Dinner rolled around soon enough.
Mom and Dad cooked themselves, laying out a whole spread of dishes for Angela.
I looked at the table crowded with spicy food, and my lungs ached as if the peppers were scorching them from the inside.
"All right, you've been chatting with him all day. Go wash up and eat."
Angela's cheeks flushed pink.
"Mom~ you're teasing me again!"
I stared at my chat window, forever a wall of green. Something bitter welled up in me.
In every conversation between Isaac and me, the last message was always the one I'd sent.
He almost never replied.
At the table, my parents fussed over Angela, asking after her every comfort, ignoring me entirely beside them.
The truth was, days like this were no different from the ones when Angela wasn't around.
I'd gotten used to it.
"Angela, we kept your room for you all this time. Nothing in it has changed."
Angela lifted a blissful smile and nuzzled against Mom.
"Thank you, Mom!"
Ever since the accident with Angela years ago, my room had been moved out of the one beside hers and into the guest room.
"If it weren't for saving you, Angela never would have died."
"How do you have the nerve to live right next to Angela!"
Over all these years, my already partial parents had turned their grief over Angela's death into pure hatred for me.
That hatred was so real that I'd actually believed Angela had truly died.
I never expected the one to die first would be me.
"Cough, cough..."
I really couldn't stand the reek of spice filling the table, and I couldn't help covering my mouth and coughing a few times.
The whole family turned to me in disgust.
"You ill-mannered thing, can't you see everyone's eating? What kind of behavior is coughing like that?"
"If you have to cough, get out and cough!"
Fine by me. I'd been wanting to leave for a long time.
Every cough tore through my lungs like something ripping apart. I fought back the tears, and it was a good while before I steadied myself.
I looked down. The sink was full of blood.
The whole night, I ate nothing.
That was how it went, coughing all the way to daybreak.
The next day, I went out alone to see a doctor, but while I was waiting for a car, I happened to run into Isaac.
"Why do you look so awful?"
He asked me as he opened the car door.
"Get in. I'll take you."
"Where are you going?"
I leaned against the window, my gaze drifting to the "Angela's Seat" sticker on the passenger side.
"To the city hospital."
He frowned.
"What illness are you faking this time?"
"Last time it was depression. What is it now?"
I was just about to say I had lung cancer when a special, extra-attentive ringtone came through, and he cut me off.
"I'll be right there."
He hung up, pulled over to the roadside, and said coldly,
"The hospital isn't far from here. I won't go with you."
"I've got no interest in what illness you're faking anyway. Grab a cab yourself."
In a hundred-degree heat, he left me on the roadside just like that.
I didn't make a scene. I opened the door and got out.
I stood under the sun for a long time before I finally flagged down a car.
"Miss Fox, your condition is very serious. It can't be put off any longer."
In the doctor's office, I asked softly,
"How much longer do I have?"
"Without treatment, six months at most."
That was enough.
My soul was already past bearing it. This was, if anything, a release.
The moment I stepped out of the hospital, I opened my messages and came across Angela's latest post.
In the photo, she was ringed by a huge pile of gifts, the girl in a princess dress leaning against a man's shoulder, her expression bashful.
The caption underneath read:
"My very own little puppy who comes running whenever I call~"
From my alt account, I quietly gave them a like.
Back home, Angela came bounding up with a wedding dress in her arms, grinning.
"Sis! This is for you~"
"Isaac and I bought it for you at the couture bridal shop. We both thought it would suit you perfectly."
"Do you like it?"
Isaac held out a bouquet of roses to me as well.
"When the day comes, you can use these for your bridal bouquet."
I took none of it.
"No need."
"I don't intend to go through with this wedding."
"Also—" I pretended not to see the word "complimentary" tagged beside the bouquet, and my voice came out cold and hard, "Isaac, we've been together five years. You can't even remember that I'm allergic to rose pollen?"
