Ch. 3 Only Option

Odette’s POV

The morning sun was a liar; its bright beams did nothing to warm the chill of the doctor’s office. May and I sat in the chair across from the doctor, waiting for him to say something, anything.

“Ms. Odette,” The doctor began, his eyes cold and clinical as they flickered from his laptop to me. “I can assure you that the diagnosis is yours. Without immediate surgery, you have only six months to live. The cancer is already spreading to your other organs and bones.”

A painful lump blocked the flow of oxygen to my lungs. “I…I can’t die,” I blurted out, my voice a desperate plea. “W- What are my options? I can’t die, I am too young to die. There are a lot of things I still hope to achieve.”

He leaned back, his chair creaking like a coffin lid. “The surgery is your lifeline, but it’s not a cheap $300. The surgery you need is complex and expensive, you will need a team of us to work on you,” he replied, his expression grave.

“How?” I gasped in a lungful of air, my head swimming from the brief deprivation of oxygen. “How expensive is the surgery? How much money are we talking about here?”

“About 200,000 dollars, because I must hire doctors from other hospitals, and it’s your best chance at extending your life beyond six months. Time is not on our side.”

I felt the room closing in on me. “I don’t have that kind of cash. I’m not rich, I am just a regular she-wolf, trying to make it through the day.”

“Yeah, that’s a whole lot of money,” May said with a frown. “Are you trying to tell us that only the rich ones in the Steelmaw pack can survive lung cancer? You have to give us a discount, we can’t pay that ridiculous amount of money.” She said, covered my hand with hers, and twined our fingers together.

“I’m sorry, but that’s the standard amount, I won’t be able to reduce the price even if I want to,” he replied with a serious face.

“But I don’t want to die, and I would be lying if I said I had seen that amount of money before.” I replied, my voice all sharp edges.

But before the doctor could answer, a knock cut through the tension. “I don’t want any interruptions, I am with a patient!” he snapped, but his expression changed when he saw who it was. “Y-Your highness,” he stuttered, standing so fast that I thought he had taken flight.

I turned to see the Luna of our pack; her skin was flawless, and she was dressed in the finest silks that whispered of wealth and power. She was flanked by two royal guards. Her sapphire blue eyes swept over us for a brief second.

“Leave if you don’t have the money for the surgery.” The doctor shooed us out like we were nothing.

“That’s no way to treat your patients, we were just leaving,” May said, her voice barely above a whisper.

As we both sauntered out of the office, Luna’s voice floated after us. “What did those she-wolves want?” she asked the doctor.

“The younger one has lung cancer,” he replied.

“Oh, poor thing.” Her pity was a slap in the face, and I couldn’t hold back the tears as May led me away, my legs as weak as my hope.

***

TWO MONTHS LATER

The words of Hemingway echoed through the classroom. My voice had a steady rhythm against the silence. “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.” I looked up, meeting the eyes of my students, searching for understanding and connection.

But the room was spinning, and the edges of my vision were darkening. The book trembled in my hands, the words blurring into a jumbled mess. “But those that will not break...” My voice faded, the sentence trailing into nothingness.

A collective gasp filled the room as I stumbled, the novel slipping from my grasp and fluttering to the floor like a wounded bird. The ground rushed up to meet me, and the darkness swallowed me whole.

When my eyes fluttered open, the plain white of a hospital room greeted me. The doctor from the university’s sick bay stood over me, her face a mask of concern. “W-What happened?” I managed to whisper, my voice a ghost of its former self.

She didn’t answer with words; she just handed me an ultrasound scan image. Two tiny beans stared back at me from the paper.

“You are pregnant, don’t worry, I didn’t tell anyone, not even our boss. Once the doctor at the hospital you were transferred from gave me, I made sure to keep it a secret, for your privacy,” she said, and the room spun again.

“P-Pregnant?” I echoed, the word was a foreign concept, a life within a life that was fading. “But the cancer...”

“It’s possible, you are not the first person,” she assured me, her hand putting a gentle pressure on my shoulder.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and the fact that I was going to die with them caused the tears to spill over as I clutched the image to my chest. “I, um, I have only a few months left to live, and I don’t have money for the surgery,” I confessed, the words a heavy chain around my neck.

“I’m sorry, I had no idea this was what you were going through. Sometimes the moon goddess can be so cruel.” She lamented and clutched the duvet. “You need to rest,” she insisted, but rest was a luxury I could no longer afford.

“I have had enough rest, I still have a few more classes to teach,” I muttered as my eyes wandered to the clock on the wall. I pushed myself off the bed; the picture crinkled in my grip. The doctor reached out, her words a plea, but I was already past the door, the corridor stretching out before me.

I staggered down the corridor, holding the walls for support, and nearly tripped over my own feet. The classroom door swung open with a whisper, revealing a scene. My rival stood at the front, his voice a dull murmur that seemed to suck life out of the very air.

The students were slumped in their seats, uninterested in the lecture. I strolled into the class with my head held high. “Thank you for filling in for me, but I will take over from here,” I declared.

He turned to me, his eyes narrowing into slits of dislike. “What are you doing here? You should be in a hospital bed, not here,” he mocked.

Anger bubbled up in my chest, hot and fierce. “I’m no damsel in distress,” I shot back, reaching for the book he held like a wand.

A knock at the door froze us all. A student, hesitant yet bold, stepped forward to see me with the ultrasound image. I didn’t even realize I had lost.

“This...fell from you,” he stammered, extending it towards me.

My heart skipped a beat, and my hand outstretched to reclaim the piece of my soul I had dropped. But before my fingers could brush the paper, my rival snatched it away, his eyes burning with cruel delight.

“Look at this class,” he beamed. “Your beloved role model fainted because she has been busy getting pregnant out of wedlock,” he sneered, turning the image towards the class.