Reclaimed My Stage, Left Him Kneeling in the Rain Chapter 02
Early the next morning, I packed a small suitcase and took a rideshare to St. Catherine Medical Center.
Dr. Lawson, the neurosurgeon who supervised my original rehabilitation, recognized me in the hallway.
“Brynn? Why haven’t you returned for follow-up appointments?”
He looked at my wheelchair, and his expression changed.
“Why didn’t you attend the nerve-regeneration program in California?”
“Rhys said the treatment carried a high risk of paralysis and had less than a one percent chance of success.”
Dr. Lawson turned toward the records department.
“That’s ridiculous. Come with me.”
He retrieved my file from six years earlier and pushed a stack of papers across the desk.
“The nerves in your legs were never completely dead.”
“If you had gone to the Pacific Neurorehabilitation Institute and used its experimental powered-exoskeleton therapy, you would have had a better than seventy percent chance of walking independently.”
“Rhys even paid the $150,000 deposit to reserve your place.”
Heat rushed through my chest as I stared at the receipt.
He had once genuinely planned to save me.
Dr. Lawson sighed and turned the page.
“A few days later, he submitted a withdrawal form.”
The signature at the bottom was unmistakably Rhys’s.
He signed it one day before the dance association demanded compensation from Sienna.
The reason stated that the patient had severe depression, feared pain, and voluntarily refused treatment.
The form did not merely cancel an appointment. It used a false description of my mental health to ensure the hospital would stop contacting me directly.
“Whenever the hospital contacted your family, Rhys said you were too depressed to handle any pressure. He ordered us not to disturb you.”
Dr. Lawson shook his head.
I remembered Rhys telling me, with red eyes, that his company had collapsed and he could barely afford food.
To avoid ruining him, I told the doctors I no longer wanted treatment.
I even forced a smile and said using a wheelchair was easier than walking.
At the time, I thought I was protecting the man who had given up everything to care for me.
In reality, I had helped him conceal the fact that he sacrificed my recovery to save Sienna’s career.
I had been a complete fool.
With copies of the documents in my lap, I left the hospital.
My phone lit up.
A livestream announcement for Sienna’s comeback rehearsal appeared on the screen.
The Briarhaven Convention Center was only two blocks away.
I needed to learn where my treatment deposit had gone.
I reached the backstage area.
Before I could enter the half-open lounge, Sienna’s sharp laugh came through the door.
“The other dancers are jealous of me.”
“They have no idea the dance association tried to remove me six years ago, or that you paid my $150,000 settlement so I could stay in the industry.”
She paused.
“That money wasn’t meant for Brynn’s treatment, was it?”
Silence filled the room.
Then Rhys answered in a low voice.
“It was.”
“Brynn was already disabled. Treatment would not have changed anything.”
“If the association had sued you, your entire life would have been destroyed.”
“I owed Brynn, so I planned to repay her by caring for her every day. Back then, you had no one except me.”
His explanation reduced my future to a debt he could repay with massages and pity.
I pushed the door open.
The wheelchair crossed the threshold with a dull thump.
Sienna leaned against Rhys’s chest, her eyes red with manufactured emotion.
When he saw me, all color left his face.
I slapped the copies of the deposit receipt and withdrawal form onto the dressing table.
“You had the money.”
“You gave me hope, ripped it away with your own hands, and used it to protect the person who crippled me.”
Sienna covered her mouth as tears spilled down her face.
“Brynn, I didn’t know it was your treatment money. Rhys never told me.”
Rhys immediately turned toward her with tenderness and concern.
The last warmth in my chest died as I watched his profile.
“What did my ruined legs ever mean to you?”
Rhys faced me, his voice rough.
“I’m sorry. I’ll find the best specialists in the world.”
“The best period for nerve repair ended years ago.”
I cut him off.
“Your love rotted long before that.”
Sienna clutched her chest and began gasping, pretending to have a panic attack.
Rhys instinctively wrapped both arms around her.
I did not wait for another explanation.
I took out my phone and changed my flight from three days later to that night.
