Tuesday was coming for her soul.
The dreaded interview was looming like death by dull scalpel, and Dreena Mirafuentes was in full collapse. It was Monday night and she had officially run out of excuses, fake illnesses, and moral integrity.
She begged Drech the night before to take back the application he submitted to CVGH without her permission. She even threw in a half-hearted promise to apply somewhere herself—eventually, maybe, in ten years. Preferably in Iceland.
"When? Twenty years from now?" Drech asked with all the sympathy of a tax auditor, eating leftovers from their fridge like he didn't have a wife waiting for him at home with lovingly poisoned food. (Lexa was on night duty. Her food was always suspiciously perfect. Dreena didn't trust it.)
"CVGH will be good for you," Drech continued, casually sipping his juice. "Your PGI stint in Sotto will be an edge."
"I'm still in recovery," Dreena said dramatically, flopping beside their mother like a Victorian woman mid-breakdown. "Don't do this to me."
Dreven, naturally, was watching the spiral unfold with popcorn-level glee. "This is the best show I've seen all week."
"Anak," April said gently, placing a hand on Dreena's arm, "just try, okay?"
"It's been six months, Dreena," Drech added, not even looking at her.
"The PGI lasted a year!" she shot back. "I need at least ten years to recover! I was told to buy a brain during endorsement!"
"Well," Drech said dryly, "you didn't study your case."
"How could I, Drech?!" she yelled. "How could I?! I had 72-hour shifts, thirty patients and three breakups with the same man in one month!"
"That sounds like a you problem," Dreven said, helpfully unhelpful.
"You were told to do your PGI at Velez," he added. "You didn't listen. You got humbled."
"SHUT UP!"
The memory of Sotto—the blood, the trauma, the caffeine hallucinations—rushed back like a cursed flashback montage. Terror consultants. Surgical residents that spoke in riddles and threats. CVGH might be slightly less toxic, but the ghosts of her PGI year were still very much alive. Probably haunting the staff pantry.
"No. No. I'm not going tomorrow."
"You are," came the voice of doom from the head of the dining table.
Their father.
Benjamin was nursing a cup of coffee and not even looking at her when he delivered his verdict.
"I'll take you," he added coolly, like he was offering to drive her to her own funeral.
"Papa!" she whined, tears welling. "I'm your favorite daughter!"
"You're my only daughter," he replied flatly.
Classic Benjamin.
April chuckled and wrapped her in a side hug as Dreena continued to spiral, now physically crumbling into her mother's lap.
"I'm not even asking you to pay back the bills you've racked up during your... healing phase," Benjamin added, still not blinking.
"If you pass the interview, good," Drech said with a shrug. "If not, I'll just keep sending out your resume. Maybe to hospitals in Davao next time."
Dreena cried that night.
Because Drech would actually do it.
She tried her best to fake dengue. She stood outside in shorts, arms outstretched, begging every mosquito in the barangay to feast on her. Instead, all she got were red bumps and more anxiety. No fever. No chills. Just itchy disappointment.
Desperate times called for desperate gastrointestinal measures.
She threw her hair in a bun, wore Dreven's shirt and sweatpants like the freeloader she proudly was, and dragged him out of the house. Their destination? The street food stall right outside their subdivision—the place where all culinary dreams and intestinal regrets began.
Her plan was simple: eat enough to get sick. Preferably with diarrhea. Or amoeba. Or something dramatic enough to get her out of the interview but not dramatic enough to land her in the ER.
She spotted him immediately.
Wren Cordova.
Still in scrubs, eating fishballs like he wasn't the reason her PGI year was filled with caffeine shakes and traumatic flashbacks. Disheveled hair. Arms crossed. Smug as hell.
The man who once said, "Mirafuentes, did you buy the brain that Dr. Alonso wanted with the ten pesos he gave you?" in front of two nurses, a medtech intern, and her remaining will to live.
She walked right past him without a glance. He didn't exist in her universe. Not tonight. Not while she was actively committing food-based self-harm.
"Drev," Wren said, watching her pass.
She raised her brows high enough to summon divine wrath.
"Oops," Wren added with a smile, "thought you were Dreven."
"She's wearing all my clothes," Dreven said, already settling beside him. "She's here to sabotage her own interview. Hoping for some kind of foodborne illness."
"Even the vendor's offended," Wren chuckled.
"I'm just here for the show," Dreven added. "She begged Drech for mercy earlier. It was theater."
Dreena sat four tables away from them with enough food to kill a small man: ten fishballs, kwek-kwek, gyoza, isaw, adidas, and something else she didn't recognize but hoped would take her out by morning.
Then, like flies to a flame, boys around Dreven's age sat beside her and started flirting.
She didn't even flinch.
"Can you fund my soft life?" she asked calmly. "If not, shut up."
She picked up her plate and walked toward Wren and Dreven's table. She didn't sit with them—God forbid—but planted herself on the edge of the table, close enough to steal their peace, far enough to maintain her delusions.
Wren looked at her like she was a wild animal applying highlighter. Amused. Slightly alarmed.
"She's unhinged like that," Dreven told him, popping a kwek-kwek like a Tic Tac.
"You looking for a rich husband now?" Wren asked with a grin.
She still refused to acknowledge his existence.
Dreven answered for her. "She is. And she's dragging me around."
"If you know someone," Dreena said to no one in particular, "preferably rich and dying, I'm available."
Wren snorted. Dreven sighed.
"She's giving Papa migraines," Dreven said. "And I'm the unpaid therapist. And emotional support sibling. And food taster for her bad decisions."
"Wait," he turned to Wren. "Kuya Wren's rich. He can fund your soft life."
Dreena narrowed her eyes. "Is he?"
"My dad is," Wren said, still laughing.
Bingo.
Wren's dad. The single contractor. Owner of half the construction companies in the Visayas. Old. Unmarried. Probably vulnerable to flattery and foot massages.
"Hello, stepson," she said, turning to Wren with a new-found glimmer of hope.
Wren laughed, nearly choking on his fishball. "You're sick."
"She's repulsive," Dreven groaned. "Stop flirting with his dad. You don't even remember Uncle's name."
"Don't need to. I'll call him 'Papa Cash.'"
"You're a parasite," Dreven muttered. "A high-end, waxing-budget parasite."
"Your interview's still tomorrow," Wren reminded her, still wiping tears of laughter.
"I will have diarrhea tonight," she said confidently. "So I'm not going."
"You'll definitely have an upset stomach," Wren said, looking at the mess she was shoveling into her face. "That's not a plate—that's a declaration of war."
"That's the plan," she said between bites. "I will not be attending the slaughter."
Dreven reached over to steal one of her gyozas. She swatted his hand like it was a mosquito from hell.
If the stomach flu didn't save her, she'd seduce Wren Cordova's dad and retire. Either way, she wasn't stepping into a hospital again.