CHAPTER FOUR: REBORN
1554 Words
The sun was already up, but Alina hadn’t slept.
She sat on the edge of her dorm room bed, staring into the distant wall.
"It's not a big deal," she told herself repeatedly.
Bonny had come into the room bragging about how many men she had done it with.
She shouldn’t feel the way she did.
She fell on her back onto the hard mattress groaning.
Every time she closed her eyes, she could vision him.
Her stomach turned every time she remembered his voice, calm and cold, his hands on her body. The way he didn’t even blink. The fact that she handed herself over like a bargain at a market stand.
She felt ripped-off.
But Allen was alive. That had to count for something.
Right?
She stood up slowly, dressed in silence, and made her way back to Fountain.
The hospital looked the same.
Smelled the same.
Same white walls. Same nurses with tired fake smiles. Same Spongebob cartoon posters in the pediatric hallway that tried too hard to be cheerful.
She walked straight to the nurses' desk, asking for Dr. Hakim.
He met her near the elevators, clipboard in hand.
He also looked the same, his gray eyes hidden behind those horn rimmed glasses and his gray hair tied in a low bun.
“Alina,” he said. “We have a lot of things to discuss.”
She braced herself. “What happened?”
He smiled, a real, genuine smile.
“The bill’s been paid. In full.”
She blinked. “What?”
“An anonymous donation. All of Allen's treatments have been cleared. And I mean all of them. He’s scheduled for surgery next week.”
He looked at Alina, the way a father would his daughter, “You know, I thought- I still think what you did at the gala was too risky and you could have gotten in some serious trouble”.
He paused and placed a hand gently on her shoulder, comforting her. Her eyes were tearing and her nose was running.
“But I am so proud of you for standing up for your brother. What you did was very respectable. I’m guessing someone must have loved your fire and donated the money. You have gotten the miracle you have been praying for.”
Alina’s knees almost buckled.
She pressed a hand to the wall behind her, dizzy.
“It’s done?”
“It’s done.”
She didn’t cry. She couldn’t. Something inside her was too knotted for tears.
Instead, she laughed, this broken, disbelieving sound, and then looked down at her shoes. The floor blurred beneath her.
Happy.
Sad.
Ashamed.
Relieved.
There wasn’t a word in the English dictionary to describe how she felt.
She nodded once, managed to whisper a small thank-you, and walked to Allen’s room.
When he saw her, his face lit up, pale and tired, but bright as ever.
“Lina! Did you hear? I’m gonna get my surgery!”
She smiled and sat on the edge of his bed, brushing his hair back gently.
“Yeah, I did hear,” she sniffed. “You are.”
He didn’t know what it had cost her.
And she hoped he never would.
Things didn’t change all at once.
It was slowly but surely shifting into better days.
For the first time in months, her notifications weren't filled with reminders to pay bills. She didn’t have to check her account before getting on the bus. She was able to change her cracked malfunctioning phone for a new one and finally got that long needed hair cut.
Most importantly, Allen was getting better.
The surgery was a success. The recovery period was slow but steady. His cheeks were getting color again, he was no longer in constant pain. Tubes weren't sticking out of his body anymore.
She visited him every week and they talked with bright hopes about the new life that awaits them.
Seeing him talk too much, the mischievous look he used to have on his face back, she would have done what she did. A million times to hear her brother laugh like that.
School also got easier.
No, scratch that. Law school was still absolute torture, but now she had peace of mind. The kind of peace that encompasses human understanding.
With her mind solely on classes, she started raising her hand in class.
She answered questions with confidence.
“You have come alive”, Professor Sloane commended on the day after class. “Whatever switch you flipped, keep it on.”
She smiled, genuinely. She did feel alive. She felt reborn, her chest flickering with pride.
She passed her finals. Top ten percent of her year.
She paid back all debts she owed.
Allen enrolled back in school, so she moved them both to a small, homely apartment close to his school.
It was finally graduation day. She shifted in her seat as she waited for her name to be called.
Alina Moore, Juris Doctor, magna c*m laude.
She walked across the stage in her crisp white suit and heels she had bought brand new, not second hand. She collected her diploma from Professor Sloane who gave her an extra pat on her back.
She knew there was no one waiting with a bouquet of flowers.
No parents.
No guardians.
But in the midst of the crowd, Allen and Dr. Hakim stood tall cheering and clapping loudly. That was enough.
4 weeks later
Alina stood in front of the tall revolving door, straightening her blouse collar. Resume tucked neatly in a folder. Her hair was tied in a tight ballerina bun, makeup very light.
She looked like she belonged in this very tall and mirrored building.
She didn’t still feel like she belonged but that didn’t matter. She was here for a competitive legal internship. It was the kind that fast tracked careers. They handled the biggest and most important cases.
She needs to be better than good. She already had the grades, she just needed to pretend like she fit in with all this.
The receptionist smiled as she gave her name and waved her though
“You will be meeting with the partners soon”
Alina nodded, the butterflies in her stomach having a field day.
She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the 34th floor.
The doors closed and she exhaled finally alone with her thoughts.
This was it. She was so close to everything she had worked for.
In the middle of the conference room, three partners sat on one side of the long table, her chair isolated on the other. A single pitcher of water sat between them, still and untouched.
Alina sat up straight, her back stiff, resume folder neatly in front of her. Her fingers were intertwined to hide their tremble.
One of the partners, a woman in her late forties with sharp red lipstick and an even sharper bob leaned forward.
“Ms. Moore, your transcripts are impressive,” she said, flipping through the papers. “ I noticed your grades significantly jumbled in your final year. Any reason for the sudden change?”
Alina forced a polite smile. “I was just able to… focus better.
Another partner, a younger male, with tortoiseshell glasses and a chirpy, friendly voice spoke next.
“You know we interview hundreds of applicants for this internship. We’re not just looking for intelligence. We want people with grit. With a reason to fight. So tell me”
He crossed his hands.
“Why law?”
A soft pause followed.
Alina blinked. She had expected the question. She had rehearsed her answer a million times. So why couldn’t she bring herself to say it.
Her mouth opened. Closed.
Then it opened again.
“When I was seventeen, my little brother got really sick,” she began quietly. “Our parents were already gone, and I was trying to keep him alive while working two jobs and staying in school. Every time we needed treatment, it came with paperwork. Rules. Threats. Medical bills. Insurance rejections.”
She glanced down, then back up.
“I realized pretty early that the law wasn’t designed to protect people like us. It was designed to overwhelm us. To keep us in our place. And I wanted to learn it, not just to survive it, but to fight it back. To be the person someone like me would have needed at seventeen.”
Silence.
For a moment, she thought she had messed up. No one was interested in her sob story. She should just have stuck with her AI generated answer.
Then the woman in red lipstick pursed her lips, her pen hovering over Alina’s file.
The man with the glasses smiled faintly.
“Thank you,” he said. “That was… honest. I’ve heard what I was looking for.”
Alina exhaled. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
The rest of the interview moved more briskly, questions about legal research, ethical scenarios, handling clients under pressure. She answered each one with clarity, steady now. Grounded.
When she shook their hands at the end and stepped back into the elevator, a strange tension in her chest.
She hoped she hadn’t just survived the interview.
She hoped she had earned her seat at the table.
- Writer
