Why should your love for her be paid for with my sacrifice?
“The bleeding stopped!”
A nurse's voice rang out, bright with relief.
Daniel froze for a beat, then smiled without meaning to.
Only then did he realize his face was streaked with tears. Those few minutes had felt like a lifetime.
“Sybilla, I knew it. I knew you couldn't bear to leave me.”
The nurses told me I'd been unconscious for three days and nights before I woke.
A large bouquet of white roses sat beside my bed, petals plump and open. I looked away without expression.
Daniel was standing in the doorway, his eyes lit with cautious joy.
He crossed the room in quick strides, reaching to help me sit up.
But I didn't lean into him the way I always had. I shifted away, quietly, as if it were nothing.
His hand stalled mid-air. “Sybilla, you just woke up. It's normal to feel unwell.”
His voice was gentler than I'd ever heard it. I laughed inside.
He'd already used me for everything he needed. Shouldn't he have thrown me away by now? What was this guilty act supposed to be?
I watched, cold-eyed, as he picked up a piece of pear from the fruit tray and held it to my lips.
The pear had been cut into small pieces. The pale, glistening flesh pulled my mind back to before the surgery.
Daniel had pried my cold fingers away from him, his tone flat and distant.
“Stop making a fuss. I have other patients. I don't have time for this.”
He'd brushed me off the way you'd brush off a stranger being unreasonable, and left without looking back.
He'd barely walked out then before the nurse making rounds told me the rest.
Daniel had canceled all his surgeries. He was in Hope Price's room.
“Oh, Dr. Fox, you like white roses too? When I was cleaning Dr. Price's room earlier, I saw a huge bouquet of white roses on her nightstand. Way more than yours, and blooming so beautifully. Really lovely.”
Daniel had never once sent me flowers. He always said fresh flowers were tacky.
But for every occasion that mattered to Hope, he made sure to order her a bouquet.
I'd tested him about it once. I still remembered how matter-of-factly he'd answered：
“She's always been childish like that. How can you compare yourself to her? You're really going to fight over this?”
In that moment, staring at my own sparse two bundles of white roses, a fierce stabbing pain suddenly seized my heart, as if it already knew what was coming.
I fumbled for my phone, gasping, fingers shaking so badly I could barely hold it, and tried to call Daniel.
It took several failed attempts before I managed to dial.
The busy tone droned on for what felt like a century before a familiar male voice finally cut through.
“What is it?” His voice was the same as always. Cold. Not a trace of warmth.
“I……” I barely started before the voice on the other end cut me off.
“Daniel, who is that? You haven't finished peeling my pear yet.”
Hope's voice.
The words died in my throat. I could see it, the scene on the other side of that call.
Daniel sitting at the edge of Hope's bed, patiently peeling an apple for her, voice soft, eyes full of tenderness.
And me. Just the person interrupting them. The one who didn't belong.
The stabbing in my chest kept worsening, like countless fine needles being driven in all at once.
I was grimacing, shaking all over.
I forced every last bit of strength into my voice, pleading into the phone：
“Daniel, I don't feel well……my heart hurts so much……”
“I told you, I have other patients. Can you try being a little less selfish?”
His tone was sharp with impatience now, edged with open reproach.
I bit down hard, voice breaking in and out, tears blurring everything until my vision went black.
Only when my breathing thinned to almost nothing did the man on the other end finally pay attention.
