My husband's true love developed acute kidney failure, and I was the only matching donor. To save her life, he forced me to terminate my pregnancy at six months.

Despite his gentle tone, he said the most heart-wrenching words, "Can't you be a little kinder? You're just losing a child, but she's losing her life."

I resisted with every fiber of my being, but he threatened his own life to force my hand.

On the operating table, both my child and I died. Meanwhile, his true love's transplant was a success, and she lived. Although the outcome was exactly what he wanted, he spiraled into madness upon hearing news of my death.

The moment I died, my soul drifted free, hovering above my broken body. My abdomen was left gaping open, and my body was down to a single kidney. Beside me lay the lifeless form of my unborn child—a scene too tragic for words.

Soon, a white sheet covered me, pulling a shroud over my story. My cold and silent body was wheeled out of the operating room.

As I floated through the hospital halls, I found him. Caleb Horton stood outside another surgery suite, his face etched with a desperate worry I'd never seen before. He didn’t glance my way, not even once.

What was I expecting? His concern was for someone else.

Just then, the operating theatre doors swung open, and Caleb shot forward.

"Doctor, how is Emily Denver?" he asked, his voice shaking.

The doctor’s face broke into a relieved smile. "The kidney transplant was a complete success. Once the anesthesia wears off, you’ll be able to see her."

Caleb’s entire frame sagged in relief, his eyes filling with emotion.

Inside the recovery room, Emily lay pale and fragile. Seeing her like this, Caleb’s eyes reddened, and he grabbed her hand tightly, his voice trembling.

"Emily, you’ve been through so much," he whispered.

She weakly lifted her hand, brushing his cheek with her fingers. After a brief pause, she murmured, "Caleb, you shouldn’t be here. You should be with Grace... I feel so guilty for her."

Her tears slipped silently down her cheeks.

However, Caleb cut her off sharply. "Why are you still thinking about her? If it weren’t for that heartless woman, your surgery wouldn’t have been delayed for so long. She’s the reason you’ve suffered so much."

His words, dripping with resentment, struck like a blade.

As my soul still lingered nearby, I felt a sharp, ghostly ache.

'Grace Trevor. That’s me. I’m the heartless woman he’s talking about.'

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but all I could see was Caleb’s bloodshot eyes as he gripped my wrist, dragging me to that operating theatre.

"Grace," he had said, his voice a twisted blend of pleading and menace, "I swear, if you save Emily, we’ll finally be happy. If not, should Emily die, I’ll follow her."

He had framed it as a plea, but I knew it for what it was—a threat.

After my parents passed, I had nothing. They left me with a crumbling company and crushing debt. It was Caleb’s family that pulled me from the edge of financial ruin, paying off every cent.

From that moment on, my life felt like it belonged to him.

I knew Caleb would never actually kill himself, but even the hint of it was enough to break my resolve.

With that, looking into the eyes of the man I had loved for ten years, I gave in. I agreed to terminate our child and give my kidney to Emily, clinging to the hope that maybe, just maybe, we could have a future together.

Tragically, complications arose—blood loss, chaos, and desperate, unanswered calls to my next of kin. In my haze, I thought I heard a few sighs, as if even the doctors had resigned themselves to my fate.

Now, my body lay in a cold, metal drawer, while Caleb remained by Emily’s side, never once looking back.

A month later, Emily was discharged from the hospital. Caleb, ever the type who loved grand gestures, bought her a sprawling villa to help her heal, complete with all the luxuries one could need for a full recovery.

To celebrate her release, he threw an extravagant party, inviting a crowd of their mutual friends.

Some unseen force kept my ghostly form tethered to Caleb, forcing me to watch as they moved through life together, in and out of places I once thought were ours.

At the party, the spotlight-seeking Emily clung to Caleb despite her still-fragile condition, leaning into his embrace with a coy smile, their whispered exchanges like little daggers. Her brazen display didn’t go unnoticed, and the whispers around them grew louder.

When one of Caleb’s friends casually brought up my name, Emily’s smile stiffened for just a moment. She forced a small, self-conscious laugh, her eyes dropping.

"Caleb, are we... doing the right thing?" she said, her tone carefully crafted to sound self-effacing. "I mean, I’m still just... no one. If Grace finds out, she’s bound to be upset."

Caleb’s expression darkened, his jaw tightening. "Why bring her up on a day like this? She’s bad luck."

With that, he boldly took Emily’s hand, raising his voice to ensure everyone in the room heard him.

"Emily is the woman I love most in this world. I’d appreciate it if no one ever brought up irrelevant people again."

