Chapter 4

The patient in the next room, suffering from dementia, accidentally set fire to the curtains in my room during his afternoon nap.

I was quadriplegic, unable to move.

I could only watch as the intense flames rushed towards me.

By the time the caregiver found me, I had extensive burns all over my body, my flesh rotting, with only a breath left in me.

Receiving this news, Julian immediately canceled his flight and rushed back to my side overnight.

I lay in the intensive care unit, listening to his furious shouts.

This man, who had been respectable his whole life, always speaking with a gentle tone.

He screamed and yelled like a madman in the hospital corridor.

"Is this how you care for my wife?"

"She was such a beautiful woman, so fond of her appearance. How can she live like this now?"

He tore up the appointment letter from the overseas prestigious university.

He stayed by my bedside, not leaving for a moment, expressing his deep regret.

I had ruined his life again.

But there was nothing I could do.

I could only squeeze my eyes shut, pretending not to hear his tormented voice.

Until one quiet afternoon, Serena burst into my room.

She grabbed my hair and slammed my head viciously against the bed frame.

Then she dragged me along, pulling me to stand before a mirror.

The grotesque and terrifying face in the mirror startled me.

But before I could speak, Serena suddenly broke down in tears.

She punched my thigh repeatedly, muttering,

"Why aren't you dead yet? Why are you still alive?"

"Why did you call him back at the last minute?"

"Julian had already agreed to go abroad with me. Why won't you just let him go!"

"Naomi, how can you be so selfish? Do you know I've waited for him for ten whole years!"

Julian hadn't lied to me; his acquaintance with Serena was indeed an accident.

But this accident hadn't happened recently.

It was ten years ago.

At a dinner party ten years ago, they met for the first time and fell in love.

Julian had considered divorcing me and marrying her.

But in the end, he chose me over love and responsibility.

He told Serena that, according to the doctors' diagnosis, I wouldn't live for many years.

He had to fulfill his duties as a husband before he could be with Serena with a clear conscience.

Serena agreed.

But that wait lasted for a full decade.

Julian had wasted his years and delayed his future for me.

Serena, too, had spent the most beautiful years of her life waiting for him.

Her eyes were filled with helplessness and resentment.

Her voice became choked with emotion.

"Naomi, please, let him go."

"It's been ten years. Julian and I are not young anymore."

"This one in my belly, it might be the only child we'll ever have. Can you really bear to see us lose our chance at a family?"

"He's done enough for you over the years."

"I beg you, give him, and give my unborn child, a chance at life."

Serena told me many things.

She spoke of the humiliations Julian endured to earn money for my medicine.

She spoke of how he fainted several times in his office from overwork.

"Three years ago, a client, just to humiliate him, forced him to drink."

"He drank until he had a stomach hemorrhage, and still, enduring the shame and pain, he picked up the scattered payment notes from the floor, one by one."

"Watching his reddened eyes, my heart nearly shattered."

"But he... he said that with that money, he could buy better quality medicine for his wife, so you could sleep peacefully at night." Serena cried harder as she spoke.

Her eyes, as she looked at me, held both jealousy and blame.

"Many times, I wished he could be a little crueler, a little less responsible."

"But he just... couldn't let you go."

"He's such a proud and brilliant man, and now, because of you, look what he's become..."

A cheating man wanting to bear the responsibility for two women's lives.

In the end, he only brought pain to everyone.

I should have hated him.

But ironically, I was the one person in the world least qualified to blame him.

Julian's mistake was betrayal.

His greater mistake was taking such good care of me.

I lowered my head, murmuring,

"What do you want me to do?"

Serena suddenly stopped crying.

She stared straight at me, saying without hesitation,

"I want you to die!"