Doctor's Vow: Claiming His Runaway

Jocelyn was barely a month postpartum, yet there she was, dancing on the gritty sidewalk in a tight skirt. A pack of men circled her, aggressively shoving their phones in her face.

Just days ago, she had come to me desperate for help.

I had been forced to stand there, my nails digging into my palms inside my empty pockets, entirely powerless because my father had completely frozen my college trust fund.

Suddenly, her father bulldozed his way through the mob. He yanked the speaker cord, killing the music.

He jabbed a finger right at her face, screaming about what a worthless disgrace she was. The bastard was actively arranging to sell her off to some rich old man just to cash in.

I watched her knees give out. She collapsed onto the harsh concrete, her small frame shaking with broken, breathless sobs.

I slammed my way through the creeps filming her, knocking their phones aside, and pulled her behind my back.

I ripped off my jacket, wrapping it tight around her trembling shoulders.

I locked eyes with her greedy father, stepping squarely into his space. "From this day on, she and the baby are under my protection." Chapter 1 She came from a family that worshipped sons and treated daughters like dirt.

When we were kids, we practically lived in each other's backyards.

She was the one who taught me how to catch fireflies in mason jars. "My name is Jocelyn," she used to tell people, lifting her chin. "It means 'joy'.

I'm not just another mouth to feed." The truth was, her parents couldn't stand the sight of her.

I wasn't doing much better—my parents' messy divorce made me the weird kid at school everyone avoided. Out of everyone our age, she was the only one who had my back.

Jocelyn was gorgeous. But we were just friends.

When she picked up shifts at the local diner on New Year's Eve, wearing those clunky work heels and a cheap apron, she owned the room.

I could barely tear my eyes away, yet I forced myself to stare at my boots. She was only two years older than me, but she operated on a different level of maturity.

Every time I brought her a greasy bag of latenight burgers after her shift, she'd sit on the back steps, massaging her aching calves, venting about her toxic household.

We both had garbage parents. But her dad took favoritism to a whole new, sick level.

They constantly tore her down, calling her lazy, comparing her to her goldenchild little brother. But Jocelyn told me none of her hard work even mattered.

The second she finished middle school, her dad was shipping her off to some cheap trade school. I asked her what kind of school it was.

A bitter, exhausting clarity hardened her eyes—a look way too old for her face. "It's a trashy, bottomofthebarrel trade school full of dropouts.

But it's not like I have a choice." "So what are you going to do?" I asked. "I'll survive," she said. "I'll stash away every dollar I make.

Once I'm eighteen, they can't touch me anymore.

And when I'm making real money, the first steak dinner is on me." Every time she said that, a heavy, sick twist of guilt churned in my gut.

I always played it cool, asking about her life like it was no big deal, but deep down, I was terrified. Terrified that one day, she'd meet someone else.

And she'd leave me behind for good. The year I got accepted into the state's top magnet high school, Jocelyn had already been stuck at that trade school for a year.

She looked even more stunning than before, her long, dark hair falling in soft waves, her features sharpened by subtle makeup. But between us, nothing changed.

She still came over to hang out all the time. If I were living with my mom, she'd never let me within ten feet of a girl like her. But I was staying at my grandparents' place.

My grandpa never gave a damn about who I brought around. One summer night, we were sprawled out in the backyard hammocks under the stars.

I kept my voice deadpan, throwing it out there like it was nothing. "There's this girl in my class.

I kind of like her." She rolled her head to the side, giving me an easy smile. "That's great." She twirled a fallen oak leaf between her fingers. "I've got a few guys practically begging for my number, but I shut them all down." A massive knot of tension instantly dissolved in my chest. "You've… grown up a lot." She bumped her shoulder against mine. "Look who's talking.

You've got the brains. You're going places." We stayed out there talking until the sky bled into dawn. At 6:00 AM, the air still crisp and gray, we snuck out.

I took her to the 24hour diner down the street to buy her breakfast. I barely had any cash to my name.

But sliding those crumpled bills across the counter for her made me feel like I actually mattered. I ordered an overpriced avocado toast and a black coffee.

She went straight for a classic, greasy bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit. She took a bite, grinning at me. "I don't get why you eat that trendy hipster cardboard.

Nothing beats a classic." She just laughed, tearing her biscuit down the middle and shoving half into my hand. I ate it in silence.

Chapter 2 I thought a girl as grounded as her would know how to protect herself. But when I came back to town for winter break of my senior year, she was heavily pregnant.

