Chapter 2 - The Emergency Room
The fluorescent lights of the emergency room felt like daggers piercing my skull. I lay on a narrow, uncomfortable bed, shaking violently under a thin, scratchy hospital blanket. My eyes were forced open with metal speculums while a team of nurses continuously irrigated them with saline solution.
Every flush sent a fresh wave of agony through my nerve endings.
"Chemical injury to both corneas," the attending ER doctor had announced grimly ten minutes earlier. He didn't call it an overreaction. He called it an assault.
Through the chaos of the emergency room, I could hear Daniel speaking to the hospital security guard near the nurses' station.
"She was highly emotional," Daniel lied smoothly, his voice carrying the calm authority of a man used to being believed. "We were arguing about where to place her luggage. She grabbed a cleaning bottle from a maid's cart and accidentally sprayed herself while gesturing."
I tried to speak, to yell out that he was lying, but my throat was raw from screaming, and the pain in my eyes consumed all my energy.
Ten minutes later, the curtain around my bed pulled back.
"He's gone," a nurse told me softly, adjusting the IV in my arm.
"He left?" I rasped, my voice barely a whisper.
"He said he had an urgent business meeting," she replied, her eyes filled with pity. "He didn't sign your admission papers, and he didn't ask to speak to the ophthalmologist about your prognosis."
He left me here. Blinded, terrified, and alone.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the stinging saline, hot tears mixing with the cold fluid. The man I loved, the man I had married, had held me steady while his mother attacked me, and then abandoned me to protect his schedule.
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"Is there anyone we can call?" the nurse asked gently.
I nodded weakly. "My parents."
