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.

The impatience in his voice vanished, replaced by a flicker of panic he couldn't quite hide.

“I'm coming over now.”

Daniel stood up and was about to leave when Hope let out a sharp cry.

She clutched her chest and writhed on the bed, her face drained of color.

The call ended somewhere between her moaning and Daniel's frantic calls for help.

The dial tone filled my ears again, and I blacked out to the sound of my own pulse roaring.

The entire dish of pears lay shattered on the floor where I'd hurled it. I lowered my eyes.

Then, voice ice-cold, I asked the stunned man in front of me,

“Hope likes pears too, doesn't she?”

Daniel laughed in disbelief, his patience finally spent.

He swept the remains of the dish aside with a crash.

“So that's what this is about? Sybilla, can't you be a little less petty?”

“You know Hope's situation. She needs a new heart, and yours happened to be a match.”

“Do you really have to make a scene about this? Do you really have to be this small?”

His voice was low and cold, nothing like my calm.

I picked up his hand where it hung at his side and slowly pressed it to my chest.

Through the equipment, there was no heartbeat to feel.

I just looked at him, steady, and said, “Daniel, I don't even have a heart anymore. How exactly am I supposed to be petty?”

He froze. The color bled from his face, and something in my lifeless eyes made him afraid.

“Sybilla, I……”

His words were cut off by a ringtone.

Hope's soft, fragile voice drifted from the other end.

“Daniel, did you even do my surgery properly? My incision really hurts!”

His tone melted instantly, turning gentle—

“I'll be right there. Don't move around.”

The call ended. A razor-sharp silence wedged itself between us.

“Sybilla, Hope is innocent in all this.”

“If you need to blame someone……blame me.”

I pressed my hand to my chest for a long time, feeling the foreign thing beating inside me.

Since the artificial heart, the chest pains hadn't eased. They'd gotten worse. More frequent.

Daniel didn't believe me.

“I performed your surgery myself. There can't be a problem.”

“If you want me to take you on a trip to clear your head, just say so.”

The words had barely left his mouth when Hope appeared in the doorway.

“Hope, what are you doing here?” The man who'd been cold a second ago was suddenly all concern.

“I told you, you haven't recovered enough to be out of bed. Why don't you ever listen?”

He went to her, exasperated, reaching out to steady her.

Hope shook his hand off and rolled her eyes with a cute pout—

“Are you the doctor or am I? Don't underestimate me.”

She walked straight to my bedside and sat down, holding the fruit dish out to me, her voice sweet.

“Dr. Fox, thank you so much. Without your heart, I really don't know what I would have done.”

My fists clenched under the blanket, fingers digging in so hard they nearly tore through the fabric.

My lips curved into a cold smile. I turned to Daniel, expressionless—

“Sure. Then let's go on that trip together, the two of us.”

In my peripheral vision, the fake smile on Hope's face locked in place. Before Daniel could react—

“Ah!” Hope shrieked and threw herself to the floor.

A toothpick from the fruit dish had pierced her finger, and blood welled up.

“Sybilla Fox! What did you do?!” Daniel rushed to her, checking the wound.

He glared at me, eyes frigid. “I've already told you. Don't take your anger out on Hope.”

“Or I won't be so polite next time.”

My chest heaved, and blood surged up into my throat.

I'd already given up on him. So why did it still hurt this much.

I fought to steady my breathing and was about to speak when Hope cut me off.

Hope went boneless against Daniel's chest, her expression smug where he couldn't see it.

“Dr. Fox, I know you've always hated me, but you can't just hurt me on purpose.”

“If the bleeding doesn't stop, whose blood do you think they'll use for the transfusion?”

A cold laugh escaped me. Bitter tears pooled along my lashes.

Daniel's face tightened, a flicker of guilt crossing it as he patted Hope lightly.

“Hope, what are you saying?”

Then he hurried her out, shielding her the whole way. Not once did he spare me a glance.

Not once did he notice the blood trailing slowly from the corner of my mouth.

Getting angry over people like them wasn't worth it. I told myself that, silently.

I spent a while steadying my breathing, then pressed the call button beside the bed.

There was a dull ache lodged in my chest. I wanted a colleague to come check the machine's calibration.

But the person who walked in moments later was Hope.

Her fingers had already been neatly bandaged, the careful, precise wrapping unmistakably Daniel's handiwork.

My body went rigid. I met her contemptuous gaze.

“What, trying to use the call button to summon Daniel back to your side?”

So she was only here to gloat. I closed my eyes, uninterested.

My indifference seemed to infuriate her. Her voice rose, sharp and agitated.

“Drop the act, Sybilla. I'm telling you, your chance is gone!”

“These past few days, hasn't the pain in your chest been more frequent than before the surgery?”

“Care to guess why?”

My eyes snapped open. “You tampered with it?”

Hope let out a satisfied laugh, then patted my back as it heaved with every ragged breath.

“That's right. So stop wasting your energy.”

By the time she left I was drenched in sweat, the hand gripping the recorder under the blanket trembling without stop.

If leaving was my fate, I wasn't going to let Daniel and Hope have peace either.

Daniel Vance. Loss doesn't feel good. Your turn to find out.