Reclaimed My Stage, Left Him Kneeling in the Rain Chapter 04
Shrieks erupted across the venue.
The backstage area dissolved into chaos.
The steel truss had distorted both my legs.
Blood spread quickly across the floor.
Rhys stared at me, and genuine fear finally entered his eyes.
He took one step in my direction.
A ridiculous hope rose inside me.
Just once, perhaps he would choose me first.
“Rhys, my ankle hurts. I can’t lose my dance career.”
Sienna’s scream rose above the noise.
Reporters pushed closer while camera flashes filled the room.
On-site medics rushed backstage with a stretcher.
“Mr. Whitaker, where is the injured person?”
Rhys looked between Sienna and me.
She clutched his sleeve so tightly that her nails dug into his arm.
“I’m a dancer. Nothing can happen to my foot.”
His throat moved.
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he made his final choice.
“Treat Sienna first.”
Those three words destroyed the last hope inside me.
The medics turned toward her.
Rhys crouched, held Sienna against his chest, and massaged an ankle without a single broken patch of skin.
He had seen the steel crushing my legs, yet he treated her minor injury as the greater emergency because her career still mattered to him.
I lay helpless beneath the wreckage.
People rushing around stepped on the damaged wheelchair until its support axle snapped.
The last sensation disappeared from my legs.
Reporters kept photographing me.
No one offered a hand.
“That’s the woman who tried to destroy Sienna. This is karma.”
The insults reached me.
Their cameras captured the blood beneath my body, yet the story Sienna had told mattered more to them than the evidence in front of their eyes.
My legs were covered in blood, but I no longer felt pain.
Rhys looked back and saw my white face and blood-soaked clothes.
For a moment, he seemed ready to approach.
Sienna wrapped both arms around his waist.
“My ankle is numb. Does that mean I’ll never dance again?”
He chose not to release her.
As he passed me, he paused without meeting my eyes.
“My assistant will take you to the hospital.”
Still carrying Sienna, he shouted at the medics.
“Her foot cannot be damaged. Use whatever treatment she needs.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
An ambulance arrived.
The medical team took Sienna first.
Rhys climbed in without hesitation.
A second ambulance carried me to St. Catherine Medical Center.
When I woke, heavy casts covered both legs.
The nurse had placed pieces of my broken wheelchair on the nightstand.
Those fragments were the only belongings that had followed me from the venue.
“Ms. Calloway, Mr. Whitaker called more than a dozen times. Would you like to call him back?”
I took my phone and rejected another incoming call.
Then I contacted an attorney and requested a digital engagement-termination agreement.
I changed out of the hospital gown and removed the IV from my hand.
The hospital had not discharged me, but I had already chosen the flight that would take me to the only treatment program willing to reconsider my case.
I slid the engagement ring from my finger.
The ring and the shattered wheelchair axle went into an envelope marked with Rhys’s name.
I left it at the nurses’ station with one message.
The ring ended our engagement, while the broken axle recorded the final choice he had made at the venue.
Half an hour later, Rhys rushed into the hospital and searched frantically for me.
The nurse handed him the envelope.
“Brynn said she was done with those legs.”
She looked directly at him.
“And she was done with you.”
