"The sterile forcep, sterile scissors, iodine solution..."

Acelia muttered to herself, disinfecting each instrument for removing stitches and dropping them into the white medical tray with a clatter.

When she finished, she leaned back against the sink, facing me, "Relax, Bella. Dr. Cullen is skilled, and you know him well. You can trust him completely with your leg."

"Thank you, Acelia." I groped around on the bedside table for something to hold on to. I hit the TV remote, then a pen, and then a book. A book? Perfect. I pulled its cover onto the bed and opened the first page, revealing a colorful oil painting and a row of gold-plated English words: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies.

Thank God, it wasn't a medical textbook. I devoutly crossed myself.

"This book may have been left by other nurses," Ashley's gaze wandered to the book I was holding, "but if you're interested, feel free to take a look."

But I didn't feel like reading it now, at least not right now. And I didn't grab the book for the purpose of reading it now. "How long will it take to remove the stitches?" I asked, "Will I need local anesthesia?" -I had noticed that there was no anesthesia needle among the equipment she prepared for Dr. Cullen.

"Ordinary wounds only take five minutes to complete. But your situation is very special. Some wounds are long but shallow, and some are thin but deep, so it will be much more complicated to handle. As for Dr. Cullen... it will take at most fifteen minutes, I guess?"

Fifteen minutes. So I had to expose my inner thigh under his nose for a full fifteen minutes.

"When removing stitches, the pain will not reach an unbearable level, so we generally do not give patients anesthesia."

I took a deep breath and pushed my long, loose hair behind my ears. It made me look...composed and together, as if I was completely unfazed by Carlisle removing the stitches on my injured inner thigh, even taking pride in it.

"Good morning, Dr. Cullen," I heard Acelia say to him from the door. "Everything's ready, and you can double-check if you want."

"Thanks a lot, Acelia."

I held my book up to shield my face, burying my eyes in the pages. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dr. Cullen enter in his white coat and take his stethoscope from around his neck.

He signaled with a smile in his eyes that Acelia could leave. The latch clicked shut behind her, leaving us alone in the room.

"Bella, did you sleep well?" With a slight pffft sound, disinfectant was sprayed onto his hands and then he pulled on a pair of pristine white surgical gloves.

"Not bad." I shrugged noncommittally, still staring at the page. "The temperature and humidity of the AC were both perfectly adjusted."

"...You're reading?" He walked over to my bed, bending down to glance at the foreign words on my page, then read out a long string of foreign language that I was not familiar with.

"It's a good book," he marveled, "a classic. Bella, every time I see you, you surprise me. I knew your Italian was fluent, but I had no idea you also read German."

German? I focused on the text in front of me, which I hadn't even noticed before. And then I realized, it wasn't English at all.

It was a book written in German.

It took me a few seconds to straightened out my tangled tongue and explain in a vague tone, "N-no, I'm just interested in German. Someone left this book here, so I thought... I would just flip through it."

I didn't dare to look at his reaction. My excuse was so lousy that it was bound to make him burst out laughing. To make the flimsy excuses I'd just made sound more convincing, I added, "Although I can't really understand the content, I really like the illustrations. They're colorful and full of lines, which is the art style I like." I quickly flipped through a few pages, trying to show that I was frantically searching for illustrations, until a bloody and gruesome realistic scene suddenly caught my eye:

A pitch-black devil with fangs and a spear stood on a pile of corpses. His claws were digging into the entrails of a disemboweled body, dripping with blood, and attracting a swarm of bats fighting over the flesh. But what gave me a huge mental shock was the human face on the head of the mutilated body: covered in black fur and blood, its teeth were exposed, its eyes oozed pus, and its long, extended tongue was filled with maggots (the artist had grotesquely sketched each worm with delicate strokes).

The entire picture seemed neither human nor demon, neither animal nor ghost. I only glanced for a second or two, and my vision was instantly covered by a black and red blur. My stomach churned with acid, and cold sweat rushed upwards. My brain reflexively ordered me to put this thing away immediately. When I came to my senses from the shock, I realized that I had already thrown the entire book onto the ground. The pages were scattered and raised, like a butterfly with broken wings.

Embarrassment flooded my face like a burst dam. I clutched the covers tightly and bit my lip, watching Carlisle pick up the book from the floor and place it beside my pillow (but I couldn't bring myself to "read" it again). "Some publishers include illustrations on various religions, including those of cults," He remained calm and didn't smile, contrary to what I had imagined. "So, I suggest waiting a few years before reading it. The general audience for this book would be at least thirty years old."

I nodded, silent and sullen.

