Chapter 2

I thought he was too moved to speak.

The truth was, he was fighting not to laugh.

Every sacrifice my mother made, every piece of myself I broke off and gave, was just loose change in the ashtray of his decadent life.

The girl tilted her head, her smile sweet.

"Don't laugh at Asher, guys. I'm the one who didn't want to have a baby, so I told Asher to keep that one. If it's a boy, he can buy it for two hundred thousand. I hear she's stingy and materialistic. If it's a girl? Just give her some child support."

Every word was a knife, stabbing into my chest.

How I yearned for Asher to refute even one sentence.

He only looked away.

Then, a cackle cut the air.

"Nicole, your prank target is so pathetic! Her old man got on his knees for ten grand, begging me to take his land! What a dirt poor? I nearly choked trying not to laugh!"

The girl giggled, falling into Asher's arms.

Asher's expression wasn't good, as if he thought I had embarrassed him.

But all I could see was my father's hunched back, walking twenty miles through rough terrain.

He finally placed the money in my hands. Every crumpled bill, every coin he'd saved for a lifetime. It was all meant for a surgery to make a blind man see.

Mud crusted his clothes, but his eyes were bright.

"My daughter is so beautiful... her husband must at least get a glimpse of her."

I watched the scene calmly. Inside, my world had already shattered.

Ding.

A new message from Dr. Vance. Attached was the confidentiality agreement, along with a text.

"Hailey, I advise you to reconsider. The pain from this trial is unsustainable. Our attrition rate for male participants is nearly forty percent."

I signed my name directly.

No.

Nothing in any lab could ever hurt more than this.

It was like I had planned to die in winter, only to be dragged back to life by excruciating pain.

Back in my cramped apartment, I moved through the agony.I packed every trace of Asher into black bags and dragged them to the trash.

I even cut up that precious scrapbook, my album of wishes.

During bungee jumping, he held my trembling body.

After fainting during diving, he nervously gave me CPR.

When fear locked my joints at the plane's edge, his laugh was the push that sent me falling.

I thought those life-and-death firsts were shared treasures.

To him, they were just items to check off a list.

Asher came home, his blind cane tapping a deliberate, loud rhythm against the floor.

He complained softly, "Why didn't you come to pick me up?"

In the past, I'd always rushed to meet with apologies and comfort.

But not today.

"Still pinching cents on gas? So cheap."

The word hung in the air.

I couldn't believe my ears.

I was the one who saved on painkillers. Who stitched baby clothes by hand. Who, believing him an orphan, had never stinted on giving him everything.

Even that was a lie.

The silence turned suffocating. Asher's mask slipped.

Then, from my numb fingers, a small bottle slipped. It spun once, hollow and frantic, and stopped at his feet.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

If he took off his dark glasses, he would see the glaring ANTI-CANCER label on the bottle.

Perhaps, he would feel a sliver of regret.

All those nights I'd burned my eyes red, translating mountains of text to save pennies for a man who needed none of it.

And he had always, always, pretended not to see.

He began to bend down.

His phone rang.

Asher's lips suddenly curved into a smile.

He hurriedly tossed a box to me.

"Your birthday gift. I need to take a client call."

I looked at the velvet box, feeling utterly hollow for the first time.

As I walked into the room to get my medicine, I heard Asher's soft chuckle on the phone.

"It's fine, her illness isn't contagious. She should be fine by now; she's just being dramatic."

"I secretly swapped out her medication, and nothing happened, did it?"