Chapter 3

Before I could open my mouth, Chloe cut in.

"Serena, thank you so much! I can't believe you knew about this specialist."

She put a hand over her heart, looking deeply moved.

"I heard his waitlist is completely booked. You actually reserved an appointment just for me?"

The cold tension on Daniel's face relaxed.

He even gave me an approving look.

"It's good to see you acting sensible for once. I guess I judged you too harshly earlier…"

"You got it wrong," I interrupted, staring straight at him. "I didn't book it for her."

I had been on that waiting list for six months. I had long given up hope.

I never expected the call to come now, when my body was already beyond saving.

I ignored the sudden frost in Daniel's eyes.

Limping heavily, I forced myself to stand up.

"I knelt down like you asked. Now give me back my mother's sketches."

As I moved, Daniel suddenly stepped forward. His dark gaze fixed onto my leg, as if trying to bore a hole through it.

"What happened to your leg?"

The next second, his warm palm rested against my forehead.

"Your head is burning," he muttered, his brow furrowing. "You have a fever?"

After running around all day, the fever had finally caught up to me.

My eyes stung, and my lips parted slightly to answer.

Before I could say a word, a soft sob broke the silence in the room.

Chloe’s eyes were bloodshot as tears spilled down her cheeks.

"Serena stole Daniel from me for ten whole years. Wasn't that enough?" she wept. "I'm dying, and now you're faking an illness just to take him from me again?"

Her friends chimed in, their voices sharp and nasty.

"Daniel, don't soften up and fall for a gold-digger's tricks. We've seen her type a thousand times. Once they catch a rich guy, they never let go."

"She saw how attentive you were when Chloe fell sick," another sneered. "She probably bribed that nurse to put on a show and get your sympathy."

Daniel’s eyes turned cold in an instant.

His grip on my wrist tightened, squeezing hard enough to make the bones ache.

"Serena, do you have any line you won't cross?"

He looked at me with pure disgust.

"Chloe is actually sick, and you're using something like this to get attention? You make me sick."

He shoved me away in disappointment.

Without another word, he escorted Chloe down the hall to take the specialist appointment I had waited six months to get.

Daniel held her gently in his arms.

Behind his back, Chloe flashed me a cold, triumphant smirk.

Her voice, however, sounded innocent and frail.

"Serena, you shouldn't fake being sick like this... but thank you for giving up the specialist appointment for me. I'll take it."

Daniel clutched my mother's sketches tightly in his hand, staring down at me with heavy pressure.

"If you ever want these sketches back, you'll hand over the appointment without making another scene."

He turned away. "Chloe's condition is getting worse. I don't have time to waste on your drama."

No time.

He was right.

My bone cancer had already reached its final stage.

An appointment wouldn't have saved me anyway.

I watched numbly as he guided Chloe away like a piece of fragile glass.

I took the sketches from his hand, turned around, and walked away.

I headed straight for the cemetery plot I had purchased for myself.

Six months ago, when I was first diagnosed, I scraped together my savings to buy this spot.

It was right next to my mother's grave, facing the ocean. It was peaceful.

The wind blew hard in the late afternoon. I inhaled a sharp breath of cold air and couldn't stop coughing.

When I spat a mouth full of blood onto the grass, I realized the fever was just a symptom of my body shutting down.

I pulled out my bottle of pain medicine.

When I turned it upside down, not a single pill fell out. It was empty.

I let out a bitter laugh. I knew I had reached the end of the line.

Unable to bear the agonizing pain racking my body, I leaned against my mother's tombstone and closed my eyes.

Suddenly, a blinding beam of flashlight cut through the dark, waking me up.