Back then, the system points I'd been accumulating were nearly enough to send me home, back to my original world.
But the night Oliver landed his first round of funding, he held me in our tiny rental apartment and cried.
He said,
“Shirley, I swear I'll give you a good life someday.”
My heart softened. I traded my points for the data models and clinical databases he needed most.
On the hospital's opening day, Oliver took my hand in front of everyone.
“Without Shirley, I wouldn't be standing here today.”
I thought I'd finally found a home.
So even when the doctors urged me more than once to terminate the pregnancy,
“You have Rh-negative blood and a clotting disorder. The risk of delivery is far too high.”
Even when the system warned me,
“Host has accumulated sufficient points. Departure from this world is available.”
I pressed my hand to my belly and couldn't bring myself to leave. Not the baby. Not the man I loved. I chose to stay.
Then the day came. The pain blackened my vision. Oliver was supposed to be right outside the delivery room, but Nanette had just flown back into the country.
She was crying on the phone, saying someone had followed her at the airport and she was so scared she could barely breathe.
Oliver left without hesitation. Before he went, he squeezed my hand.
“Shirley, I'll be right back.”
"Right back" turned into the entire night.
I hemorrhaged on the delivery table. The nurses' voices pitched into panic：
“Where's the backup Rh-negative blood?”
“It was just transferred out!”
“Who authorized the transfer?”
No one answered.
I was in too much pain to speak. All I could hear was the system alerting me, over and over, that my life signs were dropping.
In the end, I spent every last point I had to buy Phoebe her first cry.
When I woke, Oliver was kneeling at my bedside with the baby in his arms, tears streaming down his face as he apologized.
“Shirley, I owe you my life.”
A hushed argument outside the hospital room door pulled me back from the memory.
The doctor held a report in his hands, his voice tight.
“Mr. Gilbert, your wife cannot withstand any more stress. Her clotting levels are already in the danger zone, and her body has no room left to recover.”
Oliver was silent for a moment.
“She'll be fine. She's pulled through worse than this before.”
The doctor lost his composure.
“Before was before! Ever since she gave birth, her health has been in steady decline. If she keeps being pushed like this, it won't matter who you bring in. No one on earth will be able to save her!”
The words had barely settled when Oliver's phone rang.
Conflict played across his face for a long time, but in the end, he answered.
A soft, fragile sob came through the line.
“Oliver, I dreamed about the car accident again. There was so much blood. I'm so scared.”
Oliver turned and walked out without a second of hesitation.
“I'm on my way.”
The doctor stood rooted in place. His mouth opened, then closed. He didn't try to stop him again.
The hospital room went quiet.
Some time later, Oliver came back. He set a photograph on the pillow beside me.
In it, my sister Antonia Winfield stood outside her school gate, wearing a jacket that had been washed so many times it was nearly white. She smiled at the camera, careful, tentative.
My fingers curled tight. Oliver watched me, and his tone softened just slightly.
“Antonia's been wanting to see you. Shirley, stop doing this to yourself.”
“Once Nanette's feeling more stable, I'll have someone bring Antonia here so you two can be together again.”
When Antonia arrived, she was clutching two plane tickets in her hand.
She was thinner than she'd looked in the photograph. Her face was so pale it was almost translucent, and every few steps she had to brace herself against the wall.
But the moment she saw me, she smiled.
“Shirley, I already bought the tickets. Let's go.”
“I'm done with school. I'm done with treatments. I'm taking you home.”
Something lodged in my throat and wouldn't come loose.
For the first time in all those days, I wanted to sit up.
