Chapter 189: Woes of A prodigy – Nick Bennett’s POV

NICK

The alarm didn’t wake me. It couldn’t. To be woken, one has to be asleep, and sleep is a luxury my nervous system hasn’t allowed me to indulge in for months.

I was staring at the ceiling when the digital blare began at 5:30 AM.

The red numbers cut through the darkness of the bedroom, hemorrhaging light onto the white plaster above.

It was too loud, too early, and exactly the same as yesterday. I didn’t move for the first thirty seconds.

I just let the sound grate against my eardrums, a mechanical reminder that the performance was scheduled to begin.

Beside me, Lila didn’t stir. She was dead to the world, her breathing shallow and rhythmic.

We’d had sex last night, a hollow, athletic encounter that felt more like a checked box on a to-do list than an act of intimacy.

I hadn’t wanted to do it.

I hadn’t wanted much of anything lately.

But like everyone else, Lila expected a certain version of Nicholas Bennett, and I had become very good at providing the necessary simulations.

I sat up, my spine cracking in the silence.

A bone-deep exhaustion settled over my shoulders, the kind of fatigue that sleep wouldn’t fix even if I could find it.

It was the exhaustion of existence, of carrying the weight of a life I never actually asked for. I looked at my hands in the dim red light. Steady. Always steady. The hands of a prodigy. The hands that saved lives.

I stood up, my body protesting every movement, and walked toward the bathroom. Another day. Just like the last.

Just like the next. Until I die, probably.

It wasn’t a dramatic thought; it was just factual.

The shower was an autopilot routine. I had done this a thousand times, hot water, expensive soap, the mechanical scrubbing of skin.

The steam filled the bathroom, turning the mirrors opaque, but the heat didn’t feel like anything. It was just wet.

I stood under the spray with my eyes closed, pretending the water was washing away the grime of my own resentment.

It wasn’t working. I looked down at my hands again. Everyone says they’re special.

Surgeons, professors, the media, they all talk about my “gift.” In my head, they’re just hands. Meat and bone and nerves that happen to be good at stitching other people’s meat and bone together.

I’m so fucking tired.

I got out, dried off with a towel that felt like sandpaper, and pulled on my scrubs. The turquoise fabric felt like a uniform for a prison I’d built myself.

I walked into Lila’s kitchen, the floor cold against my feet. I went through the motions of making coffee, strong, black, bitter. I lit a cigarette, the first lungful of smoke the only thing that felt real in the gray morning light.

“Babe?” Lila’s voice drifted from her bedroom. It was sweet, that fake, saccharine sweetness she’s perfected.

Everything about her is a calculation. She stayed with Noah because he was “sweet,” and she moved to me because I was “successful.” She liked the shiny things. She liked the Dr. Bennett brand.

“Going to work,” I said. My voice was flat. Not unkind, just devoid of anything resembling emotion.

“This early?” she asked, appearing in the doorway, draped in one of my shirts that I’d forgotten at her place months ago. She knew the answer. She asked every morning I was around just to hear herself speak.

I didn’t answer. I took one sip of the coffee, found it as hollow as the morning, and set it down. I wouldn’t finish it. I never do.

Lila walked up to me, her eyes tracking the trail of smoke from my cigarette. She reached out and took it from my fingers, taking a drag herself. I let her. I didn’t care. She reached for the coffee mug I’d just set down, her fingers tracing the ceramic rim.

“You took Noah’s favorite mug,” she said, her voice lilting with a cruel kind of playfulness.

The mention of his name was like a needle pricking a nerve. “So?”

Lila smiled, a slow, cat-like expression as she waltzed back toward the bedroom. “I almost feel sorry for him,” she chuckled, tapping ash into a tray. “Breaking up with him like that. He must be so unlucky, having his brother fucking his girlfriend behind his back all those months.”

She stopped at the door, glancing back. “I don’t even know why I dated him in the first place. I guess I just liked the way he always looked like a confused puppy. You’re much more… substantial, Nicholas.”

