Chapter 2

The doctor was in the next ward when he heard Rebecca scream loudly. He rushed to Jessica's ward with some of his nurses.

"What happened?" he asked, hearing the flatlining sound coming from the heart rate monitor. He immediately started doing CPR on her.

"Get the defibrillator," he ordered the nurses who rushed out and brought it.

He charged it to 200 volts. One, two, three… He placed the paddles on Jessica's heart. No response! Her mother was wailing in the background.

"Is this how I am going to lose my only child?" Rebecca wailed on the floor, lamenting.

The doctor charged her heart with the defibrillator two more times at 200 volts.

Jessica gasped and came back to life. The doctor and nurses heaved sighs of relief.

Her mother immediately rushed to her, "Thank God! You are alive, my daughter! Don't you ever scare me again."

Jessica nodded as tears streamed down the corners of her eyes.

*****

Five days later, Jessica was up on her feet again. The pain had subsided. She could now do things she couldn't do before without being aided by her mom or a nurse. Things like going to the restroom, feeding herself, going outside for some fresh air, and so on.

She went to her phone which was on the desk and looked at it. She had been unable to reach Nicholas ever since he broke up with her over the phone. She needed to see him, she needed to make things work between them. 

They had so many beautiful memories together. They had always been each other's rock for the past three years. He can't just walk out of the relationship like that; they were in this together for life.

The door opened, and she turned in its direction to see the doctor walk in with a bright smile on his face.

"Ms. Jessica, I have news you'd be glad to hear," Jessica wanted to correct the doctor, to tell him that the proper address was "Dr. Jessica" and not "Ms. Jessica." However, the words died on her lips before she could even say it, as she remembered her license had been revoked and she couldn't perform surgery. She sighed heavily.

"What's the news, doctor?"

"You have shown remarkable recovery in the past few days; you will be discharged today," he said, beaming with joy.

"Oh!" That was the only thing Jessica could utter. Right now, the only good thing about the news was that she was finally going to meet Nicholas and sort things out with him. It wasn't as if she had a job to return to; her career had been completely ruined by her accident. 

There was also the complication that resulted in her patient's death, which had caused her license to be revoked and left her with compensation bills to pay.

As soon as her discharge papers were signed by her mother, Jessica told her mother she had someplace to be and would be back home soon. Her mother tried to resist but eventually let her go. She hailed a taxi and gave the driver an address: Nicholas' home address.

Thank goodness it was a Sunday morning, and Nicholas usually rested at home on Sundays. She soon arrived at her destination and got out of the taxi. She looked up at the building, seeing a dim light in the room upstairs; that was Nicholas' room. 

She rubbed her stiff neck before making her way inside. She had her spare keys with her; they were always in her small purse. She had asked her mom to fetch some of her belongings from her home days ago, and she did. Nicholas' Bentley was parked downstairs, another indication that he was home. A sigh of relief escaped her lips.

Pulling out the spare key from her purse, she unlocked the front door and made her way upstairs. Her heart pounded heavily against her chest. She was determined to do anything, even get on her knees and beg him to take her back. He just needed to see her. If he did, Jessica was sure all the love he had for her would come rushing back.

She went quietly up the staircase, careful not to alert him to her presence. As she got upstairs, she realized something was wrong. The bedroom door at the end of the hallway was slightly open, and she could hear faint moaning sounds coming from there.

 She couldn't believe her ears. She thought she must be hearing things. She began looking for explanations to comfort herself. "It is definitely not Nicholas. He must have given his room to one of his friends to use." 

She nodded as if convincing herself, "There is no way Nicholas would be with another lady while I was in the hospital. Even though he broke up with me for reasons best known to him, he would at least be heartbroken by now, trying to get over me, right?" Jessica thought to herself.

As she approached, the moaning became more audible.

"Please be gentle..."

"You said you wanted me to be fast, what do you want exactly?"

Jessica froze in her tracks. Those voices were very familiar. She had heard them before. One belonged to her fiancé, Nicholas, and the other to a lady she knew well. She wasn't stupid; she understood exactly what this conversation meant.

 She felt a cold chill run down her spine as she clung to the wall for support, her legs nearly giving way beneath her. It took everything within her not to run. She needed to see this through to the end.

She reached the door, and the sight before her left her even more shaken to the core. Nicholas was on top of Sonia, her cousin. These were the last two people she expected to see together in that way – her fiancé and her cousin!. She and Nicholas had been together for three years, and their relationship had been very stable.

How could this be happening to her? They would have had their wedding a week ago if not for her accident. Besides, he promised to love her for the rest of his life. What went wrong? What could have caused this kind of betrayal from him? Was this the kind of love he meant? Was this why he broke up with her? She staggered, and her bag fell to the tiled floor.

"Nicholas, Jessica is here!" Sonia said in panic as she pushed Nicholas away gently.