Three days before my surgery, I scrolled past a post. The title read, What do you do when you fall for someone else while trying to save the one you love?
I clicked in, just to kill time.
The top answer ran long. His fiancée had leukemia, and recently he'd finally found a perfect bone-marrow match.
The girl told him she was timid, terrified of the operation, so he flew out and stayed with her for three months.
Little by little, her innocence won him over.
Watching her smile, he suddenly couldn't bear to send her up onto an operating table.
Every detail in that post lined up with mine.
My fiancé, Phineas Harding, had vanished for three full months when my illness worsened, when I was scared and helpless, using a business trip as his excuse.
He said she was timid. He'd forgotten that I was the one gravely ill, that I could be afraid too.
What he didn't know was that I didn't need his rescue.
In those three months, my parents had found me a suitable donor as well.
I would travel across the world and be reborn.
——
When the doctor came by for his routine check, I called him back, my voice low.
"Could I borrow your phone for a second?"
To keep close tabs on my condition, Phineas had added a few of the doctors and nurses as contacts.
I took the phone and opened his profile.
His posts showed me only the last three days.
I used to think he just wasn't one for sharing online. It never crossed my mind that this three-month blackout was aimed at one person. Me.
Before he left, Phineas had knelt on one knee beside my hospital bed, holding my hand almost like a prayer.
"I'll bring you a surprise when I'm back. Be good and wait for me."
So the surprise he'd told me to wait for was watching his lies unravel with my own eyes.
I swiped, scrolling slowly down.
In three months, Phineas had posted over a hundred times.
He'd walked someone else through fields of spring flowers, strolled bustling night markets, ridden a Ferris wheel hand in hand under the sunset at an amusement park.
Most posts came as photo grids, and in nearly every one was a face, bright and alive.
A girl bursting with energy. She'd flash peace signs at the camera, puff up her cheeks and pout at Phineas.
Every shot was carefully chosen. The favoritism in them was impossible to hide.
The captions flowed soft as water.
"Your smile is the happiness that found me late."
"Don't be afraid. I'll be by your side the whole way."
Each picture, each line, was a fine silver needle pressed into my heart, the pain delicate and endless.
For three months, I'd been trapped in a stark white hospital room.
The sickness ground me down again and again. Through countless days and nights I'd curled up alone on that bed, every breath edged with pain.
And Phineas had put me out of his mind, guarding someone else's smile a thousand miles away.
I picked up my own phone and started a video call.
It connected almost instantly.
The image swayed, and I saw a noisy airport waiting lounge, crowds flowing past, alive with chatter.
Phineas's gentle face appeared on the screen soon after.
"You've lost weight again?" He searched my face, his voice quick with concern. "Are you feeling worse? I'll come back right away, I'll be there with you, don't be scared."
I watched him in silence and said nothing.
He started to say more, but a lively girl's voice cut him off.
"Phin, how much longer? My legs are killing me, I just want to board already."
On the other end, Phineas froze.
I let out a soft laugh and asked what I already knew. "Is that your sister?"
He fumbled, his hand jerking up on instinct to cover the lens.
"No, just a girl I met out here. She's timid, didn't dare come to a strange city alone, so I'm looking out for her."
