Divided Attention

He’s holding her hand like I’m the stranger in this room.

That’s the first thing I see when I’m wheeled into the ward, Matteo, bent over Alina’s hospital bed, brushing a strand of hair off her forehead, talking to her in that gentle voice I haven’t heard in months. The kind of voice I thought is extinct in him. The kind I thought belongs to me.

It’s not the pain in my side that hits hardest. It’s this. This moment. This sight. He hasn’t even looked in my direction.

A nurse adjusts my IV drip. The wheels on the stretcher creak to a halt beside the hospital bed that’s apparently mine. I blink slowly, trying to process everything, how I got here, what I just gave up, and why my heart is breaking even though I should’ve known better.

Alina is smiling too much. Talking too brightly. “Thank you, Camila,” she says for the third time, like her words are some kind of gift. “I honestly don’t even know what to say. You’re saving my life. You’re amazing sister.”

I don’t respond. She’s always done this, put on the show when there’s an audience. Matteo, in this case.

I glance at her. That smooth voice. Those eyes that crinkle at just the right angle. That soft, high-pitched lilt she uses when she wants people to see her as the wounded bird instead of the snake she really is.

My step-sister and I were never close. She made that clear the first time she stole my diary and read it out loud at school when we were thirteen. She always had the spotlight, and I was the extra in the corner of her stage. When I married Matteo, she didn’t even show up to the wedding. Didn’t call. Didn’t text. And now here she is, suddenly warm, suddenly grateful, like our entire childhood wasn’t built on her grinding me down into dust.

I pull the hospital blanket up to my stomach and say nothing.

Matteo straightens and finally, finally walks toward me.

But he doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t take my hand. He doesn’t even sit. He stands beside my bed like a man giving a business presentation.

“You good?” he asks, his eyes flicking to the IV bag, not to me.

“Peachy,” I say dryly.

He nods, like that’s enough. “I just wanted to say… thanks.”

That’s it. No kiss. No squeeze of the shoulder. Not even a decent look in the eye.

Just thanks...and then he turns and walks out. I close my eyes to the sound of Alina’s soft laughter and the distant beep of machines, and for the first time since I said yes to this nightmare, I wonder if I’ve made a mistake I’ll never recover from.

**Twenty-four hours earlier.**

The moment I said yes, Matteo started making calls. Fast ones. Urgent ones. I watched him walk into the kitchen with that focused, calculating look in his eyes, the same one he used to wear during job interviews and car negotiations. Only now, he was arranging a surgery. For me, on me.

“We’ve booked it for tomorrow,” he tells me before bedtime. “Remote facility. Less traffic and fewer delays.”

I nod, not because I agree, but because I’m too tired to argue. Everything about this feels rushed. Like a deal he wants sealed before I change my mind.

I lie awake most of that night. One hand over my stomach. I haven’t told anyone, not my best friend, not my doctor, not even my journal. This little life growing inside me feels like a fragile secret I’m protecting from the wolves. And the biggest one sleeps beside me, snoring lightly, like he didn’t just sign my body away to someone else.

And the next morning, I sit in the backseat of the car in silence. Matteo drives. The sky is overcast, and I can’t tell if the fog on the window is from the weather or my own breath fogging up the glass.

“You okay?” he asks once. Not looking at me, just shifting his eyes to the rearview mirror.

I nod again. I’ve gotten good at pretending and he drives off to the remote hospital.

The hospital is small, nestled between empty fields and gravel roads. Remote, like he said. Too remote. There’s something eerie about the silence surrounding it.

We check in. I’m given a paper wristband with my name and blood type printed in red. My steps slow when I’m told I’ll be sharing a ward.

“Sharing?” I ask the nurse.

She smiles apologetically. “We’ve consolidated to one room for you and the recipient. Standard protocol when donors and recipients are related.”

Great. Alina’s already there, propped up in bed, hair braided neatly, makeup done like this is some beauty pageant recovery.

“You look tired,” she says when I walk in. “But don’t worry. After this, you can rest all you want.”

I don’t respond. I sit on my bed, facing the opposite wall.

There are too many emotions tangled inside me, grief, jealousy, anger, guilt and I can’t untangle one without feeling all the others. So I shut down instead. I become blank.

She keeps talking. Talking about how hard the past few months have been. How scared she was. How she almost gave up. How she never imagined I’d be the one to save her. She says all the right words. But her eyes never quite match the tone.

I hear Matteo’s voice before I see him. He’s outside the room, finishing a call.

And then he walks in and heads straight to her.“Hey,” he says softly. “You alright?”

Alina beams. “Much better now.” He pats her arm, chuckles at something she says, sits on the edge of her bed like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He’s completely at ease with her.

And all I can do is watch. My chest tightens. My throat goes dry.

He hasn’t even looked at me yet. Minutes pass before he finally turns.

“Oh,” he says, like he forgot I existed. “You doing okay, Camila?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. Hang in there.” Then he walks out again and I don’t even get a hug.

Thirty minutes later, the transplant commence. The surgery is a blur of lights and anesthesia and cold metal beds.

They put me under with soft voices and gloved hands. I think of my baby just a little bean growing inside me and whisper a prayer that the drugs don’t harm it.

When I wake, there’s pain. Throbbing, aching pain. A dull burn in my side. It feels like something sacred has been taken from me and it has.

I gave away a part of myself. And the man who should’ve been there to hold my hand was too busy stroking her hair.

A nurse checks my vitals. “It went well,” she says kindly. “Everything looks great. Both of you are stable.”

I nod, my lips dry and cracked. My throat hurts from the breathing tube.

A few hours later, I hear Matteo’s voice again. Excited, relieved.

“Thank God,” he says, laughing softly. “She’s okay. They’re both okay.”

I expect him to come to me but he goes to her instead.

They talk in low voices. I can’t hear what he says, but she laughs. He smiles.

And for a moment, I’m glad she’s not dead. Because if she were, I think he’d bury me right beside her and walk away like I never mattered.

Eventually, he walks over to my bed. Still no flowers. Still no kiss. Just a light squeeze on the blanket covering my foot.

“You did good, Cam,” he says. “She’s gonna be okay.”

I stare at him. I don’t say anything. There’s nothing left to say.

He smiles faintly at her and leaves the room. I turn my face to the wall and close my eyes. I don’t cry Camilla.

Authors Note.

She gave her all to a man who saw her as disposable. But when love failed her, obsession found her.

Not just any obsession...him. The one she shouldn’t want. The one she was raised beside.

Her stepbrother.

Cold, fierce, and always watching… and now? He’s ready to claim what her ex threw away.

This isn’t your typical love story, it's twisted, and intoxicating.

If you’ve ever rooted for the woman who rises from heartbreak and takes what she wants,

then turn the page, darling. You won’t regret it.