On the day of my kidney transplant, my husband's old flame, Zoe, volunteered to be my surgeon. After I refused, again and again, my husband, Phoenix, still let her use me for practice on the operating table. When an artery ruptured mid-surgery, Zoe panicked, completely out of her depth. The hospital demanded Phoenix take over, but he flatly refused. "Don't put so much pressure on Zoe," he said, his voice cold. "She's not going to die. And if she does, I'll sign a waiver. The hospital won't be liable." After the surgery, I suffered from severe complications and organ rejection. The entire hospital was put on high alert for an emergency rescue. But Phoenix was out with Zoe at a celebratory dinner, ignoring all our calls. Lying in the observation ward, my phone buzzed with a text from him. "I'm at home helping Zoe with her dissertation. Don't come back when you wake up. You'll distract us." I had waited so long for a donor kidney, but just before I was wheeled into the OR, everything went wrong. My case was a perfect match for Zoe’s dissertation topic. Using this as an excuse, my husband, Phoenix, refused to perform the surgery himself. He wanted to hand me over to his protégé, Zoe, as a practice run. “Zoe will be the lead surgeon in name only. I’ll be right there to make sure everything goes perfectly. What are you so afraid of?” Phoenix snapped when he saw me hesitate to sign the consent form. He ignored my weakened state, his fingers digging into my jaw. I heard the sickening grate of bone. “I’m afraid of dying!” I choked out. “You know better than anyone how complex my case is. Zoe just graduated. How could she possibly handle this?” Zoe, who had been lingering by the door, heard my words and fled the room in tears. Phoenix pointed a trembling finger at me. “Then you can just lie there and die. Ungrateful bitch, I don’t even know what to say to you.” He chased after her, leaving me alone and helpless in the sterile white room, desperately waiting for him to come back and do his job. “Clara, don’t you worry,” a kind nurse whispered, trying to console me. “If he won’t do it, we can always… call him back. He’s the best there is.” I knew who she meant. The man they were talking about was Phoenix’s sworn rival. He would never operate on Phoenix’s wife. The surgery was scheduled in an hour. Phoenix was still nowhere to be found. My palms slicked with nervous sweat. I had waited so long for this kidney. Was it all going to be for nothing? With thirty minutes to spare, Phoenix finally reappeared, his neck littered with fresh hickeys. He signed the liability waiver with a flourish. This time, he promised, he would be the one in charge. I was too consumed with the fear of dying to care about the marks on his skin. I just nodded, tears streaming down my face. As they pushed my gurney through the double doors of the operating room, I watched them swing shut behind me. And then I saw her. Zoe, dressed in surgical scrubs, standing right in front of me. My eyes widened in horror. But the anesthesiologist was already administering the dose. Just before the world went dark, I saw Phoenix wrap Zoe in a gentle embrace. He leaned in, his lips brushing her ear. “Just do what you need to do. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.” A chill, colder than any I’d ever known, washed over me. Zoe stepped up to my gurney, a faint, triumphant smile on her lips. “Don’t be scared, Clara. I’ve only scrubbed in three times, but I’ll do my best.” Phoenix watched her, his face a mask of pure admiration. And then, I surrendered to the suffocating darkness. An hour later—or maybe a lifetime—I was jolted awake by Phoenix’s rough voice. A harsh beam of light stabbed at my eyes as he checked my pupils for dilation. From the periphery, I heard the frantic, disjointed voices of a few residents. “Dr. Evans, please, you have to take over! The fellow almost nicked the patient’s artery. If this goes on, something terrible is going to happen!” “Yeah, Dr. Evans, you should be the one operating. This is your wife, after all. If anything happens to her… you’d be devastated.” My husband listened to their desperate pleas, then glanced at the woman behind him, whose hand was trembling so badly she could barely hold the scalpel. His response shattered my world. “I have faith in Zoe,” he said calmly. “Besides, if this woman dies, I, as her husband, will sign a full liability waiver. None of you need to worry. The hospital won't be on the hook for it.” Why? Why was this the first thing I heard upon waking? I felt the blood freeze in my veins. The faces around me, once familiar, were now the faces of strangers. My consciousness drifted in and out. I could hear Phoenix’s voice, a distant