I wasn’t interested. I grabbed my phone, ignoring the bile rising in the back of my throat. My screen was already a graveyard of notifications. News alerts about the “Miracle Surgeon of the North Wing.” I scrolled past them without opening a single link. I don’t care about the press. I never did.

My mother’s texts were already waiting.

Good morning sweetie! Did you sleep well?

Have you heard from Noah? He’s not answering me.

Can you check on him?

Are you eating properly? Should I bring you lunch?

Jesus Christ. It was 5:45 AM. I stared at the screen, feeling the familiar suffocating pressure of her “love.” It wasn’t love; it was surveillance.

I’m fine. Busy today, I typed back. I didn’t mention Noah. Fuck Noah. He gets to be the “confused puppy.” He gets to be the one everyone worries about. I have to be the one who saves the governor’s wife.

Then came the message from my father. Longer. More professional.

Son, remember the dinner next week. Dr. Chen will be there. Make a good impression. This is important for your career. Don’t embarrass us.

The subtext was loud enough to deafen: Don’t be like your brother. Don’t be a disappointment. Keep the mask on.

I didn’t text back. I’ve never embarrassed them. I’ve never done anything but exactly what they demanded, and the weight of that perfection was starting to crush my ribs. I pocketed the phone and headed for the garage.

The car was an expensive piece of German engineering, a gift from my father for my latest “achievement.” It felt like a leash made of leather and chrome.

The city was still dark as I drove, the streetlights flickering past like frames in a movie I’d already seen a thousand times. I felt nothing. The radio was playing some news segment about healthcare reform; I changed the station. A pop song came on, too bright, too loud, too happy. I turned it off.

I sat in the silence of the cabin, the hum of the engine the only sound. I’m twenty-six years old. My resume is longer than most fifty-year-olds’. I have the money, the car, the reputation, and the hot girl in my bed.

And yet I feel like I’m sixty. I feel like my life is already over, and I’m just playing out the remaining decades in a pre-recorded loop. Is this it? Is this all there is?

I pushed the thought down. There was no room for it. Not if I wanted to keep the mask from cracking.

I arrived at the hospital at 6:30 AM. The building was massive, a monolith of glass and concrete that served as both my workplace and my cage. I pulled into the reserved spot, Dr. Nicholas Bennett, a new addition after the high-profile surgery last month. I hated seeing my name on it. It felt like a tombstone.

Walking through the lobby, the early shift nurses saw me and brightened. “Good morning, Dr. Bennett!” they called out, their voices extra warm, their eyes filled with a level of respect that felt like an insult.

“Morning,” I said, flashing the practiced, professional smile that had become my default setting. It was perfect. It was polite.

Inside, I wanted to scream until my lungs gave out.

I spent the next hour in pre-rounds. Charts, labs, imaging. The residents hovered around me like nervous ducklings, over-explaining cases I’d already memorized.

“Dr. Bennett, the post-op patient in 3B, ” a resident began, launching into a granular detail of a gall bladder removal.

I listened, my face attentive, my eyes tracking the data on the iPad. Get to the point, I thought. I can read. You’re wasting my time. “Good work. Continue monitoring,” I said out loud.

The resident beamed, looking relieved and grateful. They think I’m patient. They think I’m the “kind” mentor. If they knew what I was actually thinking, they’d quit medicine tomorrow.

Morning rounds were a parade. Residents, medical students, and nurses followed me through the halls. We moved from bed to bed, a traveling circus of white coats.

The patients looked at me with a terrifying kind of hope. I saw them whispering as I approached. “That’s the one from the news.”

One older woman clutched my hand, her eyes shimmering. “You’re the one who saved the governor’s wife! We saw you on the television.”

“I’m just doing my job, ma’am,” I said, my smile humble and perfect.

I’m so tired of this story, I thought as I gently disengaged my hand. I’m so tired of being the protagonist in your fan fiction.

Next patient. Next bed. Same routine. Over and over. Until I die, probably.

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