had told me, holding my hand under the table. “No matter what anyone says, your place is beside me.” I had lived on the memory of that chair for three years. I looked down at the hundred-odd crimson envelopes piled on the desk, and I gave a quiet nod. Lauren let out an audible sigh of relief. As she had done after every minor disagreement we’d ever weathered, she reached out and tousled my hair in an easy gesture of victory. I didn’t lean in. But I didn’t pull away, either. The moment she stepped into the adjoining dressing room to change, I slipped out onto the balcony, sliding the glass door shut behind me. The event coordinator at the venue picked up on the third ring. If the groom printed on the invitation wasn’t me, there was no reason to hold the room. Halfway through packing my duffel bag in the guest room, a vicious spasm tore through my upper abdomen. The gastritis that had flared during my fever suddenly clamped down like a vise. I stumbled toward the cracked door of her study, hand pressed against my stomach, opening my mouth to ask her to take me to urgent care. Through the gap in the door, her voice drifted out—hushed, infinitely tender. “Take the antibiotics, okay? Don’t whine about the bitter aftertaste. I just DoorDashed some cut papaya and melon to your lobby—go down and grab it.” The words caught in my throat, turned to ash, and dissolved. I backed away without making a sound. I threw on an overcoat, walked down to the curb, and hailed a cab to the nearest emergency room. At the registration desk, the triage nurse scanned my insurance card and photo ID. Her fingers paused on the keyboard, her eyebrows drawing together. “Mr. Dawson?” She leaned forward, checking the screen. “Your dependent coverage under Lauren Powell’s employer health policy was terminated four weeks ago.” I froze. “What?” The nurse swiveled the monitor slightly, her voice dropping to a gentle murmur. “This executive platinum tier only allows one designated family dependent. Ms. Powell filed an amendment last month, transferring the sole dependent coverage to an individual named Jamie Cooper.” She asked if I wanted to list an alternative emergency contact. I stared at the blinking cursor for a long time, then shook my head and left the line blank. On the cab ride back, my phone buzzed with an incoming call from Lauren. “Where are you?” she demanded, background noise crackling through the receiver. “Dad is hosting an informal family dinner tonight. Everyone is already here.” I looked down at the purple bruise blooming around the IV needle mark on the back of my hand, hollowed out by a profound, numbing exhaustion. “I’m not coming.” Thirty minutes later, her black sedan pulled up to the curb in front of the emergency wing. She stepped out, her expression a mix of irritation and relief. “If you were coming to the hospital, why didn’t you tell me?” Her palm reached out toward my forehead, checking for heat. For a brief, pathetic second, I didn’t pull away. I remembered the winter four years ago when my stomach ulcer had ruptured in the middle of the night. She had carried me on her back down four flights of stairs because the elevator was out of order, half-running through the slush until she flagged a cab. In the crowded ER waiting room, she had knelt before my plastic chair, rubbing my abdomen with warm hands, staying awake until sunrise. Then her phone trilled. The screen lit up with the caller ID: “Jemmy”. Lauren answered instantly, listening with quiet patience, her tone softening within syllables. “I’m five minutes away, don’t worry. I’m coming right now.” Her hand dropped from my forehead, vanishing back into her coat pocket as if it had never been there. “Jamie’s already at Dad’s place,” she said, turning toward the driver’s side. “All the senior relatives are gathered tonight. It looks terrible if you skip out. Get in the car. If you’re still hurting after dinner, I’ll drive you home early.” I climbed into the passenger seat without a word. Biscuit was currently staying in the heated mudroom at her father’s estate; I had planned to bring him back to my place in a few days. He was a scruffy ten-year-old rescue mutt with failing hips, but the moment he heard my boots on the flagstones, he dragged himself up from his orthopedic bed, his tail thumping weakly against the floor as he hobbled toward me. The second I knelt down to gather him into my arms, Jamie jerked backward, clamping both hands over his nose and mouth. “Lauren, please—get him away!” Jamie choked out, retreating into the hallway. “I’m severely allergic to pet dander. My chest is already getting tight.” Lauren didn’t hesitate. She hooked her boot beneath Biscuit’s padded bed and kicked it forcefully through the open side door onto the uncovered concrete porch. Biscuit lost his footing, tumbling sideways. His claws skittered against the wet pavers with a high, desperate scrape. “Stop it!” I lunged past her to catch him. “The weather radar said freezing rain tonight—he’s arthritic, he can’t handle the cold!” “It’s not going to rain,” Lauren snapped. Her fingers clamped down around my wrist