Chapter 6
It had been three days already.
Even the hospital administration was ordering wreaths for my funeral.
When was Elias finally going to realize I was dead?
I watched Elias sleeping in the on–call room after another long shift, and my sigh was heavier than ever.
Come to think of it, we’d barely seen each other since starting work.
Neurosurgery and orthopedics were on different floors of the surgical building, one above the other.
We worked in the same hospital but hardly ever crossed paths.
Day shifts, night shifts, on–call rotations… Even when we both rested at home, we’d maybe see each other two or
three times a week.
Maybe that’s why we’d slowly drifted apart.
Zora might be a homewrecker, but our relationship is just as fragile.
Today the hospital administration asked Elias to stop by the office when he had time. Something about the arrangements for receiving my skeleton.
That dated back to when we’d first gotten our licenses after graduation.
To celebrate, Elias and I had gone and done the whole package–blood donation, bone marrow registry, and body donation paperwork.
If either of us died, his skull would go to neurosurgery for my department, and my skeleton would go to orthopedics
for his.
Back then, as fresh graduates, we saw this exchange of bones as both an act of faith and the ultimate expression of
love.
I wandered around Elias’s office, picking out where I’d be displayed–right behind his desk.
Back to the sunlight, but with a view of people coming and going in the hallway so I wouldn’t get lonely. A pretty decent spot.
When Elias woke up, he checked his phone again. He finally seemed to realize that three days without contact was too long–something was wrong.
He called over Dr. Marcus, the poor guy who’d worked on me that night. Hesitant and guilty, his conscience finally
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My Orthopedic Boyfriend Chose His Childhood Sweetheart on the Operating Table
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Chapter 6
kicked in enough to ask about me.
“Elara… did she… was she in pain that night?”
Dr. Marcus looked miserable. Even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, having a patient die made him nervous. “Probably not. It was pretty quick. By the time we got there, there wasn’t much we could do.”
I was speechless. You don’t know if I was in pain? You never asked about those huge gashes that night.
But Elias wasn’t satisfied. “What kind of sutures did you use? Do you have any photos of how the stitching turned
out?”
Dr. Marcus looked confused. “I think we used regular sutures, not the dissolvable kind. Photos… haven’t you seen her yourself?”
A flash of discomfort crossed Elias’s face.
Then he suddenly realized something was wrong and shot up from his chair. “Why didn’t you use dissolvable sutures on facial wounds? What if she’s scarred?”
‘Go prep a suture kit right now!”
Elias pulled out his phone, frantically opening my contact, but before he could call, Dr. Marcus spoke up hesitantly. ‘But we don’t exactly have protocols for cosmetic suturing on… bodies.”
The air seemed to freeze for a moment.
Elias slowly looked up. “What did you say?”
‘Bodies?”
He looked utterly confused, pursing his lips nervously before forcing a casual tone.
‘You must be mixed up. I’m talking about Elara–my girlfriend, you know her. She came in that night with the patient in room 27 and was discharged around midnight.”
Dr. Marcus was bewildered but instinctively sensed something was very wrong. He swallowed hard. “Dr. Shaw, we have been talking about Elara this whole time. Your girlfriend–Elara, who died while you were operating on room
27.”
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