Chapter 22
Breaking Apart
(Maya’s POV)
The hospital lights had never felt so harsh.
Every corridor I walked through echoed with the sound of failure.
Of loss.
I felt it in my bones.
I leaned against the wall near the staff lockers, scrubbing my hands over my face. The patient’s name still echoed in my mind. Michael Torres. Forty-three years old. Construction worker. Father of three. Sole breadwinner.
He had come in with a crushed leg after a site accident. I’d tried everything. I thought I could save the limb. I had promised him I’d try.
But in the end, the infection had spread too fast. I made the call to amputate. I made the call that destroyed his sense of self-worth. And then… after the surgery, his heart gave out.
I closed my eyes.
There had been a complication. One I hadn
