Chapter 3

Chase had promised that I would be the person he cherished most in the entire world, and that he would spend the rest of his life protecting and treasuring me.

And for a while, he really did keep that promise.

With his talent and determination, he developed a revolutionary neural-interface chip the year he graduated from college. It could manipulate and regulate a person's senses and emotions at will.

By pairing two people through the chip, it could even synchronize their sensations and emotions—or transfer one's physical pain to the other.

Chase told me that was exactly why he had created it. He wanted to take all my pain and negative emotions away from me, swearing he'd protect me for the rest of his life. If he ever broke that promise, the chip would punish him.

But ironically, the very chip created to carry his promise would eventually become the source of my deepest despair and suffering.

I wiped my face and slowly made my way downstairs to the storage room. I carried the two heavy urns out of the house.

…

The beach was deserted in the hours before dawn.

I knelt on the damp sand and scattered my parents' ashes across the shimmering surface of the sea.

As I watched the horizon brighten, I remembered the day Chase had confessed his love to me for the first time. He had stood on this very beach and written a promise in the sand.

"I will never let you down, Renee."

Just then, my phone suddenly vibrated. I glanced at it and found a message from Mr. Walsh.

"I've taken care of the paperwork. Here's the soft copy of the transfer agreement. If everything looks good, sign it and send it back."

Without hesitation, I signed the agreement and sent it back.

The tide washed away the footprints in the sand, just as Chase's promise had vanished along with everything else.

There was nothing left for me to hold on to.

…

A few days later, I left the office late at night after finishing the handover.

As I passed a bakery on the corner, I suddenly remembered that it was my birthday. I then bought myself a tiny cream cake, barely bigger than my palm.

But when I got home, I stopped dead in my tracks.

The living room was covered in ribbons and balloons, and Chase was standing on a ladder, hanging the last banner.

My heart skipped a beat. Could it be that he actually remembered my birthday?

"What are you standing there for?" Chase called without turning around. "Come give me a hand. Jo's going to be here any minute."

Then I saw what was written on the cake.

It had nothing to do with my birthday—it was just to celebrate Joanna's recovery and discharge from the hospital.

My fingers tightened around the tiny cake in the plastic bag, crumpling the box.

So this was what Chase had been planning all along. I'd only been fooling myself.

In the four years since Joanna came back, Chase hadn't spent a single birthday with me. He barely acknowledged our anniversaries either. He seemed to have pushed anything that had to do with me into the recesses of his mind.

And yet, after everything, I'd actually entertained the ridiculous thought that he might have changed.

"How pathetic," I silently thought to myself.

I ignored him and turned toward the stairs.

But Chase jumped down the ladder and called after me, his brow furrowed.

"Didn't you hear me?" he yelled. "Today marks the 67th day Jo's been in the hospital. Come help me hang this banner. I want to surprise her."

"You really do have a good memory," I said with a bitter laugh.

He couldn't remember my birthday, yet somehow he could remember exactly how many days Joanna had spent in the hospital during her pregnancy.

Chase looked puzzled.

Then his eyes fell on the crumpled plastic bag in my hand, the bakery's logo printed across the front. Only then did he realize what I meant.

The tips of his ears turned red.

"I've just been busy lately," he explained, clearing his throat awkwardly. "And with everything going on with Jo, it slipped my mind that today was…"

He hesitated.

"Why don't we celebrate together? I have extra candles."