They Were the Stars, I Was Just in Their Orbit Chapter 06
After Ethan finished work, there was still not a single message on his phone.
He pushed open the door to Nina’s office.
“Has April replied to any of your messages these past few days?”
Nina looked up from a patient chart and shook her head helplessly.
“When she used to get upset, she would never ignore me.”
Ethan sensed that something was wrong and pressed her further.
“What else did you say to her that night?”
“Nothing. I just thanked her for volunteering to take the blame for my mistake.”
At that, a bad feeling suddenly rose in Ethan’s chest.
No longer able to keep his tone in check, he frowned.
“Who told you she volunteered to take the blame?”
Nina’s rebuttal came out at once.
“If she didn’t volunteer, then what? Are you saying someone forced her to take it?”
But the man across from her said nothing, and his expression instantly darkened.
A terrible possibility surfaced in her mind.
Nina’s pen slipped from her fingers, and her eyes widened in disbelief.
“You forced her? Why would you do that?”
Ethan pressed a hand to his forehead and let out a long sigh.
“Don’t I know you by now? After making that kind of mistake during surgery, I was afraid you’d go straight to the hospital director and hand in your resignation.”
“April is different. She’s only a nurse. A small mistake from her would seem normal enough. The one thing I didn’t expect was for the patients’ families to find out.”
After hearing his explanation, Nina shot to her feet, her eyes turning red.
Through gritted teeth, she said, “Ethan! April cared about her work more than anything. She worked for so many years and never made a single mistake.’
“How am I supposed to face her after this?”
They looked at each other, both speechless.
On the way back, Ethan was dazed, and his steps faltered.
He opened his chat with April again.
Then he scrolled upward, message by message.
April: [Ethan, the stray cat downstairs! Doesn’t it look like you?]
April: [One second, a patient was questioning my skills. The next, they were completely won over by my flawless technique. Hmph.]
April: [The meatloaf in the cafeteria today is awful. Don’t get it later!]
No matter how busy work was, April could always find little gaps to send him a few messages.
Sometimes she was childish in the most endearing way, and sometimes she showed a startling kind of resilience.
Back then, that was exactly how Ethan had been drawn to her, and the two of them had become a couple.
But he had hurt her.
During that month of silent treatment, April rarely messaged him unless she had to.
Now, she was not even willing to reply with a single “okay.”
After washing his face with cold water, Ethan finally calmed down a little.
It was fine. She would be back in a few days.
He would explain the truth to the patients’ families.
He would ask the hospital to remove the disciplinary action from her file.
He still had plenty of time to earn April’s forgiveness little by little.
Only by thinking that way could the pain in his chest ease.
Two days later, Ethan arrived early and waited in her department.
But April never appeared.
When he looked more carefully, someone else’s belongings were already sitting at her station.
He frowned and stopped a nurse he recognized.
“Excuse me, has Nurse Reed still not come back?”
The other nurse looked confused.
“April? Didn’t she resign a week ago?”
“What?”
Ethan’s first reaction was that it was impossible.
How could April have resigned?
Back then, to avoid being long-distance, they had worked so hard to end up at the same hospital.
“Do you know which hospital she transferred to?”
“Huh? She said she didn’t want to be a nurse anymore. I guess she changed careers.”
She did not want to be a nurse anymore.
That sentence circled over and over in Ethan’s mind.
His vision went black. He braced himself against the wall, but he could not hold himself up.
In the last moment before he fainted, he thought that his April did not seem to want him anymore.