I pulled my mouth into something that did not resemble a smile. "Doctor, my only request is that you write me a ten-day prescription for painkillers."

I would not spend my last ten days in a hospital. Both of my parents had died in one, and I had never shaken the dread the place left behind.

I had barely cleared the front entrance when Winona called.

"Why did you check yourself out?" she asked.

"I'm bored. I hate lying around," I replied.

She started to argue. "That's not acceptable…"

Then Daniel's voice cut in, close enough to her ear that he had to be standing beside her. "Winnie, this couple's ring is gorgeous…"

"Then we'll go all in!" she told him, before speaking to me again. "Jordan, you're an adult. Take care of yourself."

She tossed out a few hollow words and hung up without waiting for a response.

I remembered how it used to be, before Daniel. A work dinner had landed me in the hospital with a stomach bleed. When the doctors told her my blood type was rare and that I needed to be careful, she had not slept for days. She had cried and begged me not to leave her

After that, she barely let me out of her sight. A paper cut on my finger would be enough to send her into a panic.

Now I had lost a kidney, yet she couldn't be bothered to stay on the line.

I told myself I was over it. Still, something in my chest, a small, involuntary ache, had not gotten the message.

I laughed at myself and blocked her number.

The first thing I did that day was hire a cleaning crew. I had them clear every trace of me from the house, including the ceramic couple figurines I had painted by hand and the 20,000 photographs from seven years together. I burned everything, along with the villa key.

On the second day, I hired a funeral service and arranged for the collection of my body.

On the third day, I went from one party to the next with friends. At one of them, I lost a round of truth or dare and ended up toasting with a pretty woman, our arms linked, glasses touching.

The friend beside me went pale. "If your girlfriend sees this, she'll kill me."

I smiled easily in the noise and neon. "Doesn't matter. I don't care anymore."

That night, Winona could not hold back. She sent me a photo taken in the dim light of the venue. The woman and I stood mid-toast, arms linked.

Winona: [Jordan. Come home, get on your knees, and explain yourself.]

…

I went home on the fourth day, but not because she scared me. A package I had ordered had arrived.

Maria, the housekeeper, opened the door. She pulled me aside and whispered, "Sir, please don't argue with her tonight. Just admit you were wrong and be done with it."

I walked in to find Winona on the sofa, her arm around Daniel as he cried. He wore pajamas and clutched a dark navy burial suit in both hands. A matching couple's ring caught the light on his finger.

I was still trying to make sense of it when he saw me and cried harder. "Jordan, I know you can't stand me. I know you don't want me living here. But you didn't have to curse me. You sent me a coffin suit."

He had moved in while I was gone. I had no idea.

Winona's brow tightened. "Jordan, I thought you were better than this. You walk out and do whatever you want, and I say nothing. All I did was ask Danny to stay so I could look after him. Was that really worth this?"

I crossed the room without a word and took the coffin suit from Daniel's hands.

"Who said it was for you?" I slipped it over my clothes and turned to check my reflection in the full-length mirror.

It fit well.

I used to be afraid of dying. I was afraid that if Winona left me, I would not survive it. Now, as I stood at the edge of it, I saw clearly that I had given myself far too much credit.

Winona's face went rigid. She stood and reached for the buttons. "Jordan, have you lost your mind? Take that off. Right now."

I stepped aside.

Her expression hardened. "Stop running from the problem. Stand there and apologize to Danny properly."

Before I could respond, she exhaled slowly and unclenched her hands. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out several documents.

Winona said, "You checked yourself out on a whim and went off to do whatever you pleased. Danny checked himself out because he was thinking about the company. He's been putting in extra days at the office.

"He says he's grateful you donated a kidney and wants to take some of the burden off you. So let him take the deputy director position. It will make it easier for him to handle things on your behalf."

So that was what this was about. She wanted me to hand Daniel my position.

I let out a short laugh and sat down. "Fine. I don't care."

I was dying. None of this was worth holding onto.

I took the pen she offered. Each document had already been opened to the signature page. Habit made me check the cover and opening terms of each one first.

The first was a termination agreement for my deputy director role. I signed without hesitation.

Winona and Daniel exchanged a glance. Both looked surprised.

The second was a property transfer agreement. The apartment was the first thing Winona and I had bought together, back when we scraped together our first real money. It was the only property in my name.

She must have expected a fight, because she rushed to explain. "Danny's family needs somewhere to stay when they come to the city for medical appointments. The place is just sitting there anyway."

They needed just somewhere to stay, and that required a full transfer of ownership? I didn't bother to argue. I signed.

When I reached for the third document, Winona placed her hand over it. "Jordan, have I ever hurt you? Just sign it."

I looked up. Both of them watched me with the same tight, careful expression. I opened it anyway.

It was a share transfer agreement for 20% equity, the stake Winona had given me when we went public as a couple, the moment the entire company learned I was the man she had chosen. Everyone had looked at me as if I had won something.

Winona drew a breath.

"Let me explain…" she began.

I signed immediately. When I finished, I set the pen down and looked at her. "Anything else?"

Winona stared at me, as if she could not process what she was seeing. But this was what she wanted. Everything had been handed over to Daniel. She should have been pleased.

Daniel looked as though he was barely holding back his excitement. He forced his expression into something more restrained.