Carlisle began wiping the shiny scissors and forceps, putting down and picking metal tools that reflected the light. He was so meticulous, as if he were performing a fifteen-hour surgery, not just a fifteen-minute procedure. I shifted uncomfortably in bed, and he noticed, tenderly pressing his hand on my knee.

"Try not to move too much later on and keep your legs relaxed," he instructed, looking at me with gentle eyes, without a hint of a smile. "Your case is quite unique. You have many wounds, and there are many tiny threads buried beneath the surface of your skin. If you feel uncomfortable, just tell me directly."

Then he pushed the blankets up from the bottom.

A chilly breeze made me shiver. I lay down on the pillow and let the ceiling fill my field of vision. "Take a deep breath, relax, take a deep breath, relax," I kept repeating to myself. "It's only fifteen minutes, Bella Swan. Sometimes you just have to be shameless."

I felt two light taps on my right calf. "Your leg muscles are tight right now," Carlisle reminded me patiently, his voice coming from below the bed (I guessed he might have crouched down). "Try to relax it."

"Sorry, Carlisle. I may still be a little... nervous."

I sheepishly adjusted my position in bed, searching for the most comfortable spot. I wasn't sure how long it took, maybe... two minutes? Maybe... five minutes? I didn't have the nerve to investigate further because Carlisle had been quietly waiting by my side the entire time, while I squirmed and shifted around in bed like a... well, like a caterpillar.

Finally, I stopped moving. "Okay," I whispered, my voice weak as a mosquito's.

I thought I heard a sigh. I hoped I was mistaken, because that would only make the shame and guilt surge through me even more. But fortunately, I didn't have to do anything else now. I could just relax and follow Esme's advice to "think of Carlisle as a medical practitioner," and then bury this humiliating ordeal deep in the recesses of my memory.

A cold, metallic object touched my skin, and a strange pulling sensation came from the outside of my right leg. A tingling itch danced on my nerves, and a crisp crackling sound echoed in my ears.

I couldn't help but groan softly.

"Bella?" Carlisle immediately asked, "Is there any discomfort?"

"No... I'm just... not used to it."

After a while, he only said, "If there's any pain or itch that's hard to bear, please let me know."

I replied with a quiet "okay," and then suppressed the urge to scream, feeling the icy sensation slowly, slowly moving up my right leg, circling my skin surface all the way up.

The room was quiet. Carlisle was also completely focused - at least, that's what I thought.

Suddenly, he spoke up. "You were incredibly brave, Bella."

"Brave?" I echoed.

"I'm talking about the accident. The chief told us everything that happened." His breath feathered against my skin as he spoke. "Esme was shocked; although she had been acting normal around you all day, she felt extremely guilty about the incident. If only we had thought a little bit more about how you would feel before moving away, things might not have turned out like this."

"Carlisle, this isn't your responsibility. It's all on me."

"You're too kind to us," he repeated. "But we can only offer you a small amount of help within our means."

I ran my fingers over the soft, clean sheets and gradually I knew what he meant by "small." Charlie is so laid-back that he can even be sloppy, to the point that even if I got into a car accident right in front of him, his initial response would most likely be to beat the crap out of the jerk driver instead of calling 911 and rushing me to the hospital, not to mention upgrading me from a regular ward with multiple people to a single room with air conditioning, heating, and a TV, with everything available at my beck and call, filled with fatherly love. What's worse, he is not by my side now, so he's completely unaware of my current situation.

I stared up at the light fixture, which looked like it had cost more than my entire house, and tried to recall everything I knew about hospital bills and medical expenses. I used my shaky math skills to tally up how much I owed the Cullens family.

In the end, I estimated that the hospital expenses, including the cost of staying there, would be around $100,000 to $200,000. And then the doctor fees, including the rescue operation and follow-up treatment, would amount to approximately $400,000 to $600,000 for Carlisle.

The total cost would come to around $800,000, which is equivalent to Charlie's entire 15 years' salary.

I was shocked beyond words. I had thought that it might be a huge amount, but I never expected it to be astronomical to the point of completely bankrupting my family (if we had to pay all the expenses ourselves). Dear God, how could I ever repay the Cullens for this?

Carlisle's voice sounded distant, as if coming from a far-off horizon: "...so don't worry about the cost. Our whole family has agreed to take care of the expenses for you and Charlie. Don't feel troubled about it, Bella. It's all owed to you."

"Thank you, Carlisle." I murmured weakly. I couldn't say anything. What else could I say? So I should refuse his kindness with a tearful protest and spend the next fifty years of my life burdened with a million dollars of debt?

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through my inner right leg.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly, his deep voice thick with deep regret. "I was distracted."

