No Need For Her Salvation

The day I proposed to Hannah Amell, we discovered that we were characters in a romance novel about a woman destined to save a broken man. She was the heroine, fated to devote her life to redeeming the male lead. I was nothing more than a nobody in the background. Hannah’s eyes had blazed with fury. Defying the fate written for her, she dragged me to the courthouse to make our marriage official, then held a lavish wedding with me. As I held her in my arms, she made me a promise. “Leon, I don’t believe in some stupid book or its ridiculous redemption plot. The only thing I believe in is that I love you.” In the years that followed, everyone saw us as the perfect, devoted couple. I really thought we could spend the rest of our lives happily, growing old side by side. Then, in the third year of our marriage, the novel’s hero got drunk, rode his motorcycle the wrong way down the road, and came hurtling straight toward me. In a split second, I wrenched the wheel aside and slammed hard into the roadside barrier. I was covered in blood. A shard of glass had pierced my heart. Every beat sent another burst of fatal pain through my chest. Hannah, sitting in the passenger seat, was shaken but completely unharmed. She struggled to force open the car door. The moment she saw the unconscious man lying on the ground, all the color drained from her face. “Cedric!” In that instant, the blood in my veins ran cold. Cedric. That was the name of the novel’s hero. Chapter 1 Gritting my teeth against the agony, I collapsed over the steering wheel. When I heard Hannah Amell call out his name, I went rigid. A deathly chill swept through me. Every broken breath filled my mouth with the taste of blood. The car’s crumpled frame pinned me in place and left me unable to move. Even the slightest movement sent a tearing pain through my body. At the edge of my failing vision, Hannah crouched beside Cedric Trevor. She was trembling as she checked his injuries. Her tearful pleas reached me. “Cedric, please don’t die. Don’t do this to me. Open your eyes and look at me. It’s Hannah. I’m going to save you. Just say something.” My vision blurred until blood and tears washed the world away. Yet none of the physical agony compared to the pain of hearing Hannah call Cedric’s name. My throat was full of blood. The moment I tried to speak, it came spilling from my mouth. Beyond the shattered window, Hannah’s figure grew increasingly hazy. I called to her in a broken rasp. “Hannah, save me…” She did not hear me. Or perhaps she did. Perhaps my feeble plea simply did not matter to her. An ambulance came racing to the scene. Hannah was a doctor. She climbed in with Cedric and left without once looking back. She had forgotten that I was still trapped behind the wheel, far more seriously injured than he was. Alone on the rain-lashed overpass, I remained inside the wreckage, with no one even aware that I was there. Pain and terror closed in around me, but from the depths of my despair, one last spark of defiance flared to life. Each breath came in a harsh, ragged gasp. I refused to let the plot push me toward death like this. I refused to die abandoned by the woman I loved. Clinging to consciousness, I reached beneath the seat to retrieve the phone wedged in the narrow gap below. Unfortunately, even that felt impossible. Again and again, my fingers brushed the phone, only for it to slip beyond my reach. It was mere inches away, yet it might as well have been on the other side of a chasm. The car reeked of blood. Not even the rain hammering through the shattered windows could wash it away. I clenched my teeth and growled at myself, “Leon, if you want to live, you have to try harder!” With one final effort, I summoned every ounce of strength and finally managed to grab the phone. However, I had reached too far. The movement shifted the twisted metal around my legs and crushed them even tighter as bone-crushing pain tore through me. Cold sweat broke across my skin. My consciousness began to fade. With trembling fingers, I managed to place an emergency call. “The beltway… overpass… car crash… Please help…” I could no longer make out what the dispatcher was saying. The blood loss and bitter cold left me unable to string together a complete sentence. My body grew colder by the second. I could feel my life slowly draining away. Before I passed out, my life flashed before my eyes. The memories finally came to rest on Hannah walking down the aisle in her wedding gown. Her cheeks had flushed as she said, “I do.” She had left me behind without a moment’s hesitation and ran straight to the story’s hero. Had knowing the truth changed nothing? Was she still bound to the role written for her? To live for Cedric? What did that make me then? What did all the love and devotion we had shared over the years mean? A warm tear slipped from the corner of my eye as wave after wave of heartbreak swept over me. I could hold on no longer. At last, my eyes fell shut. Chapter 2 When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying on an operating table. The harsh glare of the surgical lights left my eyes burning. Blood loss had drained every trace of color from my face. The moment I opened my eyes, a doctor beside me cried out in relief. “He’s awake! Get Dr. Amell in here! There’s a shard of glass lodged beside his heart. It’s almost touching a major artery! He’s in critical condition, and she’s the only one who can operate!” At the sound of Hannah’s name, I struggled to focus and realized that I had been brought to the hospital where she