Belittle Me Now And Cry Later

Chapter 1

The sterile white floors of Saint Mary's Memorial Hospital gleamed under the harsh fluorescent lights, reflecting the face of a man who had fallen to his knees in the middle of the lobby. Marcus Wade clutched desperately at Dr. Harrison's leg, his fingers trembling as they gripped the expensive fabric of the doctor's pressed slacks.

“Doctor Harrison, please,” Marcus pleaded, his voice cracking with emotion. 

“Just give me more time. I swear I'll come up with the money. I'm working every hour I can, I'll find a way—just please, you have to help my mother.”

Dr. Harrison looked down at the young man clinging to his leg with undisguised disgust, his lip curling as though he'd stepped in something foul. He tried to shake his leg free, but Marcus's grip only tightened, desperation making him stronger than he looked.

"More time?" The doctor's voice dripped with contempt. "Is that not what I've been hearing from you for weeks now? You always promise, Mr. Wade. You always swear you'll pay. But you never do, do you? Empty promises from an empty wallet."

"No, no, this time is different!" Marcus's voice rose to a desperate wail that echoed through the lobby, drawing stares from passing nurses and waiting patients. 

"This time I will fulfill it, I swear on everything I have! Just treat my mother first she doesn't have much time left. Please, just save her life and I'll do anything. Anything! I'll work three jobs, four jobs, whatever it takes. I'll sell everything I own. Just please—"

"Enough!" Dr. Harrison jerked his leg violently, nearly sending Marcus sprawling across the floor. The doctor's face had gone red with anger and embarrassment at the scene unfolding in his hospital's lobby. "I will not do you hear me? I will NEVER do that for a person like you. You think your tears and begging mean anything? You think they pay the hospital's bills? The equipment costs? The medication?"

Marcus scrambled forward on his knees, not caring about the eyes boring into him from every direction, not caring about the whispers starting to spread through the corridor. His mother was dying. Nothing else mattered.

"Then take my kidney!" The words burst from Marcus like a dam breaking. "Take one of my kidneys right now as collateral, as a guarantee! You can keep it, hold onto it until I pay you back. It has to be worth something, right? Just please, save my mother!"

For a moment, Dr. Harrison stood frozen, staring down at Marcus with an expression of pure shock. Then, slowly, his face transformed. A smile crept across his features not one of warmth or sympathy, but something cruel and mocking. A low chuckle escaped his throat, then grew louder, until the doctor was laughing outright, his head thrown back in genuine amusement.

The sound of that laughter was like acid on Marcus's soul.

"A kidney?" Dr. Harrison gasped between fits of laughter, wiping at his eyes. "From someone like you? Oh, that's rich. That's truly rich!"

Other staff members had stopped to watch now, drawn by the commotion. A few nurses exchanged glances, some covering their mouths as they whispered to one another. Patients in the waiting area craned their necks to see what was happening.

"Boy," Dr. Harrison said, his laughter finally subsiding into contemptuous chuckles, "do you honestly think a kidney from a poor wretch like you has any value? Do you? Your kidney is as worthless as the rest of you! Who on earth would want an organ from someone who can't even afford to eat properly? Someone who works in sewage and filth? No one and I mean no one—on this planet would accept a kidney from you. It would be about as useful as a diseased piece of garbage!"

The whispers around the lobby grew louder.

"Oh my God, look at him..."

"So desperate. Poor thing."

"He offered his kidney? Is he insane?"

"What a pathetic sight."

"Somebody should get him out of here. He's making a scene."

Marcus felt their stares like physical blows, felt their pity and disgust washing over him in waves. But beneath the humiliation, beneath the shame that burned through every fiber of his being, there was only the cold terror of losing his mother.

Dr. Harrison's face hardened again, all traces of mirth vanishing as he looked down at Marcus with cold finality. "Your mother has less than twenty-four hours left. Maybe not even that long. If you want to see her alive again, I suggest you stop groveling here and start begging for that money elsewhere. Now GET OFF ME!"

With a vicious yank, Dr. Harrison tore his leg free from Marcus's weakening grip. The force of it sent Marcus sprawling onto the cold tile floor. He lay there for a moment, stunned, as the doctor straightened his coat with sharp, angry movements and strode away without a backward glance, his shoes clicking authoritatively against the floor.

Marcus didn't move. He couldn't. He lay there on the ground in the middle of St. Mary's Hospital lobby, his hands pressed flat against the cold tiles, his whole body trembling. Around him, people walked past some stepping around him carefully, others giving him a wide berth as though poverty might be contagious.

How had his life come to this? He had tried so hard. He had sacrificed so much. And for what? To end up on a hospital floor, offering pieces of his own body in a desperate bid to save the one person who had never given up on him?

The injustice of it all threatened to break him entirely.

But he couldn't break. Not yet. Not while his mother still drew breath.

Slowly, painfully, Marcus pushed himself to his hands and knees, then to his feet. His legs shook beneath him. His vision swam with tears he refused to let fall not here, not in front of these people who had already seen him at his lowest.

Twenty-four hours.

The words echoed in his mind like a death knell.

Twenty-four hours to find one hundred thousand dollars.