My Crazy Billionaire

2, Her

The brisk winter air couldn’t stop me as I folded my hands together around the warm cappuccino cup filled with hot steaming liquid. I adjusted my hat over my frizzy hair and tightened my coat together as I rushed from the heated Starbucks past the cold air outside to my car and immediately cranked up the heat warming my fingers while placing my cup in the cup holder.

It was almost March; the snow had already started melting but it was still very cold.

The fact that it was almost 6 in the evening didn’t help either. The evenings were worse. They were always worse. Which would make me sound like a very crazy person when I had rushed to take night shifts at St. Bernard’s Hospital.

Yes, I admit, in this kind of cold wouldn’t I prefer to just take a day shift so that I can curl up in my couch in front of the warm hearth while sipping a delicious cup of warm chocolate with a good book in my hand wiggling my fuzzy sock covered feet when I got to a good part and when the shadows hit and day turned to night I rest in blissful sleep? Or maybe if I’m in the mood, have a night out with my girls where we just hit the town, get drunk and hook up with random strangers then get the thrill of rushing out of our bed partner’s home after a long night of well-deserved s*x?

Yeah. If only.

Though those prospects sounded fun…...well who am I kidding? they sounded very much fun but I had to take this opportunity and take crazy these night shifts. Being a young, female medical doctor, just 6 months fresh out of medical school, I had to work extra hard to secure a fellowship or residency in this particular hospital as the hospital gave one year of a trial period with pay of course to their new doctors after which, out of the 12 doctors they took, only 5 would be selected to stay and choose any specialty in the hospital.

Yay Fun. NOT. So, to make sure I be chosen, I had to impress the management and other doctors of the hospital. One of the reasons why I was coming in at 6 when my actual 12-hour shift went from 8PM to 8AM. Another of the reasons being that I wanted to come early to check on my father who was in a vegetative state in the hospital. Last but not least of my reasons was that I was actually pretty lonely and had nothing else to do at home. Wasn’t my life just awesome? Yay.

I know I just randomly speak of my father’s vegetative state but his illness took a toll on me. On my brother as well. I had gone through a lot of s**t in my life. Growing up, we were very rich. Filthy rich actually. I was my father’s spoilt princess while my brother Ethan was my father’s golden boy. But alas! life isn’t perfect.

My father had a very serious gambling problem. When I just graduated high school, my father lost all our money, our business and properties in a very poor gambling debt. A very life changing decision. I, Ethan and my Mum were devastated. Imagine the transition from living the life of a multimillionaire to being broke.

To think I was planning on starting med school that fall and Ethan was in his third year of business school at Harvard. Like a beacon of light in a dark world, luckily my mum had a little money saved away, away from my father’s knowledge. Too bad it was not much seeing as she was a housewife and it was a secret. The money was barely enough to pay for my 7 years of med school, Ethan’s last year of business school, a year’s lease on a house in the lower parts of town and food for a month.

To leave from a mansion in the richest neighborhoods of Beverley hills to a very small townhouse in Brooklyn was the second most humiliating thing I’ve ever been through. The first being an incident from my teenage years. I had to take up small jobs to survive and my mother who wasn’t used to a poor life felt the strain most and fell sick soon enough.

The shame and suffering grinding through her, she died barely a year after we lost everything. I hated and resented my father for putting us through that and I avoided him for most of my medical school experience. After all, sure my fees were paid but I had to live in a house and wear clothes and pay for necessities. He wasn’t helping either by getting drunk and drinking himself to sleep everyday while I worked so hard while batting the Anatomies, the Immunologies, the Oncologies. My only help and strength in those moments was my best friend Maria Rosa who I made friends with when we moved and Ethan.

