Ryan dropped to his knees beside my lifeless body, his hands trembling as he tried to hold back his sobs.
Just then, familiar voices echoed through the hallway.
“Where’s our daughter?! Where is she?!”
My parents had finally arrived, frantic and out of breath.
Ryan stepped out of the room to meet them.
His voice cracked as he spoke, “Selene… she’s gone.”
For a brief moment, my parents froze. Then, their expressions shifted. Their tense brows relaxed.
“Didn’t Chiara say it was Leila who was sick?” my dad asked, his tone flat and cold. “Why would it be Selene?”
My mom waved her hand dismissively, clearly annoyed.
“Didn’t she claim she had late-stage cancer last month and only a month left to live? Yet she still had the energy to wait tables. You tell me, does that sound like someone who's dying? We never withheld money from her. She still had that million we gave her. Always pretending to be sick to gain sympathy.”
They forgot.
When they handed me the bank card, Leila was crying to them about not being able to buy a new dress. As a result, they took it away from me and gave it to her.
My daughter, Chiara, stood next to them, nodding along eagerly. “Mom always lies like that. Last time I saw her, she had money to shop.”
That shopping trip? I was buying her a birthday present. It cost me more than a month's salary.
Just then, another voice entered the scene.
“Dad! Mom!”
Peter walked toward them, his arm around Leila.
The moment my parents saw that Leila was okay, their expressions brightened. They hurried over.
Chiara rushed straight into Leila’s arms. “Mom, are you alright?”
Ryan just stood there, stunned.
Now he finally understood what I meant when I told him not to bother with them, that they were all useless.
My parents.
My daughter.
My husband.
They had all gathered around Leila without hesitation.
And not one of them cared that I was gone.
Even after death, my consciousness remained. My soul lingered, floating beside Ryan.
I had always known my family didn’t care, but watching it unfold in real time still carved deeply into what was left of my heart.
Leila was adopted by my family when we were young. She was an orphan, and my parents always felt more sorry for her than for me.
Once, she broke my mother’s favorite vase, and I was the one who took the blame.
“Leila’s had a hard life. She’s an orphan,” my mom said. “And now you’re trying to frame her? Go outside and kneel. Apologize.”
That night, I knelt in the snow until sunrise.
Peter, who lived next door at the time, had found me there. He wrapped me in a warm coat and helped me inside. But afterward, Leila began clinging to him as well and doing everything she could to steal his attention.
Back in the present, Peter turned to Ryan, irritation in his voice. “Did Selene sign the statement of forgiveness like I asked?”
Ryan let out a bitter laugh, his voice raw, as he gestured towards the gurney being wheeled down the hall, the body covered in white.
“Sign it?”
His voice rose, continuing, “Look! That’s Selene! She’s dead! And you’re still thinking about making her forgive Leila?!”
Ryan’s hands clenched tightly, and his whole body trembled with the effort not to strike his brother. Meanwhile, Peter paused mid-step, a slight frown forming.
He glanced at the body on the stretcher, wrapped tightly in white.
Then Peter scoffed. “She’s really going all out with this performance, huh? Selene’s terrified of dying, like she’d actually go that far.”
Yeah. I was still young. Why would I want to die?
If I could’ve lived, I would’ve dragged every one of them to hell with me.
“She’s just jealous again because I’ve been spending time with Leila,” Peter muttered. “Get her up and tell her to sign the damn agreement already.”
Impatient, Peter kicked the bed and reached out to yank back the sheet. At that moment, a ring slipped from my hand and hit the floor with a sharp clink.
The sharp sound caught his attention.
It was the ring he gave me when he proposed, and I never took it off. He said he forged it himself, so I always cherished it.
But on the day Leila returned home, Peter had taken off our wedding ring.
For the first time in a long while, he hesitated. His hand moved instinctively to lift the sheet, but doubt crept into his voice.
“Selene? What kind of game are you playing this time?”
“Peter!” Leila’s voice cut in. “You said you wanted to know what she’s been up to. My people found something!”
Leila then pulled out her phone and played a video. The footage was shaky and clearly edited. On screen, a woman—slightly blurry but somewhat resembling me—sat at a restaurant, laughing and talking with someone.
“See?” Leila smiled. “Selene is not even in the hospital. She’s out on a date.”
The lie was blatant. Amateur even.
But it erased any final doubt in Peter’s mind.
“Great! She lied to me again?” he growled. “Selene’s off with some guy now?”
Enraged, he charged forward and shoved the gurney.
Ryan shouted, “No!”
His eyes nearly popped open as he hurried to stop him, but he was too late. The heavy gurney hit the ground with a thud, and my body hit the ground with a sickening thud, though the sheet stayed in place.
Ryan lost all patience. Like a man possessed, he lunged at Peter and punched him hard in the face.
“You bastard! You monster!”
Peter staggered backward, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth.
He wiped it with his sleeve, his expression unreadable.
“What death? That’s a fake body,” Peter said coldly. “So all of this was just a cover for her to run off with another guy?”
