Sean wanted to move me abroad.
He wanted private clinics, foreign specialists, miracle treatments.
He wouldn’t listen to anyone.
Not the doctors.
Not the nurses.
Not me.
Then my best friend, Lily Hart, arrived with my living will.
I had signed it a long time ago.
Everything had been notarized.
If one day I became unable to move, eat, or drink on my own—
No extreme measures.
No desperate dragging out of pain.
No forcing me to stay.
Lily knew me best.
She knew I was scared of pain more than anything.
She slapped Sean the second she saw him.
Hard.
“You’ve got money now?” she snapped. “Where the hell was that money before?”
“You want to act powerful now? Too late.”
“She’s dying.”
“You’re not taking her anywhere.”
Sean stared at the paper in her hand as if he couldn’t understand the words.
After a long time, he said in a shaking voice, “Lily… let me take her. Please.”
“Believe me. She can live. She can.”
“She can’t die.”
“If she dies, what am I supposed to do?”
Lily looked at him coldly.
“Men like you survive just fine without anybody.”
“Don’t stand here pretending to be the tragic lover. It’s disgusting.”
Then she sat by my bed, took my hand, and burst into tears before she even got a full sentence out.
“Meg,” she whispered, “do you really not want to live anymore?”
Hearing her cry made me want to cry too.
I wanted to lift a hand and wipe her tears away.
I wanted to tell her—
Don’t be sad.
I’m just going to sleep for a very, very long time.
If I’m asleep, it won’t hurt.
But I couldn’t speak.
She cried harder.
“Wake up one more time, okay?”
“You said goodbye has to be said properly, or there’ll be regrets.”
“You still haven’t said goodbye to your mom.”
“You still haven’t said goodbye to me.”
“How can you leave like this?”
My own tears slipped down in silence.
The heart monitor suddenly started beeping faster.
Doctors rushed in.
One of them told Lily to keep talking.
“She’s responding. She may be trying to wake up.”
So Lily stayed there the whole day.
Wouldn’t even leave to drink water.
She kept talking to me.
Laughing one minute. Crying the next.
Honestly, it was kind of terrifying.
I had almost decided to just let go.
But seeing her like that, I felt rude somehow.
If I didn’t wake up just to comfort her, it would be unforgivable.
So I fought.
Against my wrecked body.
Against the heavy dark dragging me down.
And sometime near midnight, I opened my eyes.
For the next two weeks, Lily never left my side.
Not for a second.
She fed me.
Walked me to the bathroom.
Hovered over me so intensely that I started worrying she was losing her mind.
I thought, if I don’t get better soon, Lily’s going to turn into a complete freak.
One day, while she was out of the room, I decided to prove I could go to the bathroom by myself.
I made it there fine.
But on the way out, my legs suddenly gave out.
I crashed against the sink and hit my face hard.
Everything spun.
My nose and forehead started bleeding again.
As I struggled up, I accidentally yanked away the cloth covering the mirror.
I looked up.
And froze.
The face looking back at me was ghastly.
Thin cheeks. Hollow eyes. Gray skin.
I didn’t even recognize myself.
Sean rushed in right then and pulled me into his arms before I could keep staring.
His voice was low and furious.
“I leave for five minutes to pay a bill and Lily disappears? Useless.”
I frowned and cut him off.
“Don’t talk about Lily like that.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“She has a life. A family. A job. Unlike me, she doesn’t exist to revolve around this hospital room.”
Sean went silent.
He helped me back to bed.
Used tissue after tissue to wipe the blood from my face.
Watching the stains spread across the white paper, his eyes reddened.
Then, pretending to sound calm, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”
“What was your mouth for?”
“You could have gotten better.”
“Do you know that?”
“Why did you push yourself until it got this bad?”
I looked at him and answered quietly.
“Because I didn’t need you.”
“I didn’t need your concern.”
“Or your company.”
“So whether you knew or not… didn’t matter to me.”
And it was true.
I had never deliberately hidden it.
My test results were always right there on the table.
He only needed to lower his eyes and look.
But he never looked.
Not once.
During the months my body grew thinner and weaker, Chloe appeared at his side.
She was younger than me.
Prettier than me.
Brighter.
More lovable.
Sean stayed out all night with her.
So he never saw me collapse alone on the floor in pain.
Never saw me crying while calling my doctor and begging for help because I was too scared to die that night.
Sean bent over me then, and a tear fell onto my face.
He turned away immediately and gave a bitter laugh.
“Right. Megan, you’re amazing.”
“You wanted to dump me, so you dumped me.”
“You wanted me gone, so I got lost.”
“I know you don’t need me.”
“Fine. Don’t.”
After a long silence, his voice broke.
“But I need you.”
I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.
Because he still didn’t know.
He still didn’t know why I broke up with him in the first place.