A Symphony of Betrayal

She was minutes late...

Francine so desperately wanted to believe it was all false, so she couldn't and refused to accept what she saw with her own eyes.

Striding out of view from the hotel space filled with people that came to behold the marriage proposal, she hid behind one of the pillars by the entrance.

Her heart lit up when she saw him approaching where she was. Perhaps he had seen her. He would be by her side soon for her to hear from him, how false everything she had heard and seen had been and of course how wrong her informant had been with the information he passed to her.

"Judeee....." She silently whispered his name as he passed by, her voice trembling like autumn leaves in an unforgiving storm.

But Jude walked past, oblivious to her presence and leaving her whispered call hanging in the air like a dying prayer.

She had vowed not to cry because of another human 8 years ago, she wasn't going to break the vow now even though the tears were forming too much by her eyes and becoming too much for her to restrain from falling.

She followed him as he walked, with a heavy heart that so desperately wanted to hear him reassure her of his undying love for her, and how everything she had seen ealier were all illusions.

Jude entered his hotel room and was about closing the door when he noticed a hand trying to prevent him from doing so.

"Kasiemobi, what the hell are you doing here?" He quizzed with his tone laced with annoyance not concern, not minding the visibly angry lady standing before him.

Francine's eyes narrowed as she gazed at him, piercing the armor of his indifference.

"Is there something happening here that I don't need to know of?" She asked back.

Jude's eyes darted across the room avoiding hers.

"How about the surgery? Are you done with the surgery?" He asked non-challantly, not knowing what to say to get her to leave.

Francine paused for a minute reflecting on his words.

He hadn't been on duty for weeks at the hospital, so there was no possible way for him to know the exact time and date she was supposed to operate on the patient booked under her name.

"The chairwoman told me. Don't act surprised, after all she's my mother" he chirped in with a condescending tone noticing her silence.

She smiled hiding the pain that suddenly began to envelope her with the realization of everything that had been at play.

His mother had truly had ulterior motives when she sent her to perform the surgery on the governor's brother, just like she had guessed.

The surgery and the proposal were all connected , all a ruse and the chairwoman orchestrated the charade.

"Did you date me all those years waiting for my patient to give up living, hoping for what happened to?"

"It's not a big deal Kasiemobi, don't act as if it is. You knew our end would be like this from the start but you still agreed to my proposal, why are you feeling cheated and betrayed now? It's not as if I have wronged you" He said and his shrug came like a callous dismissal.

"Kasiemobi" she muttered to herself.

He still had the audacity to call her that. No one else called her by her maiden name except for closest people who didn't exist anymore.

She raised her head and stared at his face. Their eyes met but only for an instant before he withdrew his gaze.

How was she going to forgive him when he was not even remorseful for what he had done?

"I knew it would end like this?" She finally spoke up after what felt like forever.

Jude gave her no replies, starting to perm up his ruffled hair using his fingers.

"You lied to me Jude. Not just about your shitty love. You lied to me about the woman you just proposed to!!! You fucking told me she was your sister! You lied to me!" She screamed angrily and with frustration at him.

"Did I force you to believe my lie?" He dropped and it landed like a bombshell to Francine's ears.

"You fucking begged me to save her" she paused while trying to collect her emotions.

"You told me your Ischemic Cardiomyopathy patient was your sister and I fucking believed you!!! .Now this? She had been your betrothed bride all along?"

She couldn't voice out the anger in her heart enough. Where was she to start from? The fact that she had removed her young patient from life support and gave his heart to the said lady whom she believed to be Jude's only sister? The fact she was a fool for falling inlove with him? Where was she to start from.

She clenched her arms into a fist.

"Did I force you to do what you did? I never did. Don't complicate things by making it look as if I did"

"I trusted you Jude"

"I never asked you to"

She healed whom she had been used as a temporary replacement for. She sacrificed her patient's chances of survival for her only to end up finding the woman she did it for was his fiancee and here he was proposing marriage to her while his mother had her tied down at the operating theatre to perform surgery on a man that had a ten percent survival rate.

Her clenched fists were becoming stiff because she had held them on for so long.

Taking a step further, she landed Jude a punch on his cheeks, just after his mouth he had spewed all the trash with and enough to leave reddish marks on the spot.

She angrily turned to walk away, not having the fortitude to hear whatever it was left to break her, then she received a call.

But the call ended the second her cell-phone buzzed and before she could bring it out from her scrub's pocket to answer the call.

She read the caller ID and discovered it was the hospital receptionist.

Had Dr.Dre done something wrong? She thought to herself.

On cue,she switched on her mobile data to check if the issue at hand had been sent to her through an email.

Her phone didn't stop buzzing from notifications of messages the minute she did.

"Is it true?" One read.

"Did you really do that, Francine?" Another read.

She couldn't wrap her head around what the cause of the influx of the messages were, especially how they came from people she didn't even have close relationships with.

It took a few E-news headlines for her to get a heck of what was going on.

" Medical Monstrosity; Doctor's Actions Sparks Outrage and Calls for Accountability"

"Gold-digging Doctor Faces Charges for Unplugging Life Support and Killing Another Patient With An Allergy"

"Allegations of Medical Malpractice and Organ Harvesting Rock Medical Community"

Another message popped up and distracted her from the headlines she had been reading.

"I didn't know you were also one of those doctors of doom, Francine Kasiemobi"

Jude texted and she turned from the front of the door she was standing to behold him staring directly at her, with a smug plastered all over his face.

She had been his mother's pawn all along and had never noticed. She was just realizing now.