Chapter 4 The Bargain with Pain
[Freya]
When consciousness returned, the first thing I saw was Dr. Salvatore's face inches from mine, his blue eyes studying me intently.
I jerked backward with a gasp, nearly falling off the sofa.
"You're awake," he said, straightening up and returning to his desk chair. His arms crossed over his chest as he watched me with a frown.
"What happened?" I asked, disoriented.
"You collapsed. Low blood sugar and exhaustion." He gestured toward the coffee table. "Eat."
A sandwich and bottled water sat waiting. My stomach growled, and I reached for the food gratefully.
"Are you overdosing on melatonin?" he asked casually as I took the first bite.
I nearly choked on the sandwich. "What?"
"Your pupils, your reaction time, the way you collapsed." His eyes never left my face. "How many pills are you taking?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, but I could feel heat rising in my cheeks.
"Your life is a complete mess, isn't it?" he said matter-of-factly. "No sleep, no proper meals, self-medicating with sleep aids..."
"That's none of your business," I said quietly, setting down the sandwich. "What I do in my personal time is not your concern."
"It becomes my concern when it affects your work performance."
I bit my lip, knowing I couldn't afford to push back too hard. This job was everything to me. "I'm sorry, Dr. Salvatore. I'll be more careful."
"Your life is falling apart," he continued, his tone clinical and cold. "And you're dragging your professional performance down with it."
"I'm handling it," I said weakly. "Everything's under control."
"Clearly," he said dryly, looking at me like I was delusional.
I stared down at my hands, feeling small and exposed under his scrutiny.
"I'm placing you on compassionate leave," he said, already reaching for paperwork. "Three days. You need time to be with your mother and get your life in order."
"Thank you," I said quietly, surprised by the consideration despite his harsh words.
"Go home, Dr. Harper. Sort yourself out."
I nodded and headed for the door, my cheeks still burning with shame but grateful for the time off to stay by Mom's side.
The apartment was deafening in its silence. After a long, hot shower, I stood before the bathroom mirror, steam still clinging to the glass.
I stared down at my bare arms, the skin pale and smooth, unmarked by any trauma. But all I could see was the image burned into my memory—Mom's wrists, those neat horizontal cuts that had nearly taken her life. The bandages they'd wrapped around her arms in the hospital. The way her hands had looked so still and pale against the white sheets.
My own arms looked so... innocent. Untouched. As if I hadn't been the cause of everything that had gone wrong.
"It was all my fault," I whispered to my reflection. "I hurt her feelings."
A desperate thought formed in my mind. If I punished myself, if I suffered the way she had suffered, maybe... maybe God would see that I was paying for my sins. Maybe He would let her wake up. Maybe tomorrow when I went to the hospital, I would find her sitting up in bed, alert and laughing, asking for her favorite coffee like nothing had happened.
I opened the medicine cabinet with trembling hands. Behind the aspirin and band-aids, I found what I was looking for—a disposable razor, the kind with a thin, sharp blade.
I sat on the edge of the bathtub, the same tub where I'd found her. This was my penance. My trade with whatever forces controlled life and death.
The first cut was tentative, across my left forearm—nowhere near the wrist, just a thin line on the meat of my arm where it would be hidden by sleeves. The blade was sharper than I expected. It parted my skin with surprising ease, and for a moment there was no pain, just a thin red line that slowly began to well with blood.
Please, I thought as the sting came, sharp and immediate. Let her wake up. I'll take her place. I'll bear the pain.
A second cut, parallel to the first. This one deeper, more deliberate. With each drop of blood, I made my bargain with the universe. My suffering for her recovery. My pain for her consciousness.
Tomorrow, I told myself as I pressed a washcloth against the cuts, watching the white fabric bloom with red. Tomorrow she'll be awake and everything will be like it was before.
I cleaned the cuts carefully and bandaged them with medical precision, then hid the evidence in the back of the medicine cabinet. Tomorrow, I would wear long sleeves. And tomorrow, I would see my mother's eyes open again.
The next morning, I woke with a mixture of hope and dread. My bandaged arm throbbed beneath my long-sleeved shirt as I made my way to the hospital, convinced that my sacrifice had worked, that I would find Mom awake and smiling.
But when I entered the ICU, she lay exactly as I'd left her—pale, still, surrounded by the steady beep of monitors. Her eyes remained closed, her breathing assisted by machines.
"Any change?" I asked the nurse hopefully.
She shook her head sympathetically. "I'm sorry, dear. No response yet."
When the nurse left, I carefully lowered the side rail of the hospital bed and perched on the edge beside Mom. I gathered her frail body in my arms as gently as I could, mindful of the tubes and wires keeping her alive. Her head rested against my shoulder, limp and unresponsive, her once vibrant hair now dull and thin against my cheek.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered, tears spilling down my face. "All those awful things I said before... I didn't mean any of it. I was just angry and scared." I stroked her hair, remembering all the times she'd done the same for me when I was sick or frightened as a child.
The only response was the steady beeping of the heart monitor, the mechanical whoosh of the ventilator.