murmur guiding Zoe, but the words were blurred, like a half-remembered nightmare. The next time I woke, I was staring at a stark white ceiling. The room was empty. It wasn’t until the monitor beside my bed began to scream its shrill warnings that people rushed in. “What’s going on? Why are all her vitals crashing after the surgery?” “Her O2 sats are dropping like a stone! What the hell happened? Where’s her attending physician?” The nurses exchanged nervous glances. Finally, one spoke up. “Dr. Evans took Dr. Monroe to celebrate after the surgery. He took a leave of absence, said he’d be back in two days.” “His patient just got out of a major operation! She’s in critical observation! How could he take leave? Who approved this?” the head nurse thundered. A junior nurse stammered, “Dr. Evans approved Dr. Monroe’s leave himself… and as for his own, he said he hadn’t had a vacation in a long time. The administration just… couldn't say no.” Just then, a resident shouted. “Severe organ rejection! She’s covered in a rash, her airway is swelling… Code Blue! We need to resuscitate, now, or we’re going to lose her!” As they wheeled me away, my mind was terrifyingly clear, as if my body knew it was shutting down. I heard them announce the "Code Blue" over the hospital-wide PA system, a call to arms for every available doctor and nurse to converge on my operating room. I heard their frantic discussions, heard the anesthesiologist lean down and whisper gently, “Don’t you worry, Clara. We’re going to give it everything we’ve got. You just take a nice long nap, and everything will be okay when you wake up.” I nodded. But I’d been a medical student. I knew exactly what a Code Blue meant. “Still no contact with Dr. Evans?” A roar echoed through the haze. It was the hospital’s chief of staff, his voice tight with fury. “In a crisis like this, the two surgeons responsible have just… vanished?” “Get them on the phone now! How can they be out enjoying themselves while their patient is circling the drain?” That’s when a young intern held up his phone, his voice barely a whisper. “It looks like… they went on a trip to the coast. They posted on Instagram, but… they’re not answering the hospital’s calls.” In the final minutes before the anesthesia took me completely, I heard Phoenix’s voice on a speakerphone. He sounded annoyed. “Impossible. I supervised the surgery myself. There’s no way there could be such a severe complication. It’s probably her own body, a violent rejection. It has nothing to do with Zoe’s skill.” “If you can’t save her, don’t waste any more medical resources.” “Just… let her go.” His final words were followed by Zoe’s anxious murmur, but before I could make out what she was saying, the darkness swallowed me whole. The battle between the hospital and the grim reaper lasted for ten grueling hours. In the end, they pulled me back from the brink and I was transferred to the ICU. I spent two weeks teetering on the edge before my condition finally stabilized. As I was moved to a regular ward, my phone, silent for so long, lit up with its first message from Phoenix. “I’m at home helping Zoe with her dissertation. Don’t come back when you wake up. You’ll distract us.” His social media had been wiped clean, but his profile picture was a new one: a shot of him and Zoe on vacation, taken while I was fighting for my life. They were locked in a sweet embrace. You couldn’t see Zoe’s face, but Phoenix… Phoenix looked happier than I’d ever seen him. I pulled up the feed from the security cameras at home. There they were. Zoe, curled up against Phoenix on our couch, reading aloud from the love letters I’d written him years ago. She finished one and let out a derisive laugh. “Clara was so cheesy back then! This is so cringey, how did you even stand it?” she mocked. “And her handwriting is awful.” Phoenix’s reply was a cold, flat blade. “I keep them around for a laugh.” Zoe’s laughter grew louder. She then found the metal box where I kept all the mementos from our long-distance relationship—every train ticket stub from my visits, every handwritten note. She pulled them out, one by one, and began to tear them into pieces. With every rip, she’d look up at Phoenix and smile, a bright, cruel grin. She even handed him a photo to tear himself. He didn’t hesitate. Together, they shredded ten years of my life, one piece at a time, driving a fresh knife into my heart with every tear. The last item was a cheap photo of us, taken with money from our part-time jobs right after college graduation. In it, his gaze was so earnest, as if I were the only person in his world. At least, that’s what I believed back then. It was a grainy, poorly lit photo, but I could never bring