like iron cuffs, dragging me back across the threshold before slamming the heavy storm door shut and turning the deadbolt. “What if Jamie has a respiratory attack?” Through the glass, Biscuit scratched at the base of the door. Once. Twice. Soft, bewildered whines escaping his throat. Ten years ago, when my clinical depression was at its absolute worst, I used to sit on the cold floor of my bare apartment for hours, unable to speak, unable to eat. Biscuit had been a clumsy, oversized puppy then, dragging my old flannel shirt over to lie across my bare feet, refusing to move no matter how many times I pushed him away. The first time Lauren met him, she had knelt in the dirt, burying her face in his fur. She had looked up at me and promised: “Wherever we end up in this life, Brett, he comes with us.” Now, that same dog was locked outside in the damp chill, his muffled cries barely carrying through the pane. Her father called from the dining room, announcing dinner. I had brought a thermal container of restorative herbal bone broth that I had simmered on low heat for twelve hours, originally intended for her aging parents. I brought the ceramic serving tureen to the table. Jamie rushed over from the sideboard, his hands hovering eagerly. “Let me help carry that—” The moment his fingertips brushed the rim of the bowl, his wrist gave an exaggerated, sudden twist. The scalding broth crashed to the floor, splashing across the tiles. A wave of boiling liquid washed directly over the back of my right hand, the searing heat biting instantly into the dermis. Jamie froze where he stood, his lower lip quivering, his eyes instantly flooding with tears. “Brett, I swear I didn’t mean to! I’m so clumsy… please, just yell at me, I deserve it.” Lauren snatched a linen napkin from the table, dropping to her knees to frantically dab at Jamie’s trouser cuffs. His wool slacks were pristine. Not a single drop of broth had touched him. Only after she inspected him from ankle to hip did she look up, finally noticing my hand, where the skin was already blistering into angry white welts. Her brow knit into a sharp line of annoyance. “You can’t even set a bowl of soup down without creating an incident?” She tossed the soiled napkin aside. “Go run it under the kitchen tap. I’ll order delivery.” I stood under the cold water in the prep kitchen for ten minutes, watching the swelling rise. When I finally walked back out, the delivery bags were already unpacked. Around the formal mahogany dining table, there were six place settings laid out. And only five chairs. My chair was gone again. Jamie sat immediately to Lauren’s right, draped in an expensive cashmere scarf that her father had gifted him. The family was gathered closely around him, laughing as he showed them fabric swatches for the place-card ribbons. Not a single person looked up. Lauren cast a brief, distracted glance over her shoulder. “Biscuit won’t stop whining outside. It’s giving Dad a headache. Go sit on the porch with him and keep him quiet. Honestly, Brett, your temper has been entirely too unstable tonight.” I looked at her, water from the kitchen faucet still dripping from my scalded knuckles onto the hardwood floor. “Is this the seat you saved for me?” She didn’t even register the weight behind the words. “I’ll buy you burn salve on our way home.” I turned, walked to the porch, and pushed open the door. Biscuit immediately pressed his shivering body against my shins, burying his graying snout into my coat. Behind me, from inside the bright, heated room, came the crisp clink of wine glasses. I ran my trembling fingers over Biscuit’s damp ears. “It’s time to go, buddy.” A burst of hearty laughter erupted from her father inside. The French doors weren’t pulled shut all the way. Through the two-inch crack, I watched the old man slide a carved wooden box across the linen tablecloth, revealing an antique jade signet ring—a cherished family heirloom. “This was meant for the one joining our family,” her father said, his voice carrying clearly into the night. “Brett’s personality is too rigid, too blunt. He’d never wear it right. But it looks natural on Jamie. Lauren, what do you think?” Lauren turned her head. For a fleeting instant, her eyes caught mine through the gap in the door. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t look away in shame. She simply turned back to the table, smiled warmly, and nodded. “You have great taste, Dad. It looks wonderful on him.” Outside, the skies finally opened up. A freezing, torrential downpour hammered the roof. I sat on the wooden bench, wrapping my damp overcoat around Biscuit’s shivering frame, the icy rain blowing sideways and drenching us both to the bone. Twenty minutes later, Lauren came out onto the porch, an expression of exasperated pity on her face as she pulled her own dry trench coat over my shoulders. “Why are you sitting out here in the freezing rain like an idiot?” she scolded softly, brushing wet strands of hair from my forehead. “Jamie worked his fingers to the bone helping us organize the engagement dinner. Consider the ring a token of appreciation