Chapter 2

My fingers, clutching the phone, tightened for a second, stiff and cold.

I forced a smile, a light laugh bubbling out. "I have some good news. Meet me at the city hospital, and I'll tell you."

He muttered, "Crazy," and was about to hang up.

My voice sharpened with urgency. "I'm not lying. The doctor asked me to call a family member."

Alex seemed to find it amusing. "What, a terminal illness? Scarlett Hayes, has fate finally decided to claim you?"

A sharp pang, sudden and brutal, pierced through my heart.

Seven years of arguing with Alex, and I still hadn't learned to be numb to his words.

I truly had no other choice but to soften my voice.

"Why don't you just come? After all these years as husband and wife…"

He cut me off, his voice laced with utter disgust. "Scarlett Hayes, don't you dare try to disgust me!"

Standing in the biting wind outside the clinic building, a sudden chill enveloped my entire body.

He hung up after throwing out, "Call me when you're dead, I'll send a hearse."

I waited until five in the afternoon, but Alex, predictably, never showed.

I had no one else to call.

My mom wasn't well. She'd been rushed to the ER a few days ago and only discharged yesterday.

After racking my brain, I found a young woman online, doing odd jobs, just before the hospital closed.

I asked her to pretend to be my sister and retrieve the test results from the doctor.

When she finally emerged with the papers, her eyes were red.

Her voice thick with tears, she choked out, "Sis, maybe you really should get a family member to come."

I took the papers from her, a wry smile touching my lips. "Then why do you think I called you?"

Her tears spilled over, tracing paths down her cheeks.

I paid her, then spent a long time comforting her before finally sending her off.

It was only after she left that the realization truly hit me.

The brain cancer diagnosis on the paper, "less than six months to live," was about me.

Human emotions are strange.

Slow to arrive, yet overwhelmingly intense.

On the taxi ride home, I sat in the backseat.

Through the window, I watched the yellow leaves swirl and drift across the ground.

Tears suddenly streamed down my face.

With less than six months left to live, I was only just realizing.

How incredibly wasteful these seven years spent on Alex had been.