He figured a child's tantrum shouldn't be indulged.
So he sent a message: 【The red dress is the one I bought for you. I'll bring it home later. Happy birthday.】
The notification chimed. I stared at the words, at the background photo of the two of us, and felt nothing. Who the dress was for, whether any of it was true—I no longer had the heart to sort it out.
This birthday, I hadn't enjoyed a single moment of it.
I returned my parents' call and told them not to worry, that everything would be fine.
On the other end, my mother's voice was sharp with anger. "Sweetheart, why don't you just break up with him? I'll set you up with someone far better! Why should my baby girl put up with this kind of insult? Childhood sweetheart, so what? He's not the only boy you've known since you were little."
I said nothing. After hanging up, I went home alone and turned on every light in the house—including the dozen-odd little night lights Irvin had given me.
A complication from my surgery: I'm afraid of the dark, afraid to sleep alone, because I always feel that if I do, I won't wake up again.
So whenever Irvin worked late, I never let myself stay up waiting for him—though sometimes I ended up awake all night anyway.
Irvin hated seeing me like that, and a heart transplant patient truly can't afford to overexert herself, so to coax me to sleep he'd bought more than a dozen night lights, one after another.
Now I switched them all on, flooding the bedroom with light, and started packing. In a forgotten corner, I found the love letter Irvin had written me when he was eighteen.
【I love Layla Sutton. She has a heart condition, so I'll study medicine. I'll cure her, and she'll live a long, long life. Before the surgery, I'll marry her, and whether it succeeds or not, she will be the only wife I ever have in this life.】
Beneath his bold, forceful handwriting, I had written one word: Okay. And you'll be the only husband I ever have.
Tears fell onto the paper before I could stop them.
Irvin had kept his word. Before the surgery, he really had wanted to marry me. It was me who refused, not wanting to hold him back. I never imagined that one refusal would mean I'd never get the chance again.
I didn't own much, but I packed slowly, on purpose, because after more than twenty years together, I truly couldn't bear to let go.
Since Irvin had said the dress was mine, I wanted to hear what else he'd say.
It wasn't until three in the morning that my phone finally rang.
It was Irvin. I picked up within a second. He sounded resigned. "I knew you wouldn't be asleep."
Then his voice turned urgent.
"Go to sleep first. Something came up at the hospital, I have to head back. Make sure you sleep, or your body won't hold up. I'm always here. Don't be scared of the dark."
His concern warmed something in my chest.
But the next moment, a single sentence drifting from somewhere far off in the call dropped me straight into ice.
"Patient Selena Sherwood. Intercourse too rough, ruptured corpus luteum, internal bleeding. Prep for surgery."
My phone hit the floor.
The call ended.
My heart couldn't take any more. The pain was vicious. I slipped a fast-acting heart pill under my tongue, but it did nothing. I was drenched in sweat, in agony beyond bearing, my breathing growing harder and harder.
My hands shaking, I reached for my phone and found Irvin's name. A second before I pressed the call button, I coughed up a mouthful of blood.
It hurt so much. My heart hurt as badly as my body.
In the end, I switched numbers and dialed 911.
The ambulance came fast, and once they had me hooked up to the emergency equipment, my condition stabilized.
Two nurses started chatting.
"God, I never would've guessed Dr. Sherwood and Dr. Stephens were that wild, that rough? Ended up in the hospital over it—tsk, tsk, tsk."
The other laughed softly. "Dr. Sherwood in that red dress, skin like snow, curves in all the right places—of course Dr. Stephens fell for it. He'd have to be crazy not to."
So the red dress really wasn't for me.
Tears blurred my eyes.
I stared at the ceiling of the car for a long time, then called my mother.
"I'll do the matchmaking meeting. The sooner I can get married, the better."
Irvin had broken the promise he made at eighteen. So I wasn't going to wait anymore.
