NOT A DOORMAT ANYMORE

Ava's Pov: The fluorescent lights above me buzzed faintly as I stared at Dr. Kim's mouth, watching his lips move but not really hearing the words."...brain tumor...advanced stage...stress-induced growth...I'm sorry, Miss Arande, but you have approximately three to six months..."Three to six months.The words finally broke through the fog in my mind, settling heavy in my chest like stones.I blinked slowly, my hands gripping the edge of the plastic chair. My palms were sweating. The room felt too small, too bright, and too suffocating. My mind drifted far away. Like I was in a void. I could hear distant sounds, voices, and noises, but couldn't make anything out of it.Dr. Kim kept talking, saying something about treatment options, experimental therapies, and quality of life. His voice blended into the hum of the air conditioning until it was just noise.I nodded. I didn't know what I was agreeing to. I just needed him to stop looking at me with those pitying eyes. I needed him to

Ava's Pov:I jolted awake with a gasp that tore from my throat like it had been trapped there for years.My hands flew to my neck, my chest, checking for blood, for glass, for the cold emptiness of death.Nothing.Just the steady thrum of my heartbeat beneath my palm.I was breathing. I was alive.The room around me was too bright. It had white walls, white sheets, with the rhythmic beeping of a machine beside me.This was a hospital.My mind raced asfragments of memory came crashing into each other. I remembered the glass table, the blood, Vivian's smile, and Ethan walking away with Vivian by her side.I died. I know I died.So why was I here?What's going on here? Am I in the land of the dead? Or what?I threw the blankets off and stumbled out of bed, my legs shaking beneath me. The floor was cold under my bare feet as I rushed toward the small mirror hanging on the wall.My reflection stared back at me.I looked the same. I had the same face, same dark eyes, and same scar on my eye

Ava's Pov:Ethan helped me out of the car, his hand firm on my elbow as I stepped onto the driveway.I didn't need the help but I let him do it anyway because that's what he expected and right now I needed him to think everything was normal.The front door opened before we even reached it.Vivian stood in the doorway, her blonde hair was perfectly curled, her makeup flawless, wearing a dress that was too nice for just sitting around the house.She smiled when she saw us."Ava! Oh my god, we were so worried about you."Liar.She rushed forward, her heels clicking against the marble steps, and threw her arms around me in a hug that felt like a performance.I stood stiffly in her embrace, my hands at my sides.Over her shoulder, I could see Ethan watching us with that same unreadable expression.And then I saw the way his eyes lingered on her just a second too long.The way his gaze dropped to where her dress clung to her waist before he quickly looked away.Vivian pulled back, her hands

Ava's POV I heard footsteps again, coming from the direction of the kitchen and I quickly pushed off the wall and moved.I walked quickly past the guest bathroom, the footsteps grew louder.I turned the corner into the main hallway and slowed immediately, smoothing my sleeves, dropping my shoulders, rearranging my face into something unhurried.My father rounded the opposite corner four seconds later.He stopped when he saw me.I stopped too, blinking at him like I'd simply been wandering. Like I hadn't just been inside his study with my phone pressed to every document in his top two drawers.His eyes moved over me.I felt each second of that look like a held breath.Then he said, "Go back to the sitting room. Diana is still here."I nodded and turned around.My hands were steady even though my heart pounded.Diana left forty minutes later.I sat through the remainder of her visit with my hands folded and my expression soft, nodding in the right places, accepting the pat on my hand s

Ava's POV I sat cross-legged on my bed with my back against the headboard and my phone in my hands, reading everything I could find about Marcus Donovan until the numbers on my clock blurred and my eyes burned and the sky outside my window shifted from black to the flat gray of early morning.I read the news articles first.There were dozens of them. Profile pieces from two years ago when Donovan Enterprises had acquired its third subsidiary in eighteen months. Financial columns praising his instincts. A magazine feature with a photograph of him in a boardroom, dark eyes and a controlled expression, looking exactly like the man who had caught me in that hospital corridor except more guarded. I kept reading.The recent articles were different in tone.Three weeks ago, a piece in a financial publication had flagged unusual activity in Donovan Enterprises stock. Quiet but consistent selling from two of the company's largest institutional investors. I knew what to look for.In my previ