The day Ethan returned to the States with his fiancée, I was in the hospital waiting to die. Six years. He was still in his crisp white coat, as handsome and refined as ever. I was leaning on crutches, reduced to skin and bones. The moment we ran into each other in the hospital corridor, the hatred surging in his eyes almost swallowed me whole. "Lily, is this what you've become after betraying me for money? A ghost?" I tugged at the oversized sleeves of my sweater, hiding the dense cluster of needle marks and dark bruises on my arms. "Yeah. Seeing me like this... you feel avenged now, don't you?" His eyes darkened, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his clipboard. He let out a cold sneer. "Not even close." Saying that, he pulled out a bank card and held it out to me. "I'm getting married. A hundred grand. Come be my bridesmaid." I looked at the card and smiled, shaking my head. "No thanks. I'm going to die soon anyway, what do I need money for?" With that, I turned around and hobbled away on my crutches. 1 I leaned heavily on my crutches, inching my way out of the hospital step by agonizing step. The physical pain all over my body couldn't compare to the crushing ache in my chest. Six years. I had finally seen Ethan again, but I was dying. And he was getting married. I thought back to when we were eighteen, how he carefully held my hand and confessed his feelings. We promised to get married after graduation, to spend the rest of our lives by each other's side. Back then, I truly thought we would walk hand-in-hand through this life. Rapid footsteps echoed behind me. Someone grabbed my arm, the grip so fierce it felt like my bones would shatter. "Lily, explain yourself. What do you mean you're dying?" Ethan's voice was frantic, trembling with panic as his grip tightened involuntarily. My crutch almost slipped from my hand. I winced in pain, forcing myself to stay upright. He suddenly seemed dazed, murmuring in a trance. "Lily... why are you so thin?" I used to have baby fat on my cheeks. Whenever I said I wanted to diet, he would buy my favorite cupcakes and wait outside my dorm. I'd eat them while complaining that he was the biggest stumbling block on my weight-loss journey. He would always wipe the frosting from the corner of my mouth with a helpless smile. "Why diet? You're not fat at all. And no matter what you look like, I'll always love you." Now, I was thin, and the person who used to ruin my diets didn't belong to me anymore. Just as I was about to speak, his fiancée, Sarah, caught up to us. She hooked her arm through Ethan's, her voice gentle as she tried to "persuade" me: "Lily, you were just talking out of anger, right?" "You can't just say things like that. No matter what, you shouldn't joke about life and death." Her words had hidden needles, masking a deeply concealed fear. Fear that I would expose the truth of what happened back then. Fear of losing Ethan. Looking at the sheer defensiveness on her face, I found it almost laughable. I looked at Ethan, my eyes exhausted but filled with lingering longing. "I meant it literally. Ethan, I have a terminal illness. There is no cure. I don't have much time left." As soon as the words left my mouth, tears pricked my eyes, but I ruthlessly forced them back. Ethan looked like he'd been struck by lightning. He stared at me dead on, searching my face for any trace of a lie. But all he could see was a sickly, deathly pallor. I was so emaciated I barely looked like myself. A stark contrast to the vibrant, lively girl he remembered from six years ago. Back then, I would scream my lungs out cheering for him by the basketball court. I would drag him out hiking and camping on the weekends. But now, inside this broken body, even standing for an extra minute took every ounce of strength I had. The shock hit him so hard that he instinctively let go of me. Losing my support so suddenly, I stumbled back two steps and nearly fell. Thankfully, I still had my crutches to brace myself, saving me from a far more humiliating fall in front of him. As soon as I steadied myself, I met Ethan's bloodshot eyes. They were filled with absolute disbelief. And... a trace of agony. My heart contracted with a dense, stinging pain. Sarah's face darkened completely. Taking a deep breath, she stepped in front of Ethan, blocking his view of me. When she spoke, her tone was that of someone offering a high-and-mighty handout. "Lily, would you mind telling us what kind of terminal illness it is?" "Don't misunderstand, Ethan and I met quite a few top specialists while we were overseas. Maybe there's still hope." But her eyes practically screamed that she couldn't wait for me to drop dead. "None of your business." I looked past her, fixing my gaze on Ethan, who stood frozen solid behind her. Tugging at the corners of my mouth, I gave him a smile that looked worse than crying. "Dr. Evans, welcome back to the States. And... congratulations on the wedding." With that, using every last bit of my strength, I turned around and hobbled painfully toward the exit. Not a single sound came from behind me. But I knew Ethan was standing frozen in place. Just like six years ago, when I heartlessly told him I didn't love him anymore and told him to get out of my life, He had stood in that exact spot for a very, very long time. Stepping out of the hospital doors, the sunlight was blinding, but all I felt was a biting cold. The agonizing pain in my body was a constant reminder that Ethan and I were long over. It's just... before I died, I wanted to look at him a few more times. 