It was then that I realized with surprise that he had been untying the stitches on the inside of my leg. The outer skin, where the stitches had been removed, felt incredibly relieved, but the soft flesh on the inside was quite torturous. It didn't hurt, but it was intensely itchy. It was so bad that I felt like jumping out of bed and laughing out loud, and spinning around.

"Carlisle," I began to gasp urgently, my idle left leg arching uncontrollably. "Can you... do it faster? Or... more gently?"

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

"No," I struggled to keep my right leg still and relaxed. "It's just really itchy... I can barely stand it." I bit down on the bedding, my restless left leg sliding back and forth on the bed, hoping to alleviate the burning and itching sensation in my injured right leg.

But it was no use. An unfamiliar feeling crept up my thigh, reaching my waist, chest, neck, and mouth. The blanket in my mouth muffled the sound that was about to escape. Keeping my right leg still made me extremely uncomfortable. It was like a marathon runner wanting to collapse on the ground after crossing the finish line and enjoying the relief of the torture ending, I longed to move my right leg, longed to stretch my knee freely, and longed to roll around on the bed with abandon.

I just wanted it to end quickly.

"I- Carlisle..." I sobbed, my voice barely above a whisper as I pleaded with him.

"Almost there." he said, offering only those few words.

But I was nearing my breaking point.

"Don't move, Bella!"

But I couldn't care less. This itch was driving me almost insane. To hell with the stitches and relaxing, all I wanted was to flop down on the bed and let my limbs move around freely with pleasure.

Instinctively, I tried to close my legs, but Carlisle was too quick. He knelt between my legs and used his knee to push my left leg open. "Bella, stop!"

I spat out the blanket in my mouth, falling back onto the pillow, gasping for air. My fingers kneaded the sheets while my toes curled and stretched. Sweat-soaked hair stuck to my neck. The sensation of being wrapped up like seaweed made me shudder all over and sent chills down my spine.

His movements became faster, intensifying the torture. I had never imagined that such a simple sensation could completely break my willpower. I only lasted a few seconds in this torment.

Unable to move my right leg, I lifted my left leg high. I wanted to kick someone, or anyone.

My rebellious action was quickly suppressed. A hand grabbed hold of my left ankle.

"Bella, forgive me please..." he said softly.

The bed sunk as if weighed down by something heavy. Then, I felt something long and sturdy like a steel rod slowly push down on my left leg, bending it to one side of the bed. Meanwhile, his hand gripped my right ankle, forcefully bending my leg upwards. A sharp yet rounded object pressed coldly against the top of my right foot, causing pain.

What was he doing?

I propped myself up with my elbows, awkwardly supporting my upper body, and looked down at my legs.

In an instant, my mental defenses crumbled to dust.

—When I was fifteen or sixteen, before I moved to Forks, I was in 10th grade at my old school. I had a few close girlfriends whom I'd known since fifth grade, and we were lucky enough to attend the same school all these years. In front of others, we were pretty reserved, but with each other, we felt free to be ourselves.

—Just like any teenage girl with a crush on a sunny and cheerful neighbor boy or a handsome actor, we talked about our soulmates with excitement, getting so worked up that we'd laugh ourselves to sleep staring at pictures on our phones. Then, one day, someone (I can't remember who) suggested that instead of just imagining it, we should try to find out what it was really like.

—So we did.

—I remember it was a scratched and faded disc. We didn't dare to watch it at home or in an empty classroom, so we rented a small private screening room. Despite the soundproofing, the next morning we had to return it to the forty-something woman with deep wrinkles who owned it, and she complained about the screams and exclamations that had lasted all night.

That night's viewing experience taught me many things that I couldn't learn from books. I began to develop a vague understanding of 'that kind of process' which I had never experienced before. The various positions and toys in the disc were overwhelming, but from enough examples, I dimly understood some common patterns. And now, at this very moment, the image of Carlisle and me intertwined was an exact replica of a long shot on the screen that night.

With my body drained of all strength, I slumped onto the bed. I'll never be able to face Carlisle again after this, I thought to myself after in despair.

I counted the seconds like they were years. With decades passing by, I eventually heard the clinking sound of the scissors and tweezers being placed back on the tray.

"Done." he said simply.

Gradually, the pressure on my legs and feet began to ease, and the room descended into an awkward silence, interrupted only by the rustling of fabric and the soothing sensation of ointment being applied to my wounds. Then I felt a fresh bandage being wrapped around my leg, not too tight, not too loose.

Finally, the rolled-up blankets were lowered. I heard the sound of his footsteps receding from the bedside.

I sat up as quietly as possible, only to find Carlisle leaning against the door, scribbling something on a notepad. His deep-set eyes were lowered, his complexion cold and pale like an angel's wings, reminding me of the iridescence and crystalline clarity of a crystal stone.