"Don't worry, Jordan. I'm just holding onto these for you. Once you've recovered, every bit of it goes straight back," he claimed.

I stood without a word. I had only come back for the coffin suit. I had it now, and there was no reason to stay.

I turned to leave.

Behind me, Winona called out, "Jordan, you've lost a lot of weight."

Her voice stopped me more than her words.

I touched my hollow cheek. "It's fine. I'm not dying today."

Something flickered across her face, a small, involuntary flinch. Then, in a voice I had not heard from her in a long time, she spoke quietly. "Have you eaten? I'll heat the leftovers from lunch. I made them myself."

Winona had always been particular about cleanliness, her space, everything. Even at her most devoted to me, she had never cooked a meal for me.

Then Daniel mentioned a stomachache one afternoon, and she taught herself to cook from scratch. She had burned her fingers on hot oil badly enough to blister. I had watched it happen and told her it smelled good. She would not let me touch it, saying it was his.

I was about to tell her not to bother, but she had already gone into the kitchen.

The living room fell silent. It was just me and Daniel.

He looked at me with something open and ugly in his eyes. Then he reached behind his back and produced a bracelet, holding it up with a casual smile. "Jordan, I really like this. I want to give it to my mom. Can I have it?"

That bracelet had been in Winona's keeping for years, locked in the safe.

"You can have anything else, but not that," I said.

"I really can't have it?"

"No."

Daniel clicked his tongue, then dropped it.

He did not place it down. He let it fall hard onto the floor.

Time seemed to slow. I watched the bracelet hit the tile and split into four clean pieces.

"There. I've returned it to you," he said.

He had always been two different people. In front of Winona, he appeared polished and deferential. The moment her back was turned, he became someone else entirely. Every time I tried to tell her, she insisted I was targeting him without reason and accused me of being unreasonable.

I had told myself that I was past caring. Dying men didn't pick fights.

But when I looked at the four broken pieces on the floor, something in me flared. I had given ground again and again, and each time he pushed harder.

I crossed the room and punched him.

He did not even try to move. He took the blow clean to the face and dropped straight to the floor.

At the same moment, a sharp cry cut in from the kitchen. "Stop!"

Winona burst through the doorway and kicked me aside. The pill bottle flew from my pocket and skidded across the floor.

Her heel came down on the surgical wound at my side. I couldn't get up. The pain pinned me in place.

The doctor had warned me that blood cancer patients didn't heal cleanly. The wound soaked through in seconds.

She stood over me, looking down with open disgust. "Jordan. I actually thought you had changed. I see now you were just playing along. I asked you to sign those documents. If you have a problem with me, take it up with me. There was no reason to hit Danny."

I forced the words out through the pain. "Daniel smashed the bracelet."

Winona blinked. Then her expression hardened into something dismissive. "It's just a bracelet. God knows which woman gave it to you. That doesn't make it okay to hit someone."

My eyes burned. "That was my mother's."

The room fell still. Winona turned to Daniel. He gave her a wounded look and said nothing.

She turned back to me without asking him a single question. "It can be repaired. I'll have someone look at it. You're a grown man. You don't assault someone over a piece of jewelry, especially not someone who's done so much for you."

There it was again. Done so much for me. What exactly had he done?

Something snapped.

"What has he ever done for me?" I demanded.

Winona's voice turned flat and cold. "He volunteered to give blood after your accident. That's not enough for you?"

Grief crept into my voice before I could stop it. "He gave two teaspoons before you called it off. Was that because he had a cold and you were afraid his blood would make me sick, or because you couldn't stand watching him bleed for me?"

Her slap came fast and hard.

"Jordan! How dare you?! Everything I have ever done has been for you," she barked. "Danny is your blood match, yes. But that doesn't mean you run to him for every little thing. He isn't an object. He's a person."

She was heartbroken for Daniel. She had never once been heartbroken that I gave him a kidney.

I pressed a hand to my face and let out a quiet, hollow laugh. Then I knelt and gathered the broken pieces of the bracelet, one fragment at a time.

"Mom, I have nothing left," I said to no one.

In her final days, my mother had thanked Winona over and over. She had said she was glad someone was loving me in her place.

I wondered who that person was now.

Winona watched me, caught between alarm and uncertainty.

"Jordan. You still have me."

Then she watched me lose consciousness on the floor.

…

I woke up in the hospital again.

The doctor looked at me with quiet sympathy. "Mr. Wilford. Your condition has deteriorated further. You have three days at most."

Winona walked in just as he said that. "Three days?"

I kept my voice even. "Three days until I can check out."

She accepted that without question and set my painkillers on the table beside me. "Take your medication. I've already sent the bracelet out for repair. Danny shouldn't have taken it without asking, so I punished him. He's not allowed to talk to me for a full day."

She had not asked once what I was taking the pills for.

One day of silence was his punishment.

"Cheer up, Jordan. Guess what I have for you." She brought her hand out from behind her back and held out a wedding planning booklet. "I've decided we should get married. I don't want you overthinking things. The date is set for three days from now. From that day forward, I will never let you go through anything hard alone."

I kept my hands at my sides and did not take it. She did not press.

"Promise me one thing. Stop going head to head with Danny. You know why I look after him. Everything I do for him, I do for your health. For your future," she claimed.