Ethan was a great help even though he didn’t live with us anymore. He would call me and listen to me cry all night when something happened or when I was finding everything unbearably hard. I guess there were also the notes, gifts and flowers I had been receiving from an anonymous person over the years when I was down and lonely. I and Maria Rosa called the sender Mr. X. I know most of you would fear for me in alarm. Some creepy guy had been stalking me and sending me assurances and flowers every time I was down for seven years. The thing is I was alarmed at first but eventually I just accepted whatever mental support I could get. As long as he never hurt me which he never did, somehow, I let it be.

A few weeks before my graduation from med school, my father was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer. The doctors gave him 7 months. I decided to finally forgive him and just let go of the past. At least he had been a good father once long ago. It’s been six months now and his body completely shut down hence why he was in the hospital in a vegetative state. The doctors said he would leave us any day now. By leave us, I mean dead if that wasn’t clear enough.

Entering his room, I gently closed the door behind me and gazed upon the frail form of my once robust father. There were tubes running in and out of his body and there was a machine by the side acting as his heart. He was but a waste now. I couldn’t even find it in me to resent the man for all he did to us. He was suffering enough already.

“hello Papa” I greeted and sat on the chair by his bed, setting my bag down on the floor beside me. I knew he could not reply but I still came every day to speak to him, talking to him about anything and everything and reminiscing on the days when everything was normal, my mum was alive, he was a loving father and we weren’t overworked kids. Yup. I had crossed all levels of lonely. It was easier pretending than dwelling on the past.

I was there for about an hour till I decided I should go start my shift early. I had nothing to do either ways. Saying muttered byes to my father with a kiss to his cold cheek, and throwing my now empty coffee cup in the thrash can by his door, I made my way to the other part of the hospital where I worked.

I worked as a general doctor as of the moment but if I got the fellowship, I was planning to specialize in pediatrics. I just loved children and it pained me to see them suffer. Basically general doctor meant I could be called to work in literally every division of the hospital. The things I did to get this fellowship oof!

Passing by the nurses’ station, I stopped to chat with my best friend Morgan Maria Rosa. Remember her? Yup she was a nurse here. Despite growing up in a shitty ass neighborhood and having a shitty ass life, she struggled and became a nurse. She needed it to take care of herself and her 4-year-old son, my godson Pedro. Plus, no matter how much she refused to admit it, she loved caring about others hence why she was a nurse. It was just her nature. And so many people took advantage of it like that asshole Juan that she was dating. I don’t know why she was still with him but eh. The heart wants what it wants. We chatted for a bit till I had to go change into my scrubs and start my shift.

“Doctor Simmons” my coworker, s***h boss, s***h super smart doctor legend, s***h pain in my ass rushed up to me as I was in the corridor. He looked in a hurry.

“Ward 5, room 24. NOW!” he screamed in my face and hurried off. Okay….so much for greetings.

Ward 5. Just my favorite ward. NOT. Only troublesome patients with immediate gross diseases got admitted into that ward. You had to be really low on the food chain to get sent there. Reaching the door of the ward, imet one of the nurses in charge.

“Brief me” I stated simply.

“You are in for a difficult one Lily. Patient is Dorothy Seray, a 48 year old woman. She came in with a slight fever and she complained of an intense burning sensation in her left foot.” The nurse, started.i scrunched my forhead in concentration. Those symtomps were uncommon in our area.

“Is she from around here?” I asked.

“She was brought in by her worried son who says she had been living in the woods for a while. Some retreat or something.”

Oh that makes sense. I thought and entered the ward.

“Good evening Mrs Dorothy. I am Doctor Simmons and I will be your doctor tonight. Do you mind if I look at your foot?” I asked putting on my best professional face.

“good evening doctor. I don’t mind.” She said and I put on my gloves and went to observe her foot. Upon examination, a palpable mass was left below the dorsal surface of her foot. f**k. This was looking like a case of dracunculiasis. I turned to the nurse.

“Run some blood work and please bring me the tray.”

“Yes doctor.” She replied and hurried off.

Here goes another monotonously, tiring day or as the case indicated, night. Damn I needed some more coffee.