I had an unconscious feeling that he should say more to me—"Bella, you'll be able to get out of bed tomorrow. Esme will be here to help you", "Bella, make sure to rest. I'll put in a request to the police so you can contact Charlie directly", or "Bella, you did great. The wound-cleaning and bandaging were a success. But I understand if you just want to be alone right now."—all sound like something that he would say with a small smile on his lips, tidying up loose ends.

He was terrifyingly reticent, as if his energy had been drained by the simple removal. Anxiously, I waited for him to finish his work. After several minutes, his writing hand slowed down and then stopped. He turned to the side to twist the doorknob.

"Carlisle?"

He still had his back to me. "What's up?"

"Don't you..." I hesitated to voice my mind. "Don't you have anything you want to say to me? Like... to follow your medical advice? "

He slowly turned around. His golden eyes met mine.

He was beautiful, like the jutting spines on a human skeleton, the subtle movements of fibers in muscle tissue wounds, and the surgical knife that sliced through the union of flesh and blood, removing impurities and dirt hidden within and even carving eternal death into fleeting life. He was especially like a mass of blood-stained cotton and formalin foam, encountering a romantic rendezvous on the dissection table.

"No," he said in a low, hoarse voice, but his jaw nodded slightly. "Nothing."

"Oh, Oh, fine," I tilted in confusion. "Then I'm okay."

He gently closed the door.

As Acelia had predicted, my wound healed rapidly once the stitches were removed. On the second day, I was able to move my right leg freely while lying in bed. By the third day, I attempted to walk for the first time since the accident. By the sixth day, I no longer needed assistance from anyone else. And on the eighth day, during my final dressing change, the wound had already scabbed over. That day, Alice called from the hospital front desk to inform me that "a Mr. Swan who claimed to be your father had been wandering outside the hospital for over two hours."

Immediately, I hobbled downstairs with my crutches. As soon as I stepped out of the hospital doors, I saw Charlie, red-faced and arguing with the hospital police and nurses. I called out "Dad!" and he looked towards my voice and ran over, snot and tears streaming down his face.

He hugged me tightly, choking me. "Bella, Bella, I was so worried," he said in between sobs, his voice hoarse and rough like a snapped cello string scraping against the floor. "I thought I was going to lose you. I called Renee, I didn't know how to tell her." He sniffled, let go of me, and inspected me up and down with his red-rimmed eyes.

"Dad, I'm almost completely recovered," I replied.

"How's your leg?" He grabbed onto my arm and spat on the ground. "Those German bastards at Leavenworth have the worst efficiency when it comes to investigating cases," he said with a disgusted expression. "Despite having a suspect's confession and plenty of evidence, it took them more than half a month to solve the case of an organ trafficking syndicate. If it weren't for them repeatedly obstructing me, I would have rushed to your side the moment you had an accident."

This was indeed a frustrating fact. To ensure my safety until the entire criminal group was caught, the local police in Leavenworth had ordered the hospital to refuse any visitors in any form. Therefore, during my more than ten days of hospitalization, the only people I could see were doctors and nurses...

... and the doctor's wife, besides.

"It's fine, dad," I said, "it's not your..."

Charlie cut me off, his voice full of concern. "What's wrong with your leg? Those damn Germans keep repeating like robots that you're not in danger, but they won't say a word about where you're hurt!"

I smoothly recited the prepared script, as I couldn't explain to him how I was going to afford the expensive medical bills, "It's just a flesh wound. The doctor bandaged it up for me. It looks worse than it is because it's a long cut. I'll be fine," I lifted my right leg and shook it to show that I wasn't seriously injured. His eyes turned red again, and a few tears welled up and shone in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

"Is it a deep wound? Does it still hurt? Why hasn't it healed after all this time?" he asked.

"In fact, I could have been discharged in three to five days," I said quickly, "but the hospital happened to run out of the medication I needed, so the doctor had to find a substitute. It may not be as effective."

"Have my teacher and classmates gone back to Forks?" I quickly changed the subject, "I heard that they had their schedule effected because of me."

"They went back to Forks a while ago. Mr. Banner calls me every day to ask about your condition, Jacob sends me a text message every minute, and your ex-boyfriend contacted me a few times, but I ignored him," Charlie said.

My initial reaction was that I must have misheard.

"Who?" I asked.

Charlie's face lit up with a strange joy, "Your ex-boyfriend, Edward Cullen. Have you forgotten about him?"

Edward Cullen.

Yes. After spending 19 days in the hospital, I was almost forgetting that name.

The next chapter would be Carlisle's POV.