I found her pinned outside her front door, shoved onto the freezing concrete by her father and grandmother. One side of her face was a swollen, angry red.

She wrapped one arm protectively over her swollen belly, her free hand trembling as she tried to shield her face. Neighbors walked by, whispering.

She ducked her head, trying to shrink into the pavement. My grandpa, always a soft touch, stepped in to calm things down.

Jocelyn's grandmother shrieked, her voice carrying down the street. "This stupid bitch was out sleeping around, and now she's knocked up!

Who the hell is going to pay top dollar to marry her now?" She glared at my grandpa, spitting her words. "We aren't lucky like you! Your grandson gets straight A's.

He'll make real money! This worthless trash dropped out of that cheap trade school and spends all her time letting broke losers knock her up!" Jocelyn's head snapped up.

Her eyes met mine, brimming with unshed tears. I could read the desperate plea in her stare. She just needed someone—anyone—to stand in her corner. Even for a second.

My throat seized up. I forced the words past the sand in my mouth. "It's freezing out here. Let Jocelyn go inside." The old woman shot me a venomous glare.

But with my grandpa standing there, she didn't dare escalate it. She grabbed Jocelyn by the hair, dragging her inside as she screamed.

Through the narrowing crack of the door, the cold hallway light hit something metal. A thick, heavy leather belt, tightly wrapped around her father's fist.

That night, I paced my grandpa's backyard until the grass was flat. I couldn't shut my eyes. The neighborhood was dead silent, swallowed by the heavy, suffocating weight of 3:00 AM.

Then, it shattered. A bloodcurdling scream ripped through the air from the house next door. Jocelyn. My heart slammed against my ribs.

I sprinted across the lawn and hammered the doorbell. Nothing. I slammed my fists against the heavy front door, my palms stinging. "Hey! Is everything okay in there?

Do I need to call 911?" The threat of cops finally worked. The deadbolt clicked. Jocelyn's dad cracked the door open, forcing a stiff, unnatural grin. "We're fine.

Jocelyn just slipped and fell. She just needs to sleep it off. Go back to bed, kid." But through the gap over his shoulder, my eyes locked onto the patio floor.

Jocelyn was lying there. Her clothes were soaked. Her cheek was pressed flat against the icy tiles. She wasn't moving. A deafening static filled my ears.

I spun around, bolted back to my grandpa's house, and dialed 911 with shaking, sweaty fingers.

When the ambulance sirens pierced the quiet street, her family finally stepped outside, acting unbothered.

Her dad kept trying to intercept the paramedics, waving his hands and insisting it was just a minor fall. The EMTs shoved right past him and rushed inside.

Minutes later, they wheeled out the stretcher. The flickering streetlamp hit her face. It was a brutal, unrecognizable mess of bruises. But my eyes dropped lower.

Her sweatpants were drenched. A massive, spreading stain of dark, terrifying crimson. Blood. So much blood. "Who's riding in the back?" a paramedic barked. Her dad stood frozen.

Her grandmother looked away. I stepped forward before my brain even processed the command. "I am." The heavy ambulance doors slammed shut.

Jocelyn's swollen eyes barely fluttered open. Her glassy stare darted around the confined space in a panic until it landed on me. Her rigid shoulders finally dropped.

A single tear slipped down her bruised cheek. "Vance…" she rasped, her voice paperthin. "Thank God you came back…" My throat burned, my hands gripping the metal railing so hard my knuckles went white.

Chapter 3 It was deep into the early hours of the morning when the heavy operating room doors finally swung open.

The doctor pulled down his surgical mask, rubbing the back of his neck. "She's young and resilient.

She's stabilized, and miraculously, the baby held on." "Is she…" My voice cracked, raw and tight. "Is it bad?" His expression hardened into pure clinical grit. "She sustained severe blunt force trauma to her abdomen.

If you'd brought her in ten minutes later, we would have lost them both." He eyed me. "Are you family?" I shook my head, my jaw locked.

He let out a harsh breath and signaled the nurses to wheel Jocelyn into recovery. The morning sun was already bleeding through the cheap vinyl blinds when she finally stirred.

Her eyes fluttered open, and her hand immediately shot down, trembling as she clutched her stomach. "Jocelyn," I rasped, pulling my plastic chair closer to the bed. "What the hell happened last night?" She stared blankly at the acoustic tiles on the ceiling. "My grandmother tried to force me to get rid of the baby.

She screamed that having a kid would ruin my chances of marrying a rich guy to bail them out.

That I was useless to the family now." "I told them no." Her voice was dead, hollowed out. "So… she dragged me barefoot onto the freezing patio.