worked. She was the hospital’s finest cardiothoracic surgeon. The shard beside my heart trembled with every beat. It was lodged so precariously that the slightest movement could kill me. The nurse hurried out and returned moments later. “Dr. Amell is in surgery in another OR. She can’t leave, and she said you’ll have to operate! She also called every other doctor on duty for a consultation. Even the anesthesiologist is with her!” The surgical resident froze at the nurse’s report. His eyes shifted uneasily toward me. “Did you tell her it was Leon Redfield? Did you tell her his condition was even more critical?” “I did, but Dr. Amell said Cedric’s life was at stake and no one could make her abandon her patient.” Hannah had pulled in the entire medical team for a consultation, all so Cedric could receive the best possible care. With no attending surgeon or anesthesiologist available, they expected a resident who had only just arrived with the ambulance to operate on me? As each precious second slipped away, the last of my hope began to die. Everyone at the hospital knew how much Hannah and I loved each other. They could not understand why she had left me to die, or how she could remain unmoved even after learning that I was in critical condition. Only I understood. Hannah would sacrifice anything for Cedric. Even me. Tears streamed down my face uncontrolled, while my heartbeat grew slower and weaker. Darkness pulsed at the edges of my vision. The pain gradually faded into numbness. My body began convulsing beyond my control. The monitors around me suddenly erupted in piercing alarms. The doctor gathered his nerves and made his decision. Turning to the nurses standing by, he said firmly, “I’ll do it. Get him prepped now. He’s out of time!” By then, the blood loss had dragged me into unconsciousness. Yet the instant the cold scalpel sliced into my skin, my body jolted. It was freezing. The pain was unbearable. When the blade cut into me again, a desperate whimper escaped my throat. My body thrashed on pure instinct. “Hold him down!” the doctor ordered. The pain overwhelmed me. Everything went black. It took the surgical team four or five hours to treat all the damage to my legs and the rest of my body. When my vital signs finally stabilized, the doctor wiped the sweat from his brow. Hovering at the edge of consciousness, I heard someone sigh with pity. “We’ve done everything we can. It’s up to him now.” Hannah never came. I barely had the strength to breathe, yet I kept whispering her name. I lay shivering on the operating table. My hand moved weakly across the sheet as I searched for someone to hold on to. Eventually, my fingers closed around someone’s sleeve. I clung to it. At last, the fear loosened its grip on me. The shard around my heart was finally gone, but the crack in our marriage had formed. It ran deeper than any wound the crash had left. I tried to open my eyes to see who was there, but darkness pulled me under before I could. Chapter 3 When I opened my eyes again, I was in a ward. As my senses returned, I realized that my lower leg had been shattered and was encased in a cast. The doctor warned me that unless I rested and followed a strict rehabilitation plan, the damage could be permanent. I was a dance instructor. Hearing that I might never regain full use of my leg felt like watching my entire future collapse. I would never perform onstage beneath the spotlights again. The dream I had worked so hard for was over. My chest was wrapped tightly in bandages. Even lying still, every breath took everything I had. I lifted my hand. I had clenched it so tightly that my fingers had gone stiff. It took almost all my remaining strength to uncurl them. In my palm lay a small scrap of fabric. It was badly wrinkled from my grip. What happened last night felt like a nightmare. The scrap in my hand was proof that every moment had actually happened. I stared at it for a long time. An argument came from the hallway. I turned my head slightly and saw Hannah standing outside in her white coat. Her expression was grim as she confronted Cedric’s family. “Yesterday was Cedric’s birthday and the anniversary of his mother’s death. Why did you have to push him on a day like that? You upset him so badly that he drank and took off on his motorcycle! “If I hadn’t been there, you might never have seen him alive again. I know him better than any of you. He would never do something like this without a reason!” I lay quietly in bed and listened to the heated exchange outside. Every accusation made it clear that her only concern was Cedric and that she would defend him no matter what. From the moment the crash happened, I had not crossed her mind once. A nurse entered to replace my IV bag and noticed me staring into the hallway. “Would you like me to get Dr. Amell?” she asked. I looked away. I managed a faint smile and shook my head. “No, thank you. She seems to have her hands full. Could you help me arrange for a private caregiver?” The nurse adjusted the IV drip and nodded. A faint chill spread across the back of my hand as the medication entered my vein, accompanied by a dull sting. For a moment, my vision blurred. Only after the hallway fell silent again did I close my eyes. Exhaustion soon pulled me into a deep sleep. Cedric escaped with only minor injuries. His helmet had absorbed most of the impact. He had merely been knocked unconscious. Hannah was in the passenger seat. She was shaken, but she had not suffered so much as a scratch. Of the three of us, I was the only one who had come close to dying. The