King of My Heart

Chapter 3 - Fate

*Harvard's School of Medicine*
Claire Kinsley's POV

I cursed at Liam in my mind each time I yawned. If not for him, I wouldn't have ended up with a sleepless night yesterday.

"Claire...!" I jolted up from the midst of cursing by the abrupt loudness of my name being called. I turned around and saw my best buddy, Nicki Madera, bolting down the walkway in high spirit as she waved to me with much enthusiasm, drawing unwanted attention from
the crowd towards me.

Embarrassed, I shushed her immediately, "Shush...! Are you trying to get the whole entire world to know my name?!"

She let out a giggle of guilt and explained herself as she chirped in excitement, "Geez... I'm sorry, but I just couldn't contain my excitement. You know... we have been through SO MUCH throughout our five years of medical studies, now that our last lap of the medical internship is here, I really can't wait for it to be over!"

"Yea, precisely! Let's go check out where has our fate brought us to then!" I grabbed Nicki's hand in equal fervour and we sprinted off towards the posting board that has the release of our internship placement results.

I held my breath and was praying hard in my mind as I skimmed through the wordy list of names. The last thing that I want is to be in the same working hospital as Liam, especially after what happened last night. I have always been stuck in the same school with Liam throughout my schooling years, so this internship is my one and only chance to escape from his controlling claws because the hospital that we report to for our internship will eventually be our official designated workplace.

I felt as though I was walking on a tightrope with each name I ploughed through. I bit my lips hard as I continued to pray, "Come on, god, please just let this be good!"

"Oh my gosh, Claire! Congrats, girl!" Nicki hugged me tightly as she burst out in joy and pointed my name out on the board, "Look at the good deal your fate has brought you to, Jenn Haines Hospital!"

What the f***! I'm screwed, I'm screwed, I'm SCREWED!"

My heart sank upon the devastating news. I shook my head hard in disbelief, "No... No... NO...!"

I looked hard at where Nicki was pointing to, and there was the shatter of my last gleam of hope. A full-blown wave of blueness weighed on me as I stomached this sucker punch of reality, the reality that I have to work in the god darn same place as Liam!

"Erm... Claire, are you okay? Why aren't you happy that you got posted to Jenn Haines Hospital? Nicki raised her brows at me questionably.

I ran my hand through my hair in frustration and exasperated, "That's it, there goes my life..."

"What are you talking about? Don't be ridiculous, Jenn Haines Hospital is one of the top medical institutions in the world, every medical student is dying to get in there, why wouldn't you want to work there? Besides, isn't your childhood playmate, Liam, working there too? Well, at least you have someone to show you the ropes!"

"You won't understand," I sighed with my head held heavily down in defeat.

"With my grades, I can't even get there even though I really want to, you should really cherish this opportunity," Nicki continued to reason out with me as she appeared to be baffled by my reaction.

That was when a gleam of hope struck me once again. I turned around to Nicki immediately and looked straight into her eyes, "You're right, you're the only one that can save me now!"

*Outside the Dean's Office*

"Are you sure this is going to work? You do know how much Professor Wilson dislike you, do you think that old fart is really going to help you?" Nicki asked with a doubtful look as she held me back from knocking at the dean's door.

Well, anything is better than having to work at the same place as Liam! I ain't going down without a fight.

"Well, we never know until we try," I winked back at Nicki and went ahead to knock at the door of Professor Wilson's office.

"Come in," Professor Wilson responded from inside.

Nevertheless, it is still a scary notion for me to approach professor Wilson. I took in a deep breath and mustered every ounce of courage in me as I braced through the confrontation that is about to happen.

I pushed the door ajar before sticking my head out with a plastered smile of apprehensiveness, "Good day, Professor Wilson."

It came off as no surprise when Professor Wilson simply responded to me with a tone of contempt the moment he heard my voice, "What do you want?"

I cursed at him in my mind for his crudeness before mellowing myself in front of him as I raised my request, "Dr Wilson, I'm sure you know how mediocre my performance is as compared to the rest in your class and I genuinely think that this opportunity to intern at Jenn Haines Hospital should be given to someone else who is more deserving of this opportunity. So... I was thinking if it's possible for me and Nicki to switch our place of the intern?"

Professor Wilson finally raised his head up at me before he puffed out a sigh, "You know you're probably the laxest student I have ever had in my class. I have never seen you for any consultation and that irksome face of indifference you wore to school really baffled me how you could end up being the top scorer of the faculty?! As much as I don't think you deserve the intern opportunity at such a prestigious hospital, there's nothing I can do to stop you from going. In fact, it's not within my means, there has always been an agreement set between the hospital and the faculty that only the top three scorers of the faculty will get to intern at Jenn Haines Hospital."

Then he stood up and opened the door, gesturing the way out as he dismissed me from his office, "So if you may, I still have tons of work to get back here."

I stormed out of his office together with Nicki, feeling ridiculed and offended by his words.

"How could he?! Just because I didn't bootlick him as others did, doesn't mean he should lash out such harsh words on me!" I ranted to Nicki in a fit of frustration.

"Claire, Dr Wilson is right, why did you become top scorer if you didn't want to get into Jenn Haines Hospital?" Nicki asked.

"No matter how much I dislike being in this course, I would never fool around with anyone's life. We're still going to be doctors in practice eventually, we have real lives to treat and save, it only made sense that we get every fact in medicine studies right. I wouldn't want to end up killing anyone in my job. Besides, being the top scorer is just a title, it was never something that I was after. And that psycho Liam is not going to let me off if I had failed my exams." I rebutted.

Nicki shrugged her shoulders and said, "But I guess you will just have to resign to fate now."

I sighed heavily, "I guess so..."

"Cheer up, I'm sure it's not as bad you think it is," Nicki comforted me.

"What I need now is some serious food therapy session to detox, come on Nicki, let's go feast our hearts out tonight!" I held on to Nicki and charged our way to our favourite hangout drinking spot at this Izakaya-styled Japanese Bar near our campus.