Just then, Neil's phone chimed an alarm.

He shut the laptop, didn't spare me so much as a glance, and stood to leave.

Before I knew it, I'd called out to him. "Neil, my hand…"

He paused, glancing back at the swollen, red mess on the back of my hand.

"Time's up. I have an important industry conference this afternoon."

Then he turned and walked out.

The nurse couldn't stand to watch. She pressed the call button for me.

The woman in the next bed handed me a heating pad. "Here, honey, use mine."

The doctor and nurse hurried in, changed my dressing, treated the allergic reaction.

I lay alone on the hospital bed and got through the worst hours by myself.

By evening, the fever had finally dropped a little.

I leaned against the headboard, scrolling through my phone without really seeing it.

On social media, Edwina had posted a dozen times all afternoon.

Every single one was Neil playing with her golden retriever.

In the photos, his profile carried a smile—patient, focused.

I looked down at the swelling that hadn't gone down on my hand, at the bruise the IV had left behind.

Then I opened a resale app.

I listed the couple's smartwatch Neil had custom-made for me.

The electronic shackle that, to fall in line with his every schedule, had buzzed at me every minute to tell me what to do next.

I didn't need it anymore.

Once I was discharged and home, I packed away everything I'd bought to suit Neil's tastes, piece by piece.

His preferences, the rules he'd set, his whole sense of aesthetics—all of it went into boxes.

Half the apartment stood empty, and I felt a lightness I couldn't put into words.

At dawn, Neil got up and didn't find the 104-degree water waiting on the nightstand.

He walked into the closet, and there was no pressed shirt either.

He checked his watch out of habit. "Your slacking today has set my morning routine back by eight minutes."

I was sitting at the dining table, eating the donuts and coffee he'd never once let me touch.

Steaming hot, the smell of food I hadn't had in ages.

I didn't look up. "That's your problem."

Neil's face went dark. He probably thought I was still throwing a fit over the anniversary.

He said nothing more, cold-faced, fetched his own water and dug out a shirt, then slammed the door on his way out.

That afternoon, the lock clicked.

Neil came home with Edwina.

He had a fierce sense of territory and had laid down a hard rule: no outsiders in the house.

Once, when my best friend got her heart broken and came to crash for a single night, he'd thrown her out on the spot, stone-faced.

But now Edwina was wearing my slippers, sitting on my couch like she owned the place.

She had a tub of ice cream in her hands.

Cream dripped onto the rug, leaving a wide stain.

Neil saw it and only walked over, gently offering her a wet wipe.

"Careful, don't get it on your hands."

Not a word of blame.

Yet the last time I'd accidentally spilled a few drops of coffee, he'd thrown out my entire coffee setup.

Along with the beans I'd gone to such trouble to collect from all over the country.

I ignored them and went on packing my own things, fitting the last few books into a box.

Edwina got up, curious, and walked straight into my studio.

"Wow, sis, you're amazing."

The paints Neil had demanded I arrange neatly by color family—she rummaged them into a mess.

Holding a cup of boba, she stepped closer to my easel, thoroughly intrigued.

The next second, her hand tipped.

A full cup of boba spilled in its entirety across the painting on my desk—the one I'd worked on for half a year.

That was the piece I'd spent half a year preparing to enter in the competition.

Neil heard the commotion and walked in. He looked at the wreckage all over the floor and blamed me first.

"I told you to take precautions." “”

Then his voice softened as he comforted Edwina.

"It was just a worthless scrap of paper. So it's ruined. Who cares." “”“”

I looked at the canvas, the coffee bleeding across it until the image was unrecognizable, and felt nothing. Not even a flicker of pain.

I picked up the painting and fed it into the shredder in the corner.

The machine roared to life.

I watched the shock break across Neil's face, and I smiled, calm as still water.

"You're right. Just scrap paper. Should've thrown it out a long time ago." “”

That night, in a rare moment, Neil apologized to me.

"I don't think your paintings are trash," he explained. "I was only trying to calm Edwina down." “”“”

"Tell me what materials you need to repaint it. Write me a list and I'll have it taken care of." “”

How rare. In five years, he had never once cared what my painting lacked, what I needed.

The truth was, he didn't even know what I painted.

The concern I'd longed for all this time had finally arrived, and all I felt was noise.

I rolled over and turned him down. :

"No need." “”

The next day, I was going to collect my grandmother's keepsakes.

Neil had agreed to drive me, but with Edwina around, I'd never expected him to actually come along.

And yet from the moment he woke that morning, he kept reminding me.

"We're picking up your grandmother's things later. Don't let it slip." “”

He paused, then added, :

"And if we run late, it's fine. I've cleared my whole morning." “”

I looked at the strange emotion in his eyes and couldn't name it.

Guilt? In five years I'd lost far more than a single painting. Why bother now.

On the way to the jewelry shop, Neil's phone rang.

It was Edwina.

She was half in tears, saying the exhibition-hall model she was responsible for had the wrong dimensions, that a client had called her out on the spot, and she desperately needed Neil there to back her up.

By his own iron rule, Neil never stepped in to fix anyone else's amateur mistakes. He should have said no.

The same way he'd once refused to bring me my exam permit, and made me miss the institute entrance test.

But I knew who was on the other end of that line. Edwina.

Sure enough, Neil didn't hesitate for a second. On the overpass he flicked the turn signal and forced the car into a hard U-turn.

A blare of horns rose up behind us.

I watched the route on the navigation veer off in an instant and reminded him, "The jewelry shop closes at five." “”

His voice was ice.

"A cheap watch doesn't vanish just because you pick it up late. But Edwina's project is worth millions to the company." “”

"Your emotional behavior is seriously interfering with my efficiency. Can't you tell what actually matters here?" “”

The car stopped outside the exhibition hall.

At some point the sky had turned gray, and raindrops began to slam down.

Neil unbuckled his seatbelt. "Wait for me in the car. This won't take long. Once I'm done, I'll go with you to get the watch." “”

With that, he locked the car and walked toward Edwina, who waited anxiously at the entrance.

I watched the time on the dashboard screen tick away, minute by minute.

Forty-five minutes passed.

Two hours passed.

The light faded.

Through the blur of rain, I could see them at the floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor. Neil was bent over, patiently helping Edwina revise the drawings.

On the table sat a dainty box of desserts, ordered specially for her.

And in the car, there wasn't even a bottle of water.

That alarm of his, the one that always went off on time to remind him which step of his schedule came next.

For Edwina, he'd turned it off, too.

His phone was on full silent. No one was allowed to disturb their time.

Least of all a call from me.

The sky went fully black.

Seven whole hours.

The shop owner sent one last message. : 【Miss, we've closed for the night. I'll hold your things for now, but I'm leaving town first thing tomorrow.】

The glow of the phone screen lit up my bloodless face.

Neil Barnes's time was infinitely precious. I couldn't waste a second of it.

But my time, my plans, were worth nothing at all.

I slid off the plain band I'd worn for five years, the one I'd chosen only to match his taste.

I set it gently on the storage tray in front of the driver's seat, alongside the house key.

Then I pushed open the door and walked into the cold, rainy night without a backward glance.

This game we'd played for five years, timed down to the second, just the two of us.

I'd finally hit the stop button.