Dumped buckets of ice water over me." A jagged breath rattled in her chest. "When that didn't work… she took a heavy wooden rod to my stomach." She stated it all like a grocery list, detached from the horror.

All the oxygen vanished from the room. I gripped the cold metal edge of the bed frame, my knuckles turning white as acid burned the back of my throat.

She exhaled a shaky breath. "Can you… can you call my boyfriend? Tell him to come down here.

I need him to cover the hospital bill." An hour later, her dirtbag boyfriend swaggered in. He wore a scuffed leather jacket, reeking of stale beer and cheap weed.

He didn't even glance at Jocelyn's pale, battered face. Instead, he immediately started bitching at the top of his lungs about how her drama completely ruined his weekend rager.

He marched over to the billing counter, slammed down a crumpled wad of cash that barely covered a fraction of the total, and stormed right out.

He didn't even look back as the heavy door slammed shut behind him. I walked back into her room.

Jocelyn was staring into space, her fingers tracing slow, rhythmic circles over her stomach. "Vance," she whispered. "What am I supposed to do?" I stood there, paralyzed.

Suddenly, a fierce, desperate light ignited in her exhausted eyes. "If I have this baby… she'll be my real family.

I won't be alone anymore." My throat felt like sandpaper. "Jocelyn, you need to think this through. This is the rest of your life.

There's no undoing this." She didn't hesitate. "I know. And I won't regret it." By the time I came back to town for spring break, Jocelyn's little girl was just a month old.

She named her Ruby. She held the tiny bundle close, proudly telling me how she had spent hours scouring baby name sites to find something that meant 'precious'.

She was crammed into a tiny, dingy studio apartment, the microscopic space overflowing with cheap baby gear and stacks of diapers.

I stared at the impossibly small infant, my hands staying firmly shoved in my pockets, terrified I'd break her if I even tried to touch her. Ruby had Jocelyn's wide, bright eyes.

She was beautiful. Jocelyn was only two years older than me.

I was sweating over AP Calculus and college applications, and she was already a mother fighting to keep her kid alive. "Is her dad…" I started, hating the words as they left my mouth. "Is he helping out with money?" She paused midpat, her hand freezing on Ruby's back. "No," she said flatly. "He's broke anyway.

It's fine." "Then how are you surviving right now?" I demanded. Jocelyn went dead silent.

The truth was, her rent was barely being covered by the tips she had hoarded from the diner during her trade school days.

Back then, she'd even started hustling on TikTok, posting dance routines and baking tutorials to scrape together a few extra bucks.

But with a newborn eating up everything, that stash had to be running dry.

Chapter 4 Jocelyn hesitated for a long time, her face pale with humiliation. "Vance, can you lend me three grand? I know it's a lot to ask, but I'm out of options.

The landlord is threatening to evict me…" Actually, I had planned to give her every single dollar I'd scraped together from my parttime shifts last month.

But when my shaking hands shoved my debit card into the ATM, the glowing screen flashed a brutal reality: my controlling father had completely frozen my account.

My hands curled into useless, empty fists.

I stared at her, my eyes burning red. "I'm sorry… I don't have the money right now." Right as the words left my mouth, the baby started crying.

Jocelyn immediately dropped her gaze, rocking the infant gently. She forced a light, breezy tone. "It's totally fine, don't worry about it. You're still in school.

It's totally normal that you don't have extra cash laying around… I was just asking." Since having the baby, there was a quiet, desperate softness to her.

I couldn't even bring myself to look her in the eye. I muttered a few more excuses and practically bolted out the door.

After that day, the heavy weight of guilt kept me from texting her. I tried to convince myself that she had other friends, that someone else would step up and spot her the rent.

But deep down, I knew the truth. The crowd she ran with was useless. Finally, when Memorial Day weekend rolled around, I bought a bus ticket back to my hometown.

I figured if she was still struggling, I'd hand over whatever crumpled bills I had left in my wallet. I knocked on the chipped door of her cramped apartment. Her roommate answered.

The girl had a bad cherryred dye job and a tarnished septum ring. She scowled, clearly annoyed. "Jocelyn's a real busy girl.

You're like the third dude looking for her… She's out." Just then, a thin, sharp wail echoed from the back bedroom.

My jaw tightened. "She left the baby here?" The girl let out a lazy yawn. "Yeah. I'm watching her. She slips me twenty bucks a day." I froze.

Jocelyn treated that little girl like she hung the moon. Why the hell would she leave her behind with a random roommate?