from the family. When this is over, I’ll take you to the jeweler downtown and let you pick out something twice as expensive.” I pulled the heavy coat around myself, feeling only an inescapable, numbing chill. Whatever embers of love I had harbored for her over the last four years were snuffed out entirely in the freezing downpour. I pulled out my phone, the screen damp under my blistered thumb. I navigated to the messaging app, opened the thread with my closest colleague, and slowly typed a single sentence: “I don’t think I’m marrying Lauren anymore.” … The storm raged through the night without letting up. By dawn, sheets of gray water were still lashing the windows. Lauren was standing by the entryway mirror, adjusting her lapels to head to an early client breakfast, when my phone rang. It was the extended-care facility where my grandfather lived. The head nurse spoke with terrifying speed: my grandfather had suffered sudden, catastrophic congestive heart failure. He was being prepped for an emergency surgical transfer, and a legal guardian had to be in the hospital within the hour to sign the high-risk consent forms. All rideshare services in the county had suspended operations due to street flooding. Regional commuter lines were stalled. Panic seized my chest. I grabbed Lauren’s sleeve, my fingers trembling violently. “Drive me to the facility. Please, Lauren. I’m begging you.” Her hurried demeanor softened slightly. “Get in the car.” For the first time in forty-eight hours, she didn’t mention Jamie. The sedan surged onto the elevated highway. Rain slammed against the windshield with brutal force, the wipers screeching on maximum speed, barely carving a path through the blur. I crushed the critical-care notification between my white-knuckled fingers. Lauren glanced at me, reached out, and dialed up the climate control. “Don’t panic. We’ll make it in time.” Those six words nearly broke me. Seven years ago, when my grandfather had undergone his first major vascular surgery, she had sat beside me in the waiting room through the dead of night. We were fresh out of college then, broke, unable to afford plane tickets; she had ridden seventeen hours upright on hard Amtrak commuter seats without a single complaint just to hold my hand while I cried against her shoulder. “From now on,” she had told me then, “your family is my family.” A piercing ringtone shattered the quiet cabin. Jamie’s weeping voice spilled through the Bluetooth speakers, breathless and hysterical. “Lauren… the main breaker in my new building just blew… the transformer on the corner exploded… the whole block is pitch black… I’m trapped on the tenth floor, I can’t breathe, my chest—” Lauren’s knuckles went bloodless on the steering wheel. A hundred yards ahead, the highway branched toward an exit ramp. Her foot drifted to the brake pedal. “Don’t take the exit,” I pleaded, grabbing her forearm. “The medical director gave me sixty minutes. If I’m not there to sign, they can’t wheel him into the OR.” “I’ll get him out of the building first, then take you to the hospital,” she said, her voice tight. “That detour is forty minutes in this weather!” Lauren’s jaw clenched into a hard line. “Jamie has severe clinical claustrophobia, Brett! He can have a fatal panic-induced arrhythmia in the dark!” “My grandfather is actively dying in resuscitation!” “The hospital has a full team of doctors on duty!” she shouted back, wrenching the wheel hard to the right, steering the sedan directly onto the off-ramp. As the car swung into the turn, the air vents blasted a sudden, thick wave of fragrance into the enclosed space. It was an overpowering, sickly-sweet scent of concentrated aloe vera. It came from a scented ceramic disc hanging from the rearview mirror—the one Jamie had left behind yesterday. I had a severe, anaphylactic allergy to aloe-derived extracts. Two years ago, an accidental exposure had sent me into the ICU for three days. Jamie had been in the hospital room with us. He knew. My airways clamped shut with terrifying speed. I reached out frantically to snap the air vent shut, but my motor control was already failing. My diaphragm heaved against a locked throat; I couldn’t pull in a single cubic inch of oxygen. “Pull… pull over…” A dry, whistling wheeze scraped past my lips. Lauren glanced sideways. I was curled in the passenger seat, my fingernails clawing uselessly at the nylon seatbelt, every inhalation accompanied by a high-pitched, desperate stridor. “Where’s your rescue inhaler?” she asked, her voice dipping with sudden impatience. “Bag… in the back…” She reached behind the console, rummaged through my duffel for three seconds, and found nothing. The phone rang again through the dash, Jamie’s sobs escalating into full-blown panic. Lauren slammed on the brakes, pulling the car abruptly onto the narrow emergency shoulder underneath a massive concrete overpass. She unbuckled, threw open her door, marched around to the passenger side, and wrenched my door wide open. Freezing rain instantly assaulted the cabin. For a split second, I thought she was going to help me into the back