Something in me reacted before I could even think. I dropped everything and ran.
“Ma’am, can you hear me?” I asked, lowering her carefully. Her breaths were shallow—too shallow.
A heart attack.
My hands shook as I called emergency services, then immediately started first aid. I remembered every training I had, every drill I’d ever done. I kept her stable, kept her talking, checked her pulse again and again while waiting for help.
When the ambulance finally arrived, she grabbed my hand tightly.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “You saved me.”
At the time, I didn’t understand how serious those words were.
The next day, her entire family appeared at my hospital—including Julian.
He barely looked at me then. Polite, distant, like I was just another stranger.
But Rosemarie… she held onto me like I mattered.
“You’re different,” she told me. “You saved my life. Let me give you one in return.”
I was drowning back then. Barely surviving—living in a cramped apartment with my sick mother, juggling hospital shifts and school, terrified my scholarship could disappear any day.
I had nothing stable. No safety net. No future I could trust.