She Took My Hearing, He Took Her Side Chapter 02

She Took My Hearing, He Took Her Side Chapter 02

After I packed, I went to the hospital where I’d done my hearing rehab.

The doctor remembered me. But the first thing out of his mouth wasn’t hello.

“Why didn’t you come back for the second-stage cochlear procedure?”

I froze.

“Graham told me the risk was too high. Said the success rate was under thirty percent.”

The doctor frowned.

He pulled up the old file.

The records filled the screen.

[Partial auditory nerve damage. Viable tissue remains.]

[Surgery within three months: projected recovery probability exceeds 70%.]

The surgery fee was sixty-eight thousand dollars.

Graham had already paid for it.

The payment slip knocked the air out of me.

So there was a time when he actually wanted to fix this.

That feeling lasted about three seconds.

The next page was a cancellation form.

Graham’s signature was at the bottom.

The date was the day before the Music Association threatened to blacklist Sienna.

The reason listed on the form:

[The patient is emotionally unstable and voluntarily waives surgery.]

I stared at the words “voluntarily waives,” and the static in my right ear spiked into something sharp.

I never even knew this surgery existed.

That year, Graham held me and said the company was hemorrhaging money.

He said if I pushed for treatment, it could sink his entire project.

I didn’t want to be the reason he went under.

So I was the one who comforted him.

I told him I didn’t need the surgery.

One bad ear wasn’t the end of the world.

The doctor sighed.

“We followed up with the contact we had on file afterward. Mr. Whitaker kept telling us you didn’t want to go through it again.”

I left the hospital with the photocopies.

A notification for Sienna’s comeback press conference lit up my phone.

The headline was impossible to miss.

[Eight years later, she’s ready to play again.]

And all I could think was:

Where did my sixty-eight thousand dollars go?

I drove straight to the press conference and headed backstage.

Before I could go in, I heard Sienna crying.

“If you hadn’t paid that fine—all sixty-eight thousand of it—they would’ve sued me out of the industry. You know that, right?”

Graham’s voice was barely there.

“It’s all in the past.”

Sienna’s voice dropped. “But that money… it was supposed to be for her surgery, wasn’t it?”

The silence backstage stretched.

Graham didn’t deny it.

He said, “She was already deaf in that ear. But if they’d sued you, your entire life would’ve been over.”

“I have the rest of my life to make it up to her. I have time.”

“But back then, you only had me.”

I stood outside the door. I wasn’t sure I was breathing.

So the money was never gone.

He took my cure and handed it to Sienna as a fresh start.

I pushed the door open and walked in.

Sienna’s eyes were red. She looked at me like I was the one who’d wronged her.

Graham saw me and went white.

I slapped the payment slip and the cancellation form down on the makeup vanity in front of him.

“Sixty-eight thousand dollars.”

“You had the money.”

“You set it aside for me. Then you took it back and gave it to her.”

Graham opened his mouth. His jaw worked, but no sound came out.

“Tessa, I didn’t know that was your surgery money.” Sienna was sobbing now.

Graham turned to her without thinking.

The look on his face was pure reassurance.

I watched him reach for her, and whatever was left in my chest went cold.

I asked him, “Then what about me?”

“What was my hearing worth to you?”

Graham’s voice was hoarse.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll find you the best doctor. I’ll fix this.”

I laughed.

“The window closed years ago.”

“Just like whatever I thought we had.”

Sienna gasped, clutching her chest. “Graham… I can’t breathe… I can’t…”

Graham caught her before I even finished my sentence.

The hand he’d been reaching toward me hung in the air. Then, it dropped onto Sienna’s shoulder.

I didn’t wait for him to explain.

I walked out and pulled out my phone.

I moved my flight up. I was leaving in three days.