As my acute immune storm raged, my emergency call to Jaxon was abruptly declined. Instead of answering, my boyfriend of seven years was on the live championship broadcast, kissing cheerleader Chloe and announcing that my exclusive rehab patent would be marketed as the Chloe Foundation. Lying alone in the hospital, I signed the high-risk surgery consent form and initiated the permanent self-destruct sequence for all of his custom recovery data. I was erasing his career's ultimate trump card, accepting the irreversible cost of a permanently fragile immune system and seven years of drained youth. The monitor confirmed that his personalized algorithms were shredded into unrecoverable fragments. As the anesthesia dragged me into the freezing darkness of the operating room, I closed my eyes, entirely unsure if I would even survive the night.