The roommate dragged her eyes up and down my frame, a smirk playing on her lips. "Hey, pretty boy. If you're so desperate to find her, I'll give you her work address.

You can go surprise her." A wave of relief washed over me. She had actually found a job. But I was an idiot. I hadn't factored in reality: Jocelyn was a high school dropout.

There was zero chance she had scored a legitimate, decentpaying gig. The girl scribbled the address on a torn receipt. I hopped on a downtown bus to track her down.

The address belonged to a trendy bakery in the commercial district. I figured she must be working in the back, decorating cupcakes.

But the second I stepped onto the block, a deafening bass thudded against my chest. A tight crowd clogged the sidewalk right outside the bakery doors. It was almost entirely men.

Half of them had their phones out, recording. A couple of dirtbags leaned against a parked car, tossing out sleazy comments. "Look at that hair, man. So thick and dark.

She definitely has a man at home…" "Bro, forget a boyfriend, I heard she already popped out a kid." "Damn. Looking like that?

Makes you wonder how many guys she's…" I tuned out the rest. My hands curled into tight fists, the raw urge to throw a punch burning through my veins.

I shoved my way past the sweaty crowd. And then, I saw her. Jocelyn was dancing right on the pavement in front of the bakery.

She was wearing a cheap white buttondown and a skirt that barely covered her thighs. The bottom of the shirt was knotted, exposing her bare stomach.

She was barely a month postpartum. Her body hadn't bounced back yet, but that only gave her a vulnerable, desperate softness that made the whole scene feel sickeningly wrong.

Most of the creeps out front were just there to stare.

Occasionally, a store employee would bark at them to buy something, and they'd reluctantly fork over cash for a cheap slice of cake just to keep watching her.

Chapter 5 I stood at the edge of the crowd, my boots glued to the pavement. The music finally cut out. Jocelyn stopped, grabbing a water bottle.

When she looked up, her eyes locked onto mine. She forced a bright smile and jogged over. "Vance? Aren't your AP exams coming up?

What are you doing back in town?" A single drop of sweat slid down her jawline, disappearing into the collar of her shirt.

I ripped my gaze away. "I came back to check on my grandpa." She nodded, her tone shifting into that familiar, oldersister mode. "I live right by him now.

If you're worried, I can swing by and check on him. You don't need to waste time coming all the way back here. Your exams are way more important.

Go back and study." A heavy silence stretched between us. My jaw tightened before I finally spoke. "I have some cash. Take it.

Stop dancing out here." She froze, the water bottle hovering inches from her lips. "Vance," she said softly. "Do you think I'm an embarrassment?" I took a hard step forward, locking my eyes directly onto hers. "No.

I just hate myself for not having the power to give you a better life right now.

You deserve to be treated like a queen, not put on display for this trash to gawk at." She froze, a flicker of sheer disbelief flashing in her tearfilled eyes.

She turned around and went right back to the pavement. But this time, she barely made it through half a routine. Jocelyn's dad and grandmother shoved their way through the crowd.

Her dad violently yanked the speaker cord, killing the music, and started shoving the onlookers back. "Show's over! Stop staring!

That's my daughter, and she's getting married!" Her grandmother lunged forward, twisting Jocelyn's ear.

Her screech cut through the street. "You pop out a bastard kid, and now you're out here exposing your bare stomach for loose change?!

Who the hell is going to want you now?" A bakery employee rushed out, trying to deescalate the situation, insisting Jocelyn was on the payroll.

Her dad flipped over a nearby customer's patio table, sending hot coffee splashing and mugs shattering across the pavement. "This bitch is coming home with me today to get married!

I raised her for a payout, and I'm getting it!" The crowd scattered instantly. No one was there for the pastries anyway. Jocelyn's eyes burned red. "Why are you doing this again?

This is the third job you've ruined!" Her dad sneered. "I already lined up a rich guy for you! He needs a new wife, and he doesn't even care about your little baggage.

It's the best deal you're ever gonna get." "I am not marrying some creepy fiftyyearold pervert!" Jocelyn screamed. "You're damaged goods!" he spat back. "You think you get to be picky?" Jocelyn ripped herself out of her grandmother's grip.

Her voice turned to ice. "If I'm such a disgrace, I'll take my daughter, legally emancipate myself, and move out of state." Her grandmother rolled her eyes. "We paid to raise you, and you think you can just walk away?

Not a chance in hell!" Jocelyn bit down on her bottom lip so hard it went white. Her knees finally gave out, and she collapsed onto the hard concrete. "When did you ever raise me