— Aria's POV — I gave my rival my kidney. I gave my fiancé everything he wanted. I died exactly the way the story wanted me to. I just wasn't there when it fell apart. The day Damien brought Sienna Locke home, he gave me three demands. "First—bow to Sienna. Lower your head and thank her for not holding a grudge against you all these years." "Second—sign the divorce papers. Make room for Sienna." "Third—donate one of your kidneys to Sienna for her treatment. Consider it your apology for everything you owe her." Damien waited for a long time. He didn't get the furious accusations or the sound of things breaking. "Of course, if you're willing to admit right now that you were wrong—" He was still talking when I walked straight up to Sienna and bent at the waist. Deep and low—once, twice, three times. When I straightened up, I looked at Damien's stunned face and asked flatly. "Anything else? If not, I'll go book the kidney removal surgery." Damien grabbed my wrist, his jaw tight with anger. "What kind of game are you playing now?!" I didn't answer. But in my mind, I had finally made the decision I'd been sitting on for ten years. It was time to leave. This story was always going to end this way. Ten years ago, when I first woke up in this world, I'd known I was inside the pages of a romance novel. Damien Ashford was the male lead. Sienna Locke was the destined heroine. The Voice had told me the storyline couldn't be defied—those two would fall in love in the end. But I didn't believe it. I really, truly didn't. Because Damien had looked at me like I was the only person in the room. Every time he'd said "I love you," it sounded like an oath sealed in blood. I thought I'd rewritten the story. I thought I'd won. But what was the result? I looked up at him. The Voice echoed in my mind once more. [Die within three days, and you'll be free from this world.] Our eyes locked. "Let go. If I don't leave now, I'll miss the surgical window." "You think pulling a stunt like this will make me feel sorry for you?" Damien let out a cold laugh and released my wrist. "A kidney. There's no way in hell you'd actually go through with it." I didn't look back. I walked out of the villa. ...... The private hospital. The surgeon flipped through my file and looked up. "Ms. Moretti, Mr. Ashford already sent over the tissue-matching results. We can operate today, but we've run low on general anesthesia. We'd have to use an epidural—half-conscious sedation only." "That's fine." "With a half-sedation, you'll feel significant pulling pain throughout the procedure. It will be extremely painful. You might want to wait until tomorrow—" "Today." The surgeon didn't argue. He handed me the surgical confirmation receipt. Three years ago, when the company had hit a crisis, I'd drunk myself into a stomach hemorrhage at the negotiating table and ended up in the ICU. Damien had waited outside the ward all night, shaking from head to toe. When I'd come out, he had held me so tight it hurt and whispered: We'll get through this. And we'll keep loving each other. Always. But now he was a different person. The surgery took three hours. When the anesthesia faded, the pain hit like a freight train. I bit down on the gauze and didn't make a sound. After they wheeled me out, I took out my phone and signed the electronic divorce agreement Damien had sent over. Then I sent it back. A clean break. I gave up every share I held in the company, every property under my name, every title and position. No dividends. No settlement. No compensation. I even included the account number and password for my own personal bank card at the bottom. Damien saw the contents and called me almost immediately. I declined the call. He called again. I powered off the phone. By the time I got back to the villa, it was already dark. The wound at my side still throbbed with a dull, grinding ache. Sienna had already moved in. She was lounging on the sofa when I walked through the door. She stood up the moment she saw me. "Aria! You're back. How did the surgery go?" Her gaze drifted down to my shirt, where a dark stain of blood had seeped through the fabric. The corner of her mouth twitched upward before she could catch herself. I walked past her without a word and headed upstairs. From the very back of the closet, I pulled out a metal box. Inside were two things—a journal and a ring. I had started writing the journal ten years ago, the day I'd first arrived in this world. "I saw him on campus today. He seemed to notice me too. The storyline says he's supposed to fall for Sienna—but the way he looked at me... maybe this story can be rewritten." "I only had five dollars left. I spent four on a cup of hot chocolate for him. He couldn't help himself—he leaned over and kissed me." "We got married. We built a company together from nothing. The Voice keeps telling me the plot will course-correct, but I don't believe it anymore. I don't want to leave this world." The entries stopped three months ago. That was the day photos of Damien Ashford—CEO of their company—kissing actress Sienna Locke on a sidewalk had exploded across every social media platform. I walked to the fireplace and threw the journal in. The match took three strikes to light. Ten years of handwriting curled, blackened, and crumbled page by page. When the fire was at its peak, Damien suddenly came through the door. He rushed over. He saw what was inside the fireplace and shoved his hand into the flames, pulling out half a charred page with his bare fingers. The words had burned away except for the last two lines—my handwriting from two years ago. "I love him." Damien clutched that half-page, his eyes bloodshot as he turned to me. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?!" I didn't look at him. I tossed the wedding ring into the fireplace after the journal. "Aria! Sienna was the one who saved me ten years ago—and you took credit for it this entire time! You owe me. Not the other way around!" He grabbed my shoulders and wrenched me around to face him. The wound at my side tore under the pressure, and cold sweat broke across my skin instantly. "All you had to do was admit you were wrong! Instead you signed everything away, burned it all, walked away from the company—what the hell do you want?!" "Look down," I said. I pointed at the fireplace. As the flames died down, he saw the sheet of paper underneath that hadn't burned yet. The kidney removal surgery receipt. Damien's hands slid off my shoulders. His lips parted twice without producing a sound. He took a step back. "You... actually went through with it?" I turned toward the bedroom and no answer. Behind me, silence. He didn't follow. He didn't even try. Two days left.