myself to throw it away. Zoe ripped it to shreds, then ground my half of the picture under her heel. “I don’t know why Clara would keep such an ugly photo of herself. She looks horrible here!” she declared, then pulled out her phone, switched to the front-facing camera, and snapped a selfie with Phoenix. “See? Even a random shot of me looks better than her prized photo.” Phoenix looked at the screen, a fond, indulgent smile spreading across his face. “That’s because you’re beautiful.” And then they were kissing, a tangle of limbs and shameless passion, right next to our wedding portrait, which they completely ignored. As I watched, a cool, crisp voice cut through the silence of my hospital room. “Still obsessed with your husband? Staring at security footage of him from your hospital bed?” That sharp, sarcastic tone could only belong to one person. I looked up and met his eyes. Leo. He held a stethoscope, and after a brief examination, he announced, “Another two weeks or so, and you should be good to go home.” I stared at him, my mind reeling. He was supposed to be in a fellowship program across the country… What was he doing here? “You… you… you…” I stammered. He rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t aware that kidney transplant complications included a stutter. A new research topic for me, I suppose. After all, I’m the one who flew back to perform your surgery.” “What?!” “What, what? Of course, the ridiculously generous offer the hospital director made didn’t hurt. Don’t get a big head about it.” With that, he packed up his things, gave a haughty tilt of his head, and strode out. Just then, my phone pinged. A large wire transfer had just hit my account. The amount: $5,000. On the monitor, Zoe saw the notification on Phoenix’s phone and squealed, smothering him with kisses. They were so wrapped up in each other, it was as if I were already dead. A moment later, another transfer came through. Another $5,000. Over ten thousand dollars. Had Phoenix forgotten our prenuptial agreement? It clearly stated that all our assets, even after marriage, remained individual property. The card he was using was mine. I’d given it to him so he could take care of himself while he was busy with his research, since my job at the pharmaceutical company paid far more than his. I never said he could use it to woo other women. And this house… what did it have to do with you, Phoenix Evans? What gave you the right to bring another woman to live in it? I turned off the monitor and made a call. “Hello, 911? I’d like to report a crime. Someone is using my credit cards without permission and has broken into my home.” It didn’t take long. Phoenix, who had been too busy for the hospital, too in need of a “rest,” suddenly had all the time in the world. He didn’t even bother to put on his respectable, doctorly facade. He stormed into my room wearing slippers and pajamas. “What the hell is your problem?” His finger jabbed forcefully at my forehead. “I sent you a message! I told you Zoe was staying with us to work on her dissertation. Why did you call the cops?” I slapped his hand away. The look of feigned concern on his face was almost comical. When I was on my deathbed, he had the time to go on a romantic getaway with Zoe, hiking and watching sunsets. He didn't show an ounce of concern for me, even blocking me from seeing his posts. But the moment Zoe was taken in for questioning, he forgot all sense of decorum and rushed to the hospital to confront me. I let out a bitter laugh. “I’m surprised they didn’t take you with her.” That only enraged him further. “You’ve gone too far, Clara! What did Zoe and I ever do to you? Why are you so hell-bent on sending us to prison? You’re just that vicious, aren't you?” His face was a mask of contempt, his expression so hateful it burned itself into my memory. “The surgery is over, and the hospital saved you, didn’t they? So what are you being so dramatic about? Zoe has been working on this dissertation for ages, and she just needed your case data. Couldn’t you just help her out? Instead, you call the police. Do you have any idea what a criminal record would do to her career?” Suddenly, it all made sense to him. He was worried about Zoe’s reputation, her future. But what about that time she stole the topic for my dissertation? Why was his first instinct back then to tell me to just let it go? Just a case file? There were dozens of kidney transplant cases at the hospital every day. They chose me for a reason. Because I was Phoenix’s wife. Because I had no parents. Because if I died, Phoenix could decide not to press charges. Bullying an orphan—that was their ultimate weapon.
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