Prologue
When I started in the new department, my coworker and I got along fine. She was big into marathons, and since she always had races coming up, I covered her shifts out of the goodness of my heart.
Then my mother got sick. I needed to go straight home after work to take care of her. When my coworker asked me to swap shifts again, I said no.
She held a grudge.
After she won the championship at the Charlotte Marathon, they interviewed her on camera. She said my name. Right there, in front of everyone.
"Sunny Shaw — you were so jealous of me that you refused to swap shifts. But now that I'm a champion, let me give you some advice: spend more time working and less time being petty."
One of her obsessed fans felt so bad for her that he doxxed me, found my apartment, climbed the wall in the middle of the night, and turned on the gas.
My mother and I died in our sleep.
When I opened my eyes, I was back to my first day in the department.
This time, I was going to work hard and stop being a people-pleaser.
Chapter 1
After I died, I watched Bonnie Hart and her obsessed fan going at it in bed with my own eyes.
"Don't worry, I took care of that coworker who messed with you. No one's gonna trace it back to us. The cops will rule it a gas leak. Carbon monoxide poisoning."
"Thanks, baby. That Sunny Shaw was just jealous because I have fans and I won first place. She refused to swap shifts with me on purpose. Cost me a hundred and seventy bucks in docked pay."
I was so furious I drifted back and forth across the ceiling, but there was nothing I could do to either of them.
I was young. I was in the prime of my life. And I'd been destroyed by these pieces of garbage.
"Sunny, for your first month you'll be working alongside Grace Gould. Get familiar with the department and work toward handling things on your own."
The charge nurse's voice hit my ears, and I froze for a few seconds.
Grace patted me on the shoulder. "Hey, quit spacing out. How are you with needles?"
I snapped back to reality and pinched myself hard. I wasn't dreaming.
It hit me. I'd gotten a second chance.
I smiled right away. "I'm great with needles. Back at my old hospital, I hit the vein on the first stick every time."
Grace let out a breath of relief and laughed. "Perfect. Let me show you the layout of the department, and then we get to work."
I'd spent two years at a rural clinic before this. My parents had always wanted me in a real hospital, so they pulled some strings to get me in here.
I'd already worked here in my last life. I knew this place like the back of my hand, so I hit the ground running.
I'd just finished swapping out the IV bag for bed sixty-eight when I ran into Bonnie Hart.
She looked a little frazzled. She glanced at me once, then said, "Hey, you. You're the new girl, right? Bed one needs a hot compress for twenty minutes. Go do it."
The second I saw Bonnie, the rage surged up inside me.
In my last life, I'd told myself we were all coworkers. If someone needed help, you helped. That's just what you did.
So after finishing all of Team A's work, I'd help her with Team B's too. I'd be drenched in sweat, not a single sip of water all morning.
And she'd be sitting at the nurses' station, taking her sweet time charting.
Not this time. This time I was done being a pushover. No more playing the saint.
I smiled. "I've got fifteen patients who need their IVs, a pressure ulcer that needs wound care, and vitals to take after that. I'd love to help, but my hands are full."
Bonnie lost it immediately. Started yelling at me right there in the hallway.
"What's that supposed to mean? We're a team. I'm drowning over here, you know that? Your stuff doesn't even take that long. You won't even help me once? You're just lazy."
This time, I didn't shrink back because she was loud.
I kept my voice calm and steady. "Sorry, Bonnie. The charge nurse assigned me to Team A today. You're on Team B. I need to finish Team A's work first. After that, I can see if I have time to help with yours."
That's when Grace walked over and stepped right in front of me.
"Bonnie, what are you doing? Your Team B only has eight patients today, and they all somehow ended up on my side. It's been two hours. You've got plenty of time to do your own treatments. And you're already trying to steal my people? Either do your job or tell us now that you can't."
Bonnie scoffed. "God, so stingy. I just asked her to do one hot compress—"
Grace let out a cold laugh. "Everyone knows what you're up to. The patient in bed one has a temper, and you don't want to deal with it. So you figured you'd trick my girl into doing it for you."
Grace had called out exactly what Bonnie was thinking. Bonnie's face went sour.
Then a shout came from bed one: "Nurse! What are you doing out there? My bag's empty! The blood's backing up into the line! Get over here and change it!"
---
Bonnie stomped her foot, grabbed a bag off the med cart, and dragged herself over to do it.
That's how it went from then on. Every day, I finished my own work. Every single task. I refused to let a single mistake happen on my watch. The charge nurse and Grace both noticed I was good at my job.
Less than a month in, the charge nurse called me into her office.
"Sunny, everyone's saying you're more than capable of working on your own. We're short-staffed right now. Several nurses have been sitting on their PTO for months because we can't spare them. How would you feel about going solo next month?"
Working solo meant I'd start earning my performance bonus. And in a few months, Mom was going to get sick out of nowhere.
I needed to save as much money as I could. I needed to take her in for a checkup before it was too late.
"Absolutely. I'm ready."
The charge nurse had the shift schedule out in no time.
One evening shift, I was prepping meds in the pharmacy prep room. The charge nurse's office was right next door.
I could hear Bonnie inside, talking to her.
"Nobody will swap with me. They all say they need to rest. They take three, four days off at a time, just sleeping in and hanging out with their families. Like they really need that many days off. I'm different. I'm going out to compete. I'm representing the hospital. Can't you just find someone to cover my weekend shifts?"
The charge nurse sighed. "Look, I'm not trying to be harsh, but this is your personal hobby. Every single weekend you had a competition in the first half of the year, who do you think coordinated those swaps? Me. Everyone gave up their time for you. But you can't keep demanding people trade shifts every time. Spending time with family counts too, you know. Look at Grace. She takes one vacation a year. One. How am I supposed to ask her to give that up? Talk to people yourself. I've done everything I can. If you can't work it out, then you don't go."
Knowing Bonnie, she was going to that competition no matter what.
First place came with seventeen thousand dollars in prize money. Plus she had a social media account she was running.
It was all about the money.
So the second she walked out of the charge nurse's office and saw me prepping meds, she came right over with a big smile.
"Sunny, I wanted to ask you something. Can I buy you a coffee?"
In my last life, when she'd come at me all warm and friendly like this, I'd wanted to keep the peace. I was single, had nothing going on at home. She wanted to swap shifts, and I said yes without even thinking about it.
This time, I just said flatly, "Tell me what it is first."
My hands didn't stop moving.
Bonnie paused for a few seconds. "So, there's a marathon in Charlotte this weekend. But I'm scheduled for day shifts both days. I saw you're free. Could you cover for me?"
"This weekend? Probably not. I'm coming off a night shift Saturday morning. You think I'm some kind of machine that can work twenty-something hours straight? And you want me to cover both days? I'm taking my mom to the hospital Monday for a checkup. The appointment's already booked. I don't have the time."
"Come on, just help me out," Bonnie pressed.
I set the IV bag down on the med cart. "No."
Bonnie pursed her lips. When she realized I wasn't budging, she shot me a dirty look and stormed out of the department.
The next morning at shift change, I noticed Bonnie's eyes were red-rimmed.
She couldn't find a single person willing to swap with her.
Nobody in the department wanted anything to do with her.
In my last life, I hadn't picked up on the tension between everyone. But now I could see it clearly. Bonnie had hogged so many weekends off that the resentment had been building for a long time.
Other nurses had tried to say no before, but Bonnie would go running to management to pressure them into it. They'd give in because they had no choice.
Some of them had sacrificed weekends with their kids just so she could go compete.
Every single nurse in the department had swapped shifts with her multiple times.
But Bonnie had zero emotional intelligence. She said whatever came to mind without thinking.
