Chapter 2

Three years ago, I was St. Jude Medical Center's prodigy.

A twenty-six-year-old attending physician, a candidate for a prestigious overseas fellowship, and engaged to a fiancé everyone envied.

My fiancé, Julian, was the Dean's son, the youngest star surgeon.

We were the hospital's golden couple, praised by everyone.

As part of the pre-departure protocol, I underwent the standard battery of tests.

The day the results came back, Vanessa, the head nurse, walked into my office.

She didn't offer it. Instead, she fixed me with a look I couldn't decipher-a fleeting, performative pity drowning in a sea of cold, triumphant scorn.

"Dr. Ava, your results... there's a problem."

I smiled, taking the report. "What problem could there be? I'm perfectly healthy."

Until I saw that line of red text.

HIV Antibody: Positive.

I stared at the words. I knew them, but my brain couldn't process their meaning.

"This can't be." My hand shook, and the report fluttered to the floor.

Julian pushed the door open just then.

He bent down to pick it up, a smile still on his face. "What's wrong? Not healthy enough to go abroad?"

But when his eyes landed on that line of text, he recoiled three steps, as if burned.

His face contorted with a horror and disgust I'd never seen before.

The way he looked at me... it was like I was a pile of rotting garbage.

"Julian, listen to me, this must be a misdiagnosis, I don't have..."

I instinctively reached out to grab his sleeve.

"Don't touch me!"

He violently yanked his arm away, so hard I slammed into the corner of the table.

All eyes in the vicinity turned to us.

I watched him pull out a disinfectant wipe from his pocket, scrubbing at the spot on his sleeve I'd almost touched. Once, twice, three times. As if it had been contaminated by the filthiest thing on earth.

"Julian!" I screamed his name, my voice cracking.

He finally stopped, lifting his head. His handsome face was cold and resolute, a look I'd never seen.

"Ava, our engagement is off."

"Effective today, you are no longer a member of St. Jude Medical Center's medical team."

"The hospital's reputation cannot be stained."

He signed my death warrant in front of everyone.

I was kicked out of the hospital, utterly humiliated, like a whipped dog.

I fled home like a coward, hoping to grasp my last hope.

But my home didn't want me either.

I pushed the key into the lock, but it wouldn't turn.

My parents considered me a disgrace to the family name. They'd changed the locks overnight and tossed my luggage onto the street.

No one listened to my explanations. No one believed me.

That night, it poured.

Homeless, I fell from grace into the mud.

I developed a high fever, curled up in a cold alley, my consciousness fading.

That's when Vanessa appeared.

She stood over me, holding an umbrella, dressed in a pristine white dress, looking down.

"Dr. Ava, how pathetic."

Her lips said 'pathetic,' but her eyes glittered with malicious glee.

She didn't help me up. Instead, she took out her phone and snapped several photos of me.

The next day, my story was all over the internet.

Those photos, paired with sensational headlines like "Brilliant Doctor's Promiscuous Lifestyle" and "STD Infection from Promiscuity," nailed me to the pillar of shame.

Every denial I made only became desperate, self-incriminating excuses.

In despair, I thought of the most drastic way to prove my innocence.

In front of everyone, I took a scalpel and deeply slashed my wrist.

If my blood was clean, wouldn't that prove my innocence?

Blood stained the white coat Julian had given me.

I thought death would clear my name.

But Julian just stood there, coldly telling a nurse:

"Clean up the blood. Don't let it infect anyone."