My appendix ruptured at 2 a.m., and I called my parents seventeen times before the world began to blur. My mother finally texted back: “Your sister’s baby shower is tomorrow. We can’t leave now.”

“You came here to discharge me,” I said to my mother.

Her eyes flashed. “I came here to make sure you weren’t turning a minor issue into a spectacle.”

“My appendix ruptured. I went septic. I flatlined.”

“Doctors exaggerate to protect themselves.”

Dr. Reeves entered so suddenly that it felt staged by God.

“No, Mrs. Crawford,” he said coldly. “We do not exaggerate cardiac arrest.”

My mother turned, startled.

Dr. Reeves stood in the doorway with Maria behind him. His expression had lost all professional warmth.

“Holly Crawford was in critical condition. She required emergency surgery, aggressive antibiotics, and resuscitation. Any attempt to remove her from medical care would have endangered her life.”

My father looked genuinely shaken for the first time.

“Cardiac arrest?” he repeated.

My mother shot him a look. “Richard—”

“You said she was being dramatic.”

“I said she tends to be dramatic.”

“I died,” I said.

My father’s eyes moved to me.

For one brief moment, I saw something like horror in his face. Maybe guilt. Maybe fear of being judged. With Richard Crawford, it was hard to tell. He had always outsourced emotion to my mother.

Claire rubbed her belly.