Chapter 2

The next day, while the nurse was busy with my medication, Mom walked into the room holding a thermal food jar.

The familiar scent of chicken soup made me pause.

From the moment I was diagnosed with heart failure, I couldn't keep any food down, so Mom would stew a different kind of soup for me every day. She would sit by my bedside, feeding me spoonful by spoonful, her eyes red.

"If you can get better, I'll willingly give up ten years of my life."

Now, she asked, "Did you take Michelle's protective charm?"

My chest tightened. "No."

Mom didn't believe me and opened all my drawers to check. "How is that possible? She came over yesterday and couldn't find it after that."

She casually tossed my pill organizer, medical forms, and childhood photos aside. One of the pill bottles fell to the floor and rolled under the bed.

I steadied myself against the edge of the bed to retrieve it, but my vision suddenly went black.

When Mom noticed, she frowned. "Didn't the doctor say they'd pulled you through yesterday? Why are you still so weak?"

I looked up at her. I guessed, in her eyes, being pulled back from the brink of death meant I was fine. It was just like every time I'd come out of the operating room alive all these years, so they took it for granted that I would survive the next one too.

I said, "Mom, I might only have a month left."

Mom froze momentarily before closing the closet door. "The doctors always like to talk about the worst-case scenario. You were in a critical condition when you were 18 years old, but you still managed to hold on until now."

She proceeded to pour the soup into a bowl.

A faint, foolish hope quietly stirred in my heart. But in the very next moment, Mom picked up the bowl and headed outside.

"Michelle hasn't been feeling like eating today, so I spent a long time cooking this. She must drink some of it. If you want some, I'll ask the housekeeper to send some over later."

After she left, I sat in the room, blanking out. In the end, it was the nurse who retrieved the pill bottle underneath my bed.

She noticed I looked pale and gave me a glass of warm milk. "Why didn't you ask your family to accompany you?"

I lowered my eyes. "They are busy."

They were busy handling Michelle's admission, arranging a post-operative rehabilitation center, and planning her life after recovery.

That afternoon, several people suddenly arrived at my private room. Without a word of explanation, they began packing up my belongings.

I stopped one of them. "What are you doing?"

"Mr. Stone asked us to move you to a different room."

The head nurse hurried over, looking somewhat conflicted. "Ms. Langley needs to rest in a quiet room before the surgery, but there are no spare single rooms available upstairs at the moment. Your father said it would make no difference for you to stay in a standard room."

They packed my things into two cardboard boxes as a family photo slipped out of my medical record folder and fell to the floor.

It was taken on my 15th birthday. Michelle had only recently joined the family, standing timidly at the very edge of the group. Mom was holding me, while Dad and Dante stood on either side, putting a birthday hat on me.

It was the last family photo centered around me.

The orderly wheeled me past Michelle's new room when we left. The door was covered with pink balloons. Dad was adjusting the projector, while Mom arranged bouquets of fresh flowers into vases. Meanwhile, Dante had just arrived, carrying the cake Michelle loved most.

When Dante spotted me, he paused. "Why did you get out of bed?"

I glanced at the boxes. "I'm changing rooms."

Dante seemed to have just recalled this matter, his face tensing for a fleeting second. "Michelle gets nervous before surgery and needs a quiet environment. You aren't doing well, so staying in a shared room makes it easier for nurses to look after you at any time."

I didn't respond.

Michelle poked her head out. "Lia, maybe you should stay here."

Despite what she said, her hands gripped Mom's arm tightly.

Mom immediately said, "Don't overthink this. Your dad was the one who made this arrangement."

Dante looked at me, his voice tinged with warning. "Lia, since you've already given your spot to Michelle, then don't make her feel uneasy over something so trivial."

To him, changing my hospital room—or possibly my life—was a trivial matter.

I was wheeled to the bed closest to the door in a six-person room.

Seeing that I had no one with me, the family member of another patient kindly made up my bed.

It was 9:00 pm when Michelle posted a photo on her Instagram. There was a cake in the middle as Dante put a birthday hat on her while my parents urged her to make a wish.

The caption read, "Celebrating my second birthday with the family in advance. From now on, we'll spend every birthday together."

I zoomed in on the photo. The cake happened to be my favorite—sea-salt cheesecake. A star bracelet was placed next to the cake box.

Half a month earlier, Dante asked me what birthday gift I would like this year. I sent him a picture of the bracelet, and he told me it was childish.

Apparently, that wasn't what Dante really thought. It was just that the wearer shouldn't have been me.

My phone vibrated.

Dante wrote, "Michelle said you were the one who was interested in the bracelet. She likes it a lot. Don't pick a fight with her over this."

I stared at the text for a prolonged period before replying, "Okay."

Anyway, once I was dead, everything in that house that belonged to me would eventually become Michelle's. What difference did it make whether it happened sooner or later?