— Aria's POV — The next morning, Sienna showed up at my bedroom door. Behind her stood the same doctor from the private hospital. "Aria, I feel terrible for bothering you so early." "My transplant surgery is coming up, but my blood count has been dangerously low. Your blood type happens to be a perfect match for mine." She rested her hand lightly on her side and rubbed it, the picture of frailty. "For the transplant to succeed, I just need a small favor from you." I looked at her. "Sure. How much?" She hadn't expected me to agree that quickly. She paused for a beat. "Eight hundred milliliters." The doctor behind her hesitated. "Ms. Moretti, you just had a kidney removed yesterday. Your body is in an extremely weakened state. Drawing blood right now isn't advisable—" I cut him off and rolled up my sleeve. "It's fine. Go ahead." When the needle went in, I turned my head and stared out the window. Blood traveled down the tube, slow and steady. Eight hundred milliliters. A body that had just lost a kidney was already running on fumes. Halfway through the draw, my vision blurred and went dark for a few seconds. Sienna sat in the chair beside me, watching the bag swell with blood, her legs crossed, a satisfied look on her face. After I sent them away, I got out of bed. I made my way down the stairs, one hand gripping the railing the entire way. The wound felt like it was being ripped open with every step. By the time I reached the front entrance of the villa, I had to crouch down. I sat on the stone steps for five minutes, waiting for the black fog in my vision to clear. Then I called a cab. To the funeral home. The staff at funeral homes had seen all kinds of people. But apparently they had never seen a twenty-eight-year-old woman walk in to pre-arrange her own burial. "Single occupancy. The smallest you have." I had two thousand dollars in cash left. The cheapest urn was pine. Nine hundred dollars. The cheapest niche for storage was in the northeast corner. One thousand dollars. After I paid, the attendant handed me a receipt. I folded it neatly and slipped it into my pocket. Outside the funeral home, I sat on the front steps and deleted every social media account on my phone, one by one. Ten years of posts and photos—erased. Before I deactivated my phone number, I sent one last message to my college best friend, Mia Hartley. After that, I canceled the number. That evening, I returned to the villa. Damien was sitting on the living room sofa. When he saw me walk in, his eyes went cold. "You deactivated all your social media?" "I called you all afternoon. Your phone was off." "Are you playing the disappearing act now?" He pulled out his phone from his jacket and flashed the screen in my face. It showed a screenshot from his banking app. "I froze that card. Every linked card too. You don't have a single cent to your name right now." His lip curled slightly. "Sienna told me—you're perfectly healthy. You never went through with the surgery. That receipt was a fake, wasn't it?" "You think this kind of stunt is going to make me cave? Let me be clear—it won't work on me." I didn't want to hear any more. I pressed my hand against my side where blood was seeping through again, and walked past him toward the stairs. Behind me, his voice rose. "You can't survive without me. No money, no one left—who are you going to turn to?" I shut the bedroom door behind me. Nineteen hundred dollars had already gone to the funeral home. I had a hundred dollars left on me. Enough for one more day alive.
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