Chapter 4

One night, my phone rang while I was happily singing at a bar.

Jose's furious voice exploded through the speaker before I could even say hello. "Vicky! What the hell did you do to me that day?"

The music was too loud for me to hear him clearly, so it wasn't until I stepped out of the private room that I understood what he was saying.

It turned out that, over the past few days, Jose had been suffering from loss of appetite, numbness in his hands and feet, and nerve pain. None of the medication he took worked.

Of course it didn't work. Those were early symptoms of ALS, after all.

"Go to a hospital if you're feeling sick. I'm not a doctor," I said before hanging up the phone. I returned to the bar to continue singing.

I never expected Jose to show up at the bar half an hour later. Rachel, with red eyes from crying, was practically forcing him along. They did look like a tragic pair of star-crossed lovers at first glance.

When she noticed that many of our classmates were in the room, she immediately shouted at the top of her lungs, "I had no idea you were this evil, Vicky! It wasn't enough that you got sick yourself; you just had to drag Jose down with you!"

My chest tightened. As expected, people around us began to whisper, while my best friend, Audrey Duquette, turned to me in concern.

"Sick? What illness is it, Vicky? Why didn't you tell us you were sick?" she asked.

"It's a disgusting, shameful disease anyway!" Rachel yelled. "It makes you lose your voice, blinds you, and leaves you completely paralyzed until you're left alone to rot and die!"

"Watch your mouth, Rachel," Audrey warned.

But Rachel wasn't intimidated by that warning at all. Instead, she practically jabbed a finger in my face.

"Isn't your mom a doctor, Vicky? I'd love to see if she can cure you. Because if she can't… Will she drop dead alongside her precious daughter?"

I finally snapped and swung my hand to slap her across the face. But just as I raised my arm, my wrist was violently caught mid-air.

Jose glared at me furiously and snapped, "Is this really necessary, Vicky? You can't even handle Rachel and me going public with our relationship, yet she endured watching me be with you for three whole years."

The rage in me was immediately soothed.

Three years. It was exactly three years ago that Jose had held up that cupcake and carefully confessed his love to me.

Assuming that he had struck a nerve, Jose pressed harder. "I don't care what trick you and Madeleine pulled on me. You'd better tell me now, or I'll—"

I finally turned to look at him and asked, "Are you going to tell everyone that you're an orphan my mom adopted, that you swallowed your pride to win my favor, and the second you finished high school, you ran off to find your true love so she could support you instead?"

"Vicky!"

Driven mad by embarrassment, Jose lost his balance and smashed a glass onto the floor. Glass shards flew everywhere and sliced a deep cut into my forearm.

"What's wrong?" I asked, looking at him mockingly. It felt as though every shard wasn't cutting my skin but stabbing straight into my heart.

"Isn't that what you said?"

I had always known that Jose cared deeply about his reputation. In the past, I always protected and carefully saved his pride. I told everyone that his parents lived abroad and painted him as a perfect straight-A student.

Jose was sensitive. When people around us pulled out their phones to record, he ground his teeth in rage. But before he could say a single word, his eyes rolled back, and he blacked out.

Rachel shrieked and grabbed my wrist hard, accusing me of causing him to collapse and demanding that I go to the hospital with them.

Fortunately, Jose regained consciousness shortly after.

Moments later, a doctor entered the room and asked for Jose's family. Before I could even speak, Rachel raised her hand and anxiously asked, "What's wrong with him, doctor? Was he poisoned?"

"Poisoned?"

The doctor frowned and glanced between me, standing by the door, and Jose, who was staring at me with pure resentment.

"He has ALS, and it's fast approaching the middle stages," he announced.