seat to dig for the inhaler. Instead, her hands locked around my biceps, and she dragged me bodily out of the car. My knees crashed into three inches of pooling, muddy highway runoff. The impact sent a jolt of agony straight through my spine. “Brett, are you seriously doing this right now?” Her voice cut through the roar of the rain, dripping with contempt. “Faking an acute asthma attack just to compete with Jamie? Have you completely lost your mind?” Water cascaded down my face, stinging my eyes. I clawed at her trench coat, unable to form words, fighting for a molecule of air. “Your grandfather is surrounded by medical staff,” she said, backing away toward the driver’s door. “He’s not going to drop dead because you’re late. But Jamie is completely alone in the dark. How do you expect me to just leave him?” I caught the lower edge of the car door with slipping fingers. “My… inhaler…” “Hail a cab and get yourself to the clinic,” she called out over the storm. “Once I have him settled, I’ll come back and find you.” The door slammed shut in my face. The red taillights flared once, then vanished into the curtain of blinding gray rain. I collapsed forward into the runoff. It took me four agonizing attempts just to push my torso off the flooded asphalt. My phone had taken on water; the screen flickered once and died completely. The water on the shoulder reached past my shins. The highway was completely desolate, no headlights piercing the gloom. I dragged myself along the rusted steel guardrail, inch by agonizing inch. Every three steps, I had to stop, leaning my forehead against the wet metal, fighting against lungs that felt as though they were being pierced by thousands of red-hot needles. I bit down on the inside of my lip until the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth, using the sharp physical pain to tether my fading consciousness. Grandpa was waiting for my signature. Two hours later, my vision swimming in static, the illuminated red cross of the county medical center finally emerged through the downpour. I had lost my left shoe somewhere along the highway miles back. My trousers were caked in gray silt and mud. The emergency lobby was glaringly bright. I braced a trembling hand against the linoleum wall, dragging my feet toward the surgical wing. The double doors burst open. An attending physician in blood-stained scrubs rushed out holding a clipboard, his face grim. “Family for Walter Dawson? Are the Dawson relatives here?” He stopped, seeing me. “Resuscitation efforts failed ten minutes ago. The patient suffered terminal cardiac arrest…” The rest of his sentence melted into a high-pitched ringing. A warm, coppery wave surged up my esophagus. I opened my mouth, and dark blood splattered across the polished hospital tiles. As my knees gave out and the fluorescent lights tilted into absolute blackness, I watched the death notification slip flutter downward, landing softly in the pool of red. The emergency alarms shrieked through the corridor. … When my consciousness floated back to the surface, an oxygen mask was strapped tightly over my face. Every shallow breath felt like broken glass scraping my ribs. The back of my skull throbbed with a dull, sickening rhythm. The heavy door to the room swung open with a bang. Lauren strode in, followed closely by Jamie, who was dressed in a clean, dry designer sweater, completely unscathed. Seeing my pale, hollow face, Lauren’s forward momentum faltered for a fraction of a second. Then Jamie reached out, nervously tugging the hem of her jacket. Lauren’s expression hardened instantly. She reached into her leather portfolio, pulled out a thick document, and slapped it down onto my blanket. The pages fanned out across my chest, the sharp edge of the top sheet scoring a thin red scratch across my cheek. “Where were you yesterday?” she demanded, crossing her arms. “Your phone went straight to voicemail, you didn’t check in with your office—when did you start pulling these juvenile vanishing acts to force me into giving in?” I turned my head slightly, my eyes focusing on the bold header at the top of the page: “VOLUNTARY BONE MARROW & PERIPHERAL STEM CELL DONOR CONSENT.” “Jamie’s younger sister has acute leukemia,” Lauren said, pressing a ballpoint pen into my limp fingers. “She needs an urgent HLA match. You’re going down to the lab to get your blood drawn right now. If your markers align, consider it your apology for the childish scene you caused yesterday.” Jamie stepped out from behind her, his eyes glistening with well-rehearsed grief. “Brett, I know how unfair this feels, but she’s only nine years old. You’ve always had such a big heart… you wouldn’t just sit back and watch a child die, would you?” My fingers curled into the coarse cotton sheets, slowly tightening until my knuckles turned white. “My grandfather is dead.” The room dropped into a sudden, suffocating silence. Lauren’s face paled slightly. “What?” “He died yesterday,” I whispered through the plastic mask, my voice devoid of inflection. “Right around the time you hauled me out of your car and threw me into the flooded