“Maybe… maybe they’re just dating. It was just a kiss, a normal kiss,” Eric tried to tell himself, searching for any other explanation.
Then, an idea suddenly hit him, and his mood instantly brightened.
“That lowlife Alex managed to trick Sera, but he isn’t treating her right! He’s fooling around with other girls behind her back! When Sera finds out, she’ll definitely dump him!”
A sure smile spread across Eric Vaughan’s face. “And this girl probably doesn’t even know Alex already has someone! Once she finds out he’s cheating, knowing her type, she’ll leave him for sure.”
He felt like he had things figured out again, like he was back in charge.
‘You dare cheat on both of them?’ Eric thought angrily. ‘I’ll make you pay so badly you won’t know what hit you.’
“When that happens, this girl will leave that jerk Alex, and Sera will leave him too!”
Eric could almost picture it, a happy future unfolding: “Even though Sera… well, she isn’t exactly innocent anymore, but I won’t hold it against her.”
After giving himself this little pep talk, Eric managed to calm down. Now that he thought he understood the situation, he felt happy and sure of himself again.
But just as fast as it came, his good mood disappeared. Eric froze again, the smile vanishing from his face.
[The Protagonist ‘Eric Vaughan’ has a Mental Breakdown. Congratulations, you have earned 66666 Critical Points.]
He saw the girl holding onto Alex’s arm… and walking with a very strange, very obvious limp.
Actually, Riley’s… soreness… wasn’t that terrible at first. But when she got the news, her grandmother was waking up, her cancer completely gone, she was just bursting with excitement.
Not sure how else to show how happy she felt, she kind of took the lead on things herself.
But after a whole night of… intense celebrating… well, even the most energetic person needs a break!
So, when she woke up this morning, she was hurting quite a bit. Forget walking normally, just getting out of bed was a struggle.
She’d rested for a good while in Alex’s private lounge before they even came to the hospital.
If she hadn’t, what Eric Vaughan saw would have been even more startling.
For Eric, who knew a lot from books, seeing her walk like that just broke his brain. He stumbled backward, almost falling right over.
Instantly, a sharp pain shot up from his backside, spreading through his whole body. That jolt of pain snapped Eric back to reality, sort of.
“No, it can’t be that.”
“It doesn’t have to mean that. There are lots of reasons someone might walk like that.”
Eric seemed desperate to believe anything else. “Right, that’s it! She must have tripped by accident! She hurt her leg, that’s why she’s walking funny.”
“Yes, that must be it.”
Eric held onto the story he made up: “The doctors probably told her that her grandmother was stable, that the cancer was totally gone. She got so happy she wasn’t watching where she was going, slipped, fell, and hurt her leg. That’s why she’s limping.”
“Later, I’ll get her some medicine, some to drink and some to put on it. She’ll be all better in less than three days,” he mumbled to himself, already making plans.
Eric was totally lost in his own little world. He watched Riley, Alex, and the doctors go into the patient’s room.
For some reason, instead of leaving or just standing there shocked, Eric felt pulled towards the room. Leaning heavily on the wall for support, he quietly crept closer.
…
Inside the patient’s room.
A crowd of cancer doctors gathered around Riley’s grandmother’s bed.
The liver cancer experts especially stared at the blinking old woman like they were seeing a ghost.
“A miracle! This is really a medical miracle!” shouted a doctor who was losing his hair, his face full of disbelief.
“Late-stage liver cancer… completely cured in just one week! It’s like the cancer cells just packed their bags and left!” He’d never seen anything like it.
An older doctor, his voice shaking with excitement, added, “It’s truly amazing! This is a miracle for treating liver cancer, and a huge step forward for finding cures for cancer!”
Even though he was bent over with age, his eyes were shining brightly, you could tell he really wanted to study how this happened.
All the doctors in the room, no matter what they specialized in, were buzzing with talk.
They had just seen a medical miracle happen right before their eyes.
….
Inside the patient’s room.
The doctors around the bed couldn’t help but say how amazing it was. They really meant it; their praise came straight from the heart.
Riley’s grandmother, Ann, was totally confused. Sure, she was a farmer from the mountains and hadn’t seen much of the big city, but she used the internet sometimes.
Before she got really sick, she had looked it up online and learned that late-stage liver cancer basically meant you were going to die.
Because she knew that, she had specifically told her granddaughter to stop trying to get her treatment. There was no hope, she’d said; no point wasting more money on late-stage liver cancer.
Ann had actually gotten ready to die. She wasn’t afraid of it. Her only regret was leaving her granddaughter, Riley, all alone.
After she died, her poor granddaughter would have nobody left in the world.
She knew her granddaughter was very trusting and maybe a little too simple. With a personality like that, she worried Riley would easily get cheated once she went out into the world more.
Her granddaughter was the only thing holding her back.
But now, Ann realized she wasn’t quite dead yet. She had woken up again.
Before she got really bad, she had prepared herself, made peace with things, and even said a proper goodbye to Riley. So why, when she opened her eyes, wasn’t she in heaven, or hell, or somewhere else? Why was she looking at a bunch of people in white coats staring at her?
Honestly, it was a little scary.
“Ma’am, don’t you worry. The cancer cells in your body are all gone,” a doctor wearing glasses noticed Ann had opened her eyes. He leaned in closer and spoke loudly so she could hear.
Cancer cells… gone?
Ann didn’t really get it for a second. What did he mean, the cancer cells were gone?
All those bad cells… just gone?
“What… what does that mean?” Ann’s voice was weak and scratchy, maybe because she hadn’t spoken in a long time, or maybe because her body was still very weak. Her voice was so quiet, you had to lean right in to hear her clearly.