My BFF Betrayed Me with My Boyfriend! Now Neither of Them Will Leave Me Alone! Chapter 06
My new job was at the largest teaching hospital in Seattle.
The department was spacious, with sunlight pouring through the windows.
Peter Lang, the department chair, was an old acquaintance of my mentor’s.
On my first day, he patted me on the shoulder and laughed.
“Your mentor video-calls me every day just to brag about you. He says you’re the most driven student he’s ever had. Welcome back.”
I smiled, took my ID badge, and clipped it to my white coat.
The woman reflected in the locker room mirror was much thinner than she had been 3 years ago, but her eyes were still clear.
Rehabilitation in Zurich had restored 90% of the function in my right hand.
It still grew sore and numb if I held surgical instruments for too long, but I could perform most surgeries.
On my 3rd day at work, someone knocked on my office door.
Evan stood outside, looking exhausted.
“Athena… so you really are here.”
I glanced at the people passing through the hallway, then frowned and invited him inside.
He sat across from me, his expression complicated.
—
“Athena, you left the ER too quickly that day. There’s so much I need to tell you.”
I quietly looked up at him and gave a cold laugh.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
His face went pale for a moment, but he continued anyway.
“That beaded charm really was made by Karen. At first, the 2 of us were only…”
“I can’t defend what I did. I was wrong, and I know it was unfair to you. But there hasn’t been a single moment in the past 3 years when I didn’t regret it.”
He lowered his head with a bitter smile.
As if afraid I might refuse to listen, he rushed to say everything at once.
“These past 3 years have been miserable. Karen… she’s always insecure. She checks my phone every day and asks who it is whenever a colleague texts me. If I talk to a female coworker for even a little too long at the hospital, she refuses to eat afterward. She quit her job and stayed home. Her entire life revolves around me. I feel guilty just for breathing.”
“Every day when I come home, I have to watch every word I say because I’m terrified I’ll hurt her feelings. You used to stand beside me at the operating table. We understood each other without speaking, and we worked together perfectly. But with her, I spend every day explaining myself, making promises, and wiping away tears. One night, I woke up and thought you were still beside me. I reached
—
out, only to remember that you were already gone.”
I ignored him and continued writing my progress notes.
Only then did I reluctantly look up.
“So what? Are you hoping I’ll feel sorry for you? Because I don’t give a fuck.”
Evan’s expression changed.
Even the golden boy who had been praised his entire life now had to tread carefully around someone else.
Still, he didn’t leave.
“Why didn’t I stop you on the rooftop that evening?”
I put down my pen and smiled mockingly.
“You like being needed. You like having people depend on you. You like having someone look at you as if you’re their entire world. I couldn’t give you that, so I wasn’t good enough.”
“But once Karen truly gave you everything she had, you started feeling suffocated.”
“Evan, you can’t have everything.”
I stood, opened the office door, and looked at him.
“You can leave now. I’m not walking you out.”
3 days later, after finishing a night shift, I ran into Karen in the hospital parking lot.
—
She was waiting beside my car.
Her eyes were swollen from crying, and she looked as if someone had abandoned her.
“Thea…”
She cried so hard that her words came out broken and unclear.
She told me how exhausting the past 3 years had been.
She said she had dreamed countless times about my injured arm.
She said that only after getting together with Evan had she understood what it meant to never feel secure for even a moment.
She said she barely recognized herself anymore.
She said she truly missed me.
Finally, she raised her head, crying so hard that she could barely speak.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just want you to know that you were the best friend I’ve ever had. I’m sorry.”
The wind tangled her hair.
She was still the same.
Even now, she cried like a child.
I fell silent.
Suddenly, I remembered hiding at home and crying many years ago.
—
Karen had smiled and taken my hand.
She had said, “You’re not pretty when you cry, Athena. From now on, I’ll protect you.”
But from that day forward, I had never cried in front of anyone.
I had taken responsibility for protecting Karen.
I remembered the caramel chew.
I remembered her squeezing into the kitchen to make me pasta.
I remembered everything we had once shared.
In the end, I only sighed softly, pulled out a pack of tissues, and handed it to her.
“Karen, no one stops living just because someone leaves. You’ll get through this, as long as you choose to.”