Chapter 6

Claire lit up brighter than a Christmas tree the moment she heard Josie was staying—way happier than Josie herself. “Thank God. I finally got company. You have no idea.” Claire tugged her toward the hospital’s temp dorms. “Staring down Sean’s ice-queen act every day was driving me batshit.”

“We’re crashing at the hospital’s intern housing—got the whole room to myself. Metal bunk bed, bedding’s all set. I’ve got fresh sheets and a duvet cover stashed away—we’ll swap ’em out once we get there.”

“For these two days, Professor Wilcourt has consultations. We’re following her around to gain some experience. If you don’t have classes, you can stick around for a few more days.”

“Oh, right, what’s your major? Have you finished your courses? Why not intern over there?”

Claire’s questions reminded Josie of Professor Lawson and her teammates, but she wasn’t upset about it; instead, she felt happy about taking this step.

Second go-round at life, she’d staked everything to dodge last life’s tragedy. Changing majors? That was her first real move to swerve clear of all that.

Claire’s warmth and easygoing nature helped ease Josie’s awkwardness.

“I’m majoring in cytology under Professor David Lawson. And he has plenty of interns,” she replied.

Even though Claire was enthusiastic, she knew how to keep things appropriate and didn’t pry further. “You’re right; it’s better to be a main player here rather than an invisible one in Professor Lawson’s team.

“With fewer students under Professor Wilcourt, each one gets more attention. You came to the right place.”

“Yeah.” Josie smiled, feeling inexplicably cheerful.

As they talked, they arrived at the dormitory. After helping her settle in, Claire pulled her off to eat.

They went to the hospital cafeteria. On their way there, Josie messaged her roommate Adeline, telling her that she’d be staying at the hospital for a couple of days.

Just as her thumb hovered over the power button, the screen blazed to life: Aiden Brown!

Josie’s pretty eyes didn’t even flicker at the name. Dead calm, she hit mute and then tossed the phone back into her purse like yesterday’s trash.

“Why aren’t you answering?” Claire glanced at her.

Josie smiled. “It’s nothing important. Let’s go eat.”

Compared to eating, Aiden was totally irrelevant.

Underneath the girls’ dormitory building at Aloville Medical School, Aiden watched his darkening screen with a frown. “She didn’t answer!”

“Josie is getting more disrespectful by the day! She doesn’t even pick up your calls now! What does she think she’s doing?” Kyle grumbled angrily. “Doesn’t she think we’d still try to make amends after how she treated Natalie?”

“Kyle, please hold your tongue,” Vincent said irritably. “Josie isn’t some backstabber! She owned up to Natalie and took her lumps already. Don’t drag her like this.”

Kyle snapped, “My fault now? This afternoon, I hauled my ass to the archives to help. All I said was, ‘Just apologize to Aiden.’

“Next thing I know, she blew me off and stormed out, left the archives a total mess.

“Wouldn’t have dragged you all here if I wasn’t terrified she’d get penalized again. And now? Screening calls—unbelievable!”

Kyle’s words slammed a thick silence over the others. Their faces soured like milk left out, blame for Josie already brewing.

“I’ll call her roommates.” Jaden took out his phone.

The call ended quickly.

He looked at Kyle with a serious face. “You said Josie left because she was mad at you. But didn’t you notice that she’s sick?”

“What happened?” Aiden’s original dark expression softened slightly.

Jaden sighed. “Her roommate said she went straight to the hospital after coming back this afternoon. She seems to be admitted and won’t be able to come back soon.”

“Could it be fake? When I saw her this afternoon, she seemed fine.” Kyle didn’t believe it.

Vincent glared at him. “Then would she need to bribe a doctor into admitting her for two days?”

“Who knows if she’s really in the hospital? Otherwise, why wouldn’t she even answer calls?” Kyle snapped.

Aiden shot a glance at the others. “Enough, all of you. Josie has always been frugal and doesn’t have many friends in Aloville. If she weren’t hospitalized, she would have been back at school by now.”

“Jaden, go find out which hospital she’s in so we can visit her. How did she suddenly get sick?”

Just as Jaden was about to leave, Gavin pulled him back. “Jaden, remember we promised to have dinner with Natalie tonight? She just got back to campus and was in a fragile state.

“The professor said she can’t handle any more stress. If we all go visit Josie—”

Before he could finish, Aiden interrupted, “You’re right; we can’t break our promise to Natalie. Let’s put Josie on hold for now.

“She knows how to take care of herself and probably doesn’t need us worrying too much.”

When Vincent heard this, his expression darkened. “But what about the archives? With her hospitalized, who knows when those files will be sorted? Professor Lawson might be angry.”

“She already upset the professor once; if this delays our project further, she’s going to be kicked off the team.” Aiden pressed his temples.

“These years working together have built up trust between us; I don’t want her to leave now. We’ll all go help out at the archives.”

Hearing this, the others exchanged looks and all agreed accordingly.

Josie didn’t know that the job that gave her a stomach problem in her previous life was now being taken care of by Aiden and others.

She had just finished dinner with Claire and was back at her dorm.

Delilah assigned them homework during dinner, and as soon as they got back, Claire grabbed her laptop and hadn’t said a word since.

Josie wasn’t much of a talker anyway. After opening her laptop, she didn’t rush to do the homework but wrote an email to quit David’s research team first.

In her previous life, after getting disciplined, she did a lot to win back the seniors and David’s trust. Eventually, they agreed to let her join the team.

Once in, her internship file fell into David’s hands. With the disciplinary record, she had to bend over backward to please him for a good job after graduation.

She did all the dirtiest and most tiring work in the team and even broke through several research bottlenecks.

But in the end, her evaluation only said: [Quiet and not very professional; suitable for administrative and basic research; not fit for academic research!]

Seeing this, she went to confront David, who replied, “I can’t allow someone with such poor morals into an academic lab; I have to be responsible for the entire medical field.”

Such high-minded words.

But Josie was naive back then. She thought David misunderstood her and tried hard to change his impression, doing thankless tasks until they sent her to prison.

Now, she wouldn’t give David another chance to control her. Her internship report would be perfect, and the evaluation must be fair and true.

With this thought, Josie hit Enter and sent the email to David.

At that moment, it felt like a weight was lifted off her chest.