gutter under the overpass.” Her throat worked. Her gaze flickered uncomfortably toward the green digital readouts on my vitals monitor, then dropped to the clear oxygen tubing running to the wall. After a long pause, she looked away, her voice defensive. “I had no idea the weather would delay you that badly. I’ll… I’ll take care of all the funeral arrangements. We’ll give him a proper service.” She reached out, pushing the pen back toward my trembling hand. “But Jamie’s sister doesn’t have days to spare. Sign the consent form first. We can deal with your family matters later.” Jamie murmured softly, “Lauren, maybe we shouldn’t. If Brett is holding this much resentment, I don’t want to coerce him.” “He’s just throwing a tantrum,” Lauren said coldly. She reached out and snatched the oxygen mask off my face. The unfiltered hospital room air rushed into my compromised lungs. I doubled over instantly, coughing so violently that stars exploded behind my eyelids. Lauren clamped a hand down on my shoulder, her voice shifting back into that patronizing, sickeningly gentle tone she used when coaxing me to take medicine. “It’s just a blood draw, Brett. It doesn’t harm your body. I’ll walk down to the phlebotomy lab with you.” I looked up into her eyes. Her tenderness hadn’t vanished over the years. It was still there, preserved, polished. Only now, every shred of gentleness directed at me was merely a transaction—a down payment on something she wanted to secure for Jamie. I reached up with my left hand and brutally ripped the IV catheter from the back of my right wrist. Dark venous blood welled instantly, dripping across the white sheets. Before Lauren could process the motion, I channeled every remaining ounce of strength in my body and swung my palm across her face. “Smack.” The sharp, ringing crack echoed violently off the sterile walls. Jamie shrieked, stumbling backward into the bedside cabinet. Lauren’s head was thrown to the side. For three long seconds, she stood frozen, her cheek blooming into a violent, mottled crimson. “Get out,” I rasped, pointing a shaking, blood-streaked finger toward the door. “From this second on, you and I are finished. Take your parasite and get the hell out of my sight.” She turned her head back slowly, the red outline of my fingers stark against her pale skin. “Brett, have you completely lost your mind?” “I was out of my mind,” I said, pushing myself up on the mattress, my chest rattling with every word. “I was insane enough to treat someone who didn’t even care that I had severe asthma, or that aloe throws me into anaphylaxis, as my future spouse.” Lauren’s pupils contracted sharply. “Did you go through my private accounts?” “The hospital registrar told me,” I said, a bitter, broken laugh escaping my throat. “You wiped my name off your health proxy and gave the dependent coverage to Jamie a month ago.” Her eyes darted sideways, avoiding mine. “He just moved to this city, Brett! He has no family here, and he’s your best friend. It was a temporary administrative favor until our wedding—” I slammed my palm against the emergency nurse-call button on the wall. “Out.” “You sign that donor consent form first!” Her veneer of corporate composure shattered completely. She lunged forward, grabbing both of my shoulders, using her full weight to haul me off the mattress. “Once you give the blood sample, I will personally drive you to the morgue to handle your grandfather’s arrangements! Not a second before!” “Let go of me!” I thrashed, shoving wildly against her chest. “You’re signing it!” she snarled, dragging me toward the edge of the bed. “A little girl’s life is on the line, and I will not let your petty, jealous pride kill her!” The physical struggle tore open my strained thoracic muscles. The room spun violently. In her frantic attempt to subdue me, Lauren shoved both hands forward to break my grip. Deprived of balance, my body pitched backward over the edge of the mattress. The back of my skull collided squarely with the heavy, sharpened steel corner of the rolling vitals monitor. A sickening “crack” vibrated through my jaw. The pain was so instantaneous, so profound, that it didn’t even hurt. A thick, hot rush of liquid cascaded down the nape of my neck, soaking instantly into the collar of my hospital gown. Far away, Jamie was screaming. Footsteps thundered down the hall. A team of nurses and a crash physician burst through the doorway, muscling Lauren back as they threw my limp body onto a mobile trauma gurney. The fluorescent ceiling panels blurred into streaks of blinding light as they ran me down the surgical corridor. The trauma anesthesiologist sprinted alongside the gurney, clutching my emergency intake chart, shouting back at Lauren, who was running behind them in the hall. “Patient has massive acute epidural hematoma! We need an immediate emergency craniotomy and surgical airway!” the doctor roared. “What are his drug allergies? What’s his blood type? Answer me right now!” Lauren’s lips were bloodless, trembling uncontrollably. “He… he doesn’t have any drug

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