2 Ethan tracked down my rented apartment. As a doctor, pulling strings to look at my medical records wasn't difficult for him. Looking around my cramped studio, cluttered with endless pill bottles, his face was livid. "Lily! What the hell is going on?! Where are your parents? Why are they letting you live in a dump like this?" His voice was filled with explosive rage, laced with an almost imperceptible trace of pity. I lay paralyzed on my small bed, completely drained of energy, and said nothing. He marched over to the bedside, his bloodshot eyes locking onto me. "Answer me! Where are they?" I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. My throat burned raw. "Dead." Ethan froze in place, as if all the strength had been instantly siphoned from his body. "When?" I tried my best to keep my voice flat and normal. "The third year after you left. My dad passed away in an accident. Mom couldn't handle the grief and followed him." I lied. My dad died from this exact same disease. When he found out Ethan was going to medical school in Europe, he began refusing treatment. Holding my hand, he would repeat over and over: "It can't be cured. Stop wasting the money." "Ethan is out there all alone, it's not easy for him... you need to wire some money to him." I couldn't change his mind, nor could I change my mother's, who wept silently but stood by his decision. Later, under the guise of an alumni scholarship, I anonymously wired the majority of our family's savings to Ethan. But I couldn't say any of this. If I did, Ethan would piece the truth together and plunge into a bottomless abyss of guilt. Hearing my words, the color drained completely from Ethan's face. He swayed, stumbling a step backward. I knew he was in immense pain right now. When Ethan was ten, his parents died in a car crash. My parents took him in and raised him exactly like their own son. We were supposed to be a perfectly happy family. The year he went abroad, he thought my parents were perfectly healthy and would be around for decades. But during the six years of his intentional distancing, everything had turned to ash. His hand trembled as he forcefully shoved a credit card into my palm, his voice incredibly hoarse. "Use this for your treatments. Lily, don't make me feel like you're using your death to manipulate my pity!" Looking at the card, my chest tightened so hard I felt like I was suffocating. Someone destined for the grave didn't need him wasting so much money. I forced myself to push the card back, my tone calm. "Keep it, Dr. Evans. You know better than anyone. My disease has no cure." I don't know which word triggered him, but he violently swatted my hand away. The card clattered to the floor. "I don't know anything! Get the damn treatment! Stop acting so high and mighty! Lily, let me tell you, even if you die, I will still hate you!" Silence fell over the room the second the words left his mouth. Hate me. He had every right to. But hearing him say it out loud tore me apart from the inside out. Just then, the door creaked open, and Sarah walked in. She saw the credit card on the floor and sensed the suffocating tension between me and Ethan. "Ethan, why are you arguing with Lily again?" "She's a patient, her emotions are bound to be unstable. You have to be patient with her." She gently looped her arm through Ethan's, her voice soft and soothing. Ethan kept his jaw clenched, staring straight ahead in silence. Sarah didn't seem angry. She knelt down, picked up the card, and placed it delicately on my nightstand. While Ethan wasn't looking, she leaned in close to my ear. In a voice only the two of us could hear, she mocked: "See that? Even if he pities you, he still despises you." "Lily, since you're destined to die, don't you dare let him know the truth and ruin his life with guilt before you go!" It felt like a pair of hands were ripping my heart in two. The pain made me dizzy. Ethan seemed to notice something was off, looking irritated as he pulled Sarah away. He looked at me, his eyes an unreadable mess of conflict and stubborn obsession, his tone commanding: "Pack your things. You're going to the hospital!" "I've already contacted the specialists. You are getting treated!" It was as if he didn't even know whether he wanted to save me, or just prove that I wasn't as miserable as I looked. Or maybe, he just couldn't accept that the woman he had hated for six years was about to die. Looking at his jaw, tight with anger and a bizarre, unnamable confusion, I suddenly remembered what Sarah had said to me six years ago, back when she was just his senior mentor in med school. "Lily, Ethan is a medical