Chapter 2
The medical records slipped from Ethan's trembling hands.
They scattered across the stone pathway like fallen cherry blossom petals.
For a long moment...
He couldn't hear the traffic.
He couldn't hear the birds.
He couldn't even hear his own heartbeat.
Only one sentence echoed inside his mind.
Stage IV Lung Cancer.
Estimated Life Expectancy: Less than Six Months.
He looked up.
Sophia stood a few feet away, desperately trying to catch her breath.
The cold, heartless woman from only moments ago was gone.
In her place stood someone exhausted...
Terrified...
And dying.
Ethan slowly walked toward her.
His voice barely existed.
"Tell me..."
"...this isn't real."
Sophia wiped the blood from the corner of her lips before he could see more of it.
"It is."
He shook his head violently.
"No."
"There has to be a mistake."
"There are treatments."
"Clinical trials."
"We'll go anywhere."
"We'll figure it out."
Sophia smiled sadly.
"You haven't changed."
"You still think you can fix everything."
He reached for her hand.
She stepped back.
"No."
"Don't."
His eyes filled with tears.
"Why?"
"Because if you touch me..."
"...I won't be strong enough to leave."
Three months earlier...
Sophia had been sitting at her office desk when the coughing first started.
At first, she ignored it.
The long hours at work.
The stress.
The lack of sleep.
She blamed everything except illness.
Then came the blood.
Just a few drops.
Hidden inside a tissue.
She booked a doctor's appointment the next morning.
Just to be safe.
She expected antibiotics.
Instead...
She was sent for scans.
Then biopsies.
Then more scans.
A week later, she sat alone in a consultation room.
The oncologist placed the results on the desk.
"I'm very sorry."
She already knew from his expression.
The words simply confirmed it.
"It's advanced."
"It has spread."
Surgery wasn't possible.
Chemotherapy might slow the disease.
But it couldn't stop it.
Sophia walked out of the hospital carrying a folder that felt heavier than the world.
She sat in her car for almost two hours.
Not crying.
Not screaming.
Simply staring at the steering wheel.
Her phone rang.
It was Ethan.
"Hey."
"You still coming over tonight?"
She almost said yes.
Instead she lied.
"I have to work late."
That was the first lie.
Many more followed.
Over the next several weeks...
She secretly began treatment.
Every chemotherapy session left her weaker.
She cut her hair shorter before it could begin falling out.
When Ethan complimented the new style, she smiled.
"Just wanted a change."
She learned how to apply makeup that hid the exhaustion.
She practiced smiling in mirrors.
She rehearsed conversations.
She became an actress in her own life.
Because every time Ethan looked at her...
He saw the future they had planned.
She saw a future she would never reach.
One evening...
She visited the park alone.
The very place where they had shared their first kiss.
She sat beneath the cherry blossoms and cried until sunset.
That was the day she made her decision.
She wouldn't let Ethan spend the last months of her life inside hospitals.
She wouldn't let him become a widower before thirty.
She wouldn't let him spend years remembering her final breaths instead of her laughter.
If he hated her...
He would heal.
Eventually.
If he stayed...
He would never forgive himself after she was gone.
So she chose the cruelest kindness she could imagine.
She would become the villain in his story.
Back in the present...
Ethan stared at her through tears.
"So..."
"...everything you said..."
"I've never loved you enough..."
"You only want a rich man..."
Sophia nodded slowly.
"Lies."
"Every single one."
His voice cracked.
"Then why say them in front of everyone?"
She looked toward the strangers still standing nearby, pretending not to watch.
"Because private lies leave hope."
"Public humiliation destroys it."
She wanted him to stop chasing her.
To stop waiting.
To move on.
Even if it meant hating her forever.
Ethan suddenly laughed.
It wasn't joyful.
It was the sound of a broken heart refusing to accept reality.
"You really thought..."
"...I'd stop loving you because of cancer?"
Fresh tears rolled down Sophia's face.
"No."
"I hoped you'd hate me because of who I pretended to be."
He took another step closer.
"You don't know me at all."
She smiled weakly.
"Oh..."
"I know you better than anyone."
"That's exactly why I had to make you hate me."
A young woman who had filmed the proposal slowly approached them.
Her eyes were red from crying.
"I..."
"I'm so sorry."
She quietly deleted the video from her phone.
Others nearby began doing the same.
One by one...
People who had believed they were witnessing a selfish rejection realized they had actually watched the greatest act of self-sacrifice either of them had ever seen.
Some lowered their heads in shame.
Others quietly walked away, giving the couple privacy.
The park that had been filled with whispers gradually became silent again.
Sophia suddenly swayed.
Her legs gave out.
Ethan caught her before she hit the ground.
She tried to push him away.
"Please..."
"Don't make this harder."
He held her tightly.
"No."
"I'm done listening to your lies."
She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face.
"Ethan..."
"You deserve a future."
He gently brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
"My future..."
"...has always started with you."
At that moment, his phone vibrated.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
"If you love Sophia, don't let her disappear tonight. There is something about her diagnosis she doesn't know."
Ethan frowned.
He looked at the sender.
There was no name.
Only the logo of the hospital where Sophia had been receiving treatment.
His heart began racing again.
Because the nightmare...
May you like
Might not be over.
And the message suggested that someone had been hiding the truth from both of them.
