Ethan wanted to transfer me overseas.
He wanted private doctors, experimental treatment, the best hospitals in the world.
He was rich enough to make a scene anywhere and powerful enough that no one stopped him.
Until my best friend, Lily Carter, arrived carrying my living will.
I’d signed it a long time ago.
It had been notarized.
I’d left everything to Lily to decide if I ever reached the point where I couldn’t move, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink, couldn’t speak.
I had written one thing very clearly.
Don’t drag it out.
Let me go.
I’m afraid of pain.
Lily slapped Ethan the second she read his face.
The sound rang through the room.
“You’ve got money now?” she hissed, pointing at him. “Where the hell was all that money before? Putting on a show now won’t help. She’s dying. You’re not taking her anywhere.”
Ethan stared at the papers in her hand like he couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
Then, after a long moment, his voice broke.
“Lily… let me take her. I’m begging you.”
He actually said the word begging.
I would have laughed if I’d been more awake.
“You have to trust me,” he said hoarsely. “She can survive. She can. She’s not going to die. If she dies… what am I supposed to do?”
Lily looked at him with pure disgust.
“You? Men like you live just fine after losing anyone. Don’t stand here pretending to be heartbroken. It’s revolting.”
Then she sat beside my bed and took my hand.
The moment she opened her mouth, tears started falling.
“Do you really not want to live anymore?” she whispered.
Hearing her cry made me feel sad too.
I wanted to lift my hand and wipe her face.
I wanted to tell her not to pity me.
I just wanted to go to sleep.
A long sleep.
If I was asleep, it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
But Lily kept talking.
“You said when someone leaves, they should say goodbye properly. Otherwise they’ll leave regrets behind. You haven’t said goodbye to your mom. You haven’t said goodbye to me. How can you just leave?”
Tears slid from the corners of my closed eyes.
Somewhere nearby, the heart monitor changed rhythm.
Doctors rushed over.
“She’s responding,” someone said. “Keep talking to her.”
So Lily kept talking.
That entire day she barely drank water, barely moved. She just sat there holding my hand, crying and laughing and rambling about every ridiculous thing she could think of.
Honestly, it was a little frightening.
I had already made peace with dying.
But after watching Lily fall apart like that, it suddenly felt rude not to wake up and comfort her.
So I fought.
Against the pain.
Against the weight crushing my chest.
Against the rotten body that was failing me from the inside out.
And sometime after midnight, I finally opened my eyes.
The first person I saw was Lily.
Her face was a mess.
The second was Ethan, standing a little farther back, looking as if someone had taken a knife to his soul.
For the next half month, Lily barely left my side.
She took care of me like she had lost her mind.
She fed me. Walked me to the bathroom. Hovered so closely it seemed like she might personally help me pull down my pants next.
I was honestly worried that if I didn’t recover quickly, Lily was going to become some kind of full-time lunatic nurse.
One afternoon, while she was briefly out of the room, I decided to try going to the bathroom by myself.
I thought I was doing better.
I thought I could manage it.
I was wrong.
On the way out, my legs suddenly gave out.
I crashed into the sink, hit my face hard, and blood spilled everywhere.
As I struggled up, I accidentally yanked down the cloth someone had draped over the mirror.
I looked up.
And saw my own face.
A frightening face.
Gaunt. Hollow. Pale. Bruised.
I froze.
Then Ethan rushed in, caught me in his arms, and turned me away from the mirror so fast I almost fell again.
He held me tightly, his voice low and furious.
“I was gone for ten minutes to pay a bill. Where the hell is Lily? Useless—”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I cut in immediately, frowning. “I don’t like it.”
He fell silent.
Because it was true.
Lily had her own life. Her own family. Her own work.
She wasn’t like me, a dying burden with nothing left to do except drag down the people who still cared.
Ethan brought tissues and carefully wiped the blood from my face.
As he looked at the red-stained paper piling up in his hands, his eyes slowly turned red.
Then he asked in a falsely steady voice, “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick sooner? What was your mouth for? You could have gotten better. Ava, why did you insist on handling all of this alone? Why did you let it get to this point?”
I looked at him calmly.
“Because I didn’t need you.”
He flinched.
“I didn’t need your concern. I didn’t need your company. So whether you knew or not was never important to me.”
The truth was, I had never really hidden it.
My test results had been sitting on the table in plain sight for ages.
All he had to do was lower his eyes and read them.
But he never did.
During the months my body grew thinner and weaker, Chloe had appeared beside him—young, lively, beautiful, easier to love.
For her, he stayed out all night.
For her, he stopped coming home.
So of course he never saw me collapsed on the floor in pain.
Never saw me crying while calling the doctor because I was scared.
Never saw me shaking so badly I could barely breathe.
He lifted me back onto the hospital bed.
And while bending over me, one warm tear fell from his face onto mine.
Then he turned away and laughed bitterly.
“Right. Ava, you’re incredible. You dumped me when you wanted to. You told me to get lost when you wanted to. I know. You don’t need me.”
His voice broke.
“But I need you.”
I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.
Because if I looked at him then, I might have remembered too much.
And remembering hurt worse than the disease.