prodigy. He has a brilliant, limitless future ahead of him." "Do you really have the heart to let your family's genetic curse drag him down? To ruin his chance to study abroad?" "Your dad is already showing symptoms. You're next! Do you have any idea how much the medical bills will cost?" "Are you going to make him spend the rest of his life as a walking zombie, working himself to death just to pay for you and your father?" My dad had just been diagnosed then. Sarah happened to be interning at that hospital, so she found out. And so, I chose to push him away with my own two hands. Now, he was back, carrying his hatred for me alongside his fiancée. And I really was going to die. 3 Ethan ruthlessly bypassed my protests, transferring me into a private VIP suite at his hospital. He pulled in a team of elite specialists for daily consultations. He came by every day, his brow furrowed as he poured over my lab results and debated treatment protocols with the experts. The boy I knew was gone; in his place was a man who commanded authority and exuded an oppressive presence. Sarah was always by his side, playing the role of the devoted fiancée to perfection. When Ethan was around, she’d ask if I was cold or hungry. But the second his back was turned, her eyes would shoot daggers at me. Occasionally, when we were left alone, she would lean in and hiss. "Why aren't you dead yet?" "You being alive is such a goddamn inconvenience, Lily!" I would just close my eyes and pretend I was deaf. Sometimes, though, I noticed something strange. Ethan was polite to Sarah, but incredibly distant. They didn't act like an engaged couple. There was no intimacy, barely even any casual conversation. Once, I saw Ethan subconsciously flinch and pull his arm away when she tried to hold his hand. My heart did a tiny flutter, but I violently crushed the hope before it could bloom. I was dying. What right did I have to hope for anything? One afternoon, Ethan stood by my bed in total silence for a long time. He stared at me, his gaze incredibly complex. I couldn't read him at all. He looked like he desperately wanted to say something, but couldn't get the words out. Finally, he let out a frustrated sigh, rubbed his temples, and asked Sarah to step outside. I could hear the muffled sounds of them arguing in the hallway. A few minutes later, the door was shoved open and slammed shut. Sarah walked in alone. Her gentle, caring mask had completely melted off, leaving nothing but twisted, ugly jealousy. She stormed over to my bed and grabbed the collar of my hospital gown. Her eyes were red, her breathing ragged. "Lily! You psychotic bitch! Why won't you just let go?!" "Look at you! You look like a corpse, and you're still trying to seduce him?" "He spends all day obsessing over your charts, running around for you, and now he just laid his cards on the table with me!" "I'm telling you right now, I am not letting you get away with this! Even if you die, I will make sure you die miserable!" She shook me so hard my vision went completely black. My chest felt like it was caving in; I had zero strength to fight back. I didn't even have the mental capacity to process what she meant by Ethan "laying his cards on the table." Having vented her rage, she let go of me, turned on her heel, and stormed out with a hateful glare. I collapsed heavily against the mattress, gasping for air as the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. I thought that was the end of it. But I severely underestimated Sarah's malice. The next morning, Ethan walked into my room. His face was a thundercloud. He was gripping a stack of printed papers so tightly his knuckles were white. Without saying a word, he hurled the papers violently onto my chest. I was stunned. Confused, I weakly picked them up. They were printed screenshots of text messages between me and someone named "Noah." The texts showed Noah sending me massive cash transfers, and me playfully begging him for designer bags and jewelry. The tone was sickeningly sweet and intimate. There was even a message from me saying, "I'm waiting for you to come back." Noah. That was my distant cousin. The "rich sugar daddy" I had recruited six years ago to help me fake my infidelity. Ethan had spent the last six years believing I dumped him to be Noah's trophy girlfriend. These screenshots were blatant, meticulously crafted forgeries. Ethan stared at me with bloodshot eyes, his chest heaving. His eyes were a raging inferno of fury and betrayal. "Do you have anything to say for yourself, Lily?! You're still messing around with him?!" "You're lying here in a hospital bed, watching me run myself ragged trying to save your life, while you're texting him?!" "Do you think I'm a complete fucking idiot?!" I opened my mouth to explain, to tell him it was a setup, but the overwhelming panic and physical weakness locked my vocal cords. I couldn't make a sound. "I don't want your excuses! Stop playing me!" He cut off my silent protests, grabbing my chart and the incredibly expensive treatment plan from the nightstand. Right in front of my eyes, he ripped them