part of me that had loved Hannah with everything had died in that crash. I was like a forgotten nobody. Even if I disappeared, I wouldn't cause so much as a ripple. I remained in the hospital for more than two weeks. During that entire time, Hannah never called or sent me a single message. She took time off work and went on a trip with Cedric to help him put the ordeal behind him. Hannah’s latest social media post appeared on my screen. The photo showed her and Cedric standing at the summit of a snow-covered mountain with their fingers intertwined as they gazed into each other’s eyes. The post was: Life is an adventure. Choose someone worth exploring it with. The radiant smile on her face and the light in her eyes said everything. She was really happy. Without a word, I tapped Like. A second later, the post vanished. Then, I received a text from Hannah. [Honey, I miss you so much.] I lowered my gaze. For the first time, I did not reply to her text. The day I came home from the hospital, Hannah returned from her trip. Cedric had given her a ride home. When he saw me, he sneered. Then, he pulled Hannah into his arms and kissed her hard. They kissed and flirted as though I were not standing there. Hannah flushed and pushed him away with a playful smile. Cedric looked at me with a taunting glint in his eyes that said: What are you going to do about it? As the novel’s hero, Cedric had lost his mother at a young age. He was arrogant, reckless, and accustomed to doing whatever he pleased. It was not until he met the heroine that he learned what it meant to be loved and to have a home. Hannah was meant to pull him back from the brink and love him with everything she had. Chapter 4 The moment they found each other, the dormant story snapped back to life and began racing toward the ending already written for them. The scene before me felt like a message from the author, delivered with a sneer: You never stood a chance. I sat in my wheelchair, my expression blank. Beneath the numbness, the pain remained. Hannah finally eased Cedric away and laughed. “Be good and go home. I’ll come see you in a few days. Now stop it. If my husband finds out, he’ll be upset.” I felt like a pathetic voyeur, forced to watch from the sidelines as they shared a moment of happiness that belonged only to them. Then, an ugly thought crept into my mind. I wished Cedric had died in the crash. Hannah turned around and saw me. She froze. Our eyes met. A flicker of discomfort crossed her face. Her complexion turned a little paler. I had given up on her. I had forced myself to relive the truth over and over until I thought I had become immune to the pain. Yet the moment I looked into Hannah’s eyes, tears spilled before I could stop them. My first instinct was to get away. My injured leg made the chair difficult to maneuver. I fumbled with the wheels. Being seen like that, helpless and humiliated, was deeply humiliating. The sight of my tears sent Hannah into a panic. She hurried toward me. “Leon, what happened to your leg?” She stopped in front of me, looking me over carefully from head to toe. Her gaze finally settled on the bandages across my chest. Her voice caught as she asked, “How did you get hurt this badly?” If she had said nothing, I might have kept myself together. That question unleashed every ounce of hurt and anger I had been holding back. I looked up into her concerned, bewildered eyes and enunciated every word clearly. “Cedric wasn’t the only person injured in that crash. When you abandoned me at the scene for him, what did you think would happen to me?” As I went on, more color drained from Hannah’s face. The hazy fragments of the crash suddenly snapped into focus in her mind. When she saw Cedric lying there, all she could think about was him. Nothing mattered except keeping him alive. She had completely forgotten that my injuries were far worse than his. If I had not wrenched the wheel aside at the last second and sent the car straight into the barrier, there was no telling whether she or Cedric would have escaped unharmed. Hannah’s eyes filled with tears and guilt as she reached for me. Her hand stopped inches away. Her fingers trembled as she asked, “Does it hurt?” My face must have been deathly pale. I gripped the wheels and rolled backward. Then, I shook my head. “It doesn’t hurt.” When Hannah realized I was recoiling from her, she fell apart. She burst into tears and threw herself at me. “I’m sorry, Leon. This is all my fault. I’m so sorry. Cedric had a head injury, and I panicked. All I could think about was saving him. Please don’t blame me, okay?” I managed a bitter smile and leaned away from her hand. After taking a deep breath, I questioned her again. “When I was in surgery, the nurse told you I was the patient. Why did you still pull the entire medical team away? Why couldn’t you come see me, even once?” Hannah shook her head. My question seemed to catch her off guard. She paused for a moment before saying, “Cedric was unconscious. I was terrified that he’d die. Your injuries were something the trauma team could handle. I knew the other doctors could help you.” Cedric. Everything was about Cedric. I did not know what to say. A hollow cold opened inside my chest and spread until it felt as though I would never be warm again. All the disappointment and pain I had carried for so long, along with the despair and terror of nearly dying, came crashing over me. I could no longer contain the anguish or the bitter resentment against her. In a hoarse voice, I asked one final question. “How long have you known Cedric?”