into tiny, jagged shreds. The confetti of torn paper rained down over my bed, scattering across my face and blanket. Each piece felt like a razor blade slicing through my skin. His voice cracked, filled with apocalyptic, destructive madness. "Then rot away with your disease!" "If you need anything from now on, call your sugar daddy to pay for it!" "I must have lost my damn mind to come back here and care about you!" With a brutal finality, he turned and walked out. He didn't look back once. Sarah appeared right on cue, linking her arm through his, her voice a soft purr. "Don't be mad, Ethan. A woman like her isn't worth it." "Let's just go home." Ethan ripped his arm out of her grasp and walked down the hall alone. Sarah looked humiliated for a split second. Before she followed him, she turned and shot a look into my room. It was a look of pure, concentrated venom. A look of victorious, mocking triumph. The heavy door clicked shut, severing my view of Ethan's retreating back forever. I lay there staring at the torn pieces of paper covering my bed. I looked at the dark bruises and needle marks tracking up both my arms. Six years of unbearable suffering couldn't compare to a fraction of the agony of hearing him tell me to "rot." I suddenly felt incredibly tired. Reaching over to the IV port in my hand, I didn't hesitate for a second. I pulled the needle out. I lay back down quietly and closed my eyes. Let it be. Ethan, I'll give you exactly what you want. Me and my disease will rot away right here. 4 I don't know how long I floated in the dark. Until a piercing, high-pitched alarm began drilling into my ears, accompanied by chaotic shouting and the frantic pounding of running feet. Then, I felt my body being violently shaken. I wanted to open my eyes, but my eyelids were made of lead. "Lily! Lily, wake up!" It was Ethan. His voice was destroyed—hoarse, terrified, and laced with an unbelievable, desperate anger. "Do you really want to die this badly?!" "Is it because of Noah?! He found out you were terminally ill and dumped you, so now you're just throwing your life away?!" Noah again. That name was like a rusted padlock. It locked away Ethan's rationality, and it locked away my final, fading shred of a will to live. I wanted to shake my head. I wanted to tell him I had never, ever loved anyone else. But using every last drop of strength in my soul, I only managed to flutter my eyes open a fraction of an inch. In my blurred vision, I saw his face. It was completely distorted by grief. A single tear slipped from the corner of my eye. It carried all my unsaid love and the endless, crushing injustice I had swallowed. Drawing the very last breath of air left in my lungs, I pushed the words out, syllable by agonizing syllable: "Ethan... I... never..." Never betrayed you. Never loved anyone else. Never stopped loving you. I didn't have the strength to say the rest. The metallic taste of blood flooded my throat. Every heartbeat felt like hot coals in my chest. I couldn't hold on anymore. The heart monitor let out a continuous, ear-splitting scream. The red numbers on the screen flatlined. "Patient is in V-fib! Prepare to defibrillate!" "Dr. Evans, your emotional state... get him out of here!" I felt someone forcefully dragging Ethan away from my bed, pulling him out of the room. That's good, I thought. At least he won't have to watch me die in such an ugly way. A team of doctors swarmed over me. The violent jolt of the defibrillator... the rush of epinephrine... But my senses were peeling away, layer by layer. My strength and body heat bled out into the sheets. The darkness rushed in from all sides, swallowing me whole. But for the first time, I felt incredibly light. It was nice. I could finally rest. ... I don't know how much time passed, but the room went terrifyingly quiet. The urgency, the shouting, the alarms—it all vanished. Replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence. The attending physician pulled down his surgical mask, looking at Ethan with a heavy shake of his head. "Dr. Evans, we... we did everything we could. Time of death has been called." Death. The word hit Ethan with the force of a wrecking ball. He swayed dangerously. The door was shoved open. Ethan stood in the doorway like a statue drained of its soul. His face was ash-gray, his eyes totally hollow. He moved step by excruciating step toward the bed. Every inch seemed to take a superhuman effort. Looking down at the emaciated, silent shell on the bed, his entire body began to violently tremble. He reached out. His fingertips, devoid of any warmth, gently brushed against Lily's equally ice-cold cheek. Suddenly, his eyes snagged on something resting near her pillow. A worn journal. It must have slipped out from under her pillow during the violent resuscitation efforts. It was the diary that held six years of her longing, her agony, her despair, and her untold sacrifices. With shaking hands, Ethan picked it up. He stared at the cover, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow hyperventilation.
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