The room fell into a stunned silence. His words sliced through the air, cold and final, leaving no room for misinterpretation. The message was clear: I, his wife, had become a ghost long before my death.

My eyes stung, the hollow ache of betrayal tightening around my chest.

So this was what I’d become—a stand-in, a mere shadow of his true love. Caleb’s heart had always belonged to Emily, not me.

We used to be childhood sweethearts, the kind that family friends would tease about ending up together. I fell in love with him at sixteen, clinging to that one offhanded confession he made as a teenager, letting it shape the next decade of my life.

Alas, teenage love is paper-thin. When Caleb met Emily in college, all the memories we’d built together crumbled into nothing. I watched from the sidelines as they fell in love, biting back my feelings, keeping my distance like a polite stranger.

Then, Emily suddenly left for another country, and they broke up.

It was during one of his drunken, reckless nights that Caleb found himself cornered by thugs, and I had stepped in desperately and recklessly. I had distracted them long enough for him to escape, my own life hanging by a thread.

Before he had passed out from blood loss, he had gripped my hand and whispered, "Grace, as long as I’m alive, I’ll always be good to you..."

When he woke up, he kept that promise. He was gentle, attentive, the perfect boyfriend. Marriage felt like the natural next step, and for a while, we were the couple others envied.

Just then, Emily returned, like a storm ripping through my carefully built world. She claimed her sudden departure had been due to a mysterious illness, a revelation that shattered Caleb’s resolve.

First, he started coming home late. Then, he stopped coming home at all. When he did, his conversations always found their way back to her—Emily this, Emily that, her favorite foods, her recovery progress, her every breath.

I thought if I endured it, if I played the patient, forgiving wife, he might eventually come back to me.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

In the end, my shattered, bleeding body lay on that operating table, and my ghost was trapped forever in this cold, indifferent world. Meanwhile, Caleb stood by her side, whispering sweet nothings into the ears of the only woman he ever truly loved.

A few days later, Caleb’s phone rang as he held Emily close, her head resting comfortably on his shoulder. It was his mother.

"Caleb, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you two. Why don’t you bring Grace over for dinner tomorrow? I tried calling her, but her phone’s been off for days. What have you both been so busy with?"

Hearing her familiar voice, a deep ache spread through my ghostly chest. She had been my mom’s closest friend. After my parents died in that car accident, it was she who had taken me in and treated me like a daughter when I had no one left.

Caleb’s expression darkened, and a bitter sneer twisted his lips. "Mom, don’t waste your kindness. She’s just an ungrateful leech. Even if she’s mad at me, she shouldn’t be ignoring your calls. That’s just disrespectful."

I stood right in front of him, my spirit bound to this nightmare, hearing him reduce me to nothing but a thankless parasite.

"Caleb, I know you still care about that other woman," his mother said, her tone both sharp and pleading. "But you married Grace. You have a responsibility to her. I don’t want to have to answer to her mother in the afterlife for failing her daughter."

His expression grew even darker. After a few curt, dismissive replies, he hung up, his gaze softening immediately as he looked down at Emily. He managed a gentle, reassuring smile, the kind he used to give me, and held her closer.

"Caleb," Emily whispered, as if a sudden thought had crossed her mind, "has Grace... has she not tried to contact you at all?"

"Contact me?" he scoffed, his jaw tightening. "Why should she? She nearly killed you. It’s better if she stays gone."

He paused, his expression growing suddenly serious. "Emily, just give me a little more time. Once I finalize the divorce, I’ll make this right. I’ll give you the title you deserve."

Emily’s eyes brightened, and she snuggled deeper into his chest, her voice dripping with false humility. "I don’t care about that... as long as Grace doesn’t hate me."

"She wouldn’t dare," Caleb interrupted her, reassuring her with a low, possessive tone while holding her firmly, attempting to quell her fears.

Watching this, a bitter, twisted rage flared in my chest. How could he promise her this when he’d sworn his life to me just years ago?

Perhaps in preparation for this impending divorce, Caleb actually came home the next day.

He entered our house, and his brows knitted together when he didn’t see me. His irritation flared. He had the connections to find me if he really wanted to, but the fact that he hadn’t even tried until now made one thing clear—he was waiting for me to come crawling back to him.

Days passed, and when I still didn’t appear, his calls started coming in, each one angrier than the last.

Then, one day, his phone buzzed again. This time, it was an unknown number. Assuming it was me, he snatched it up without hesitation.

"Grace, you’ve got some nerve, ignoring me—"

"Is this Grace Trevor’s family member?" a calm, professional voice cut him off. "Her body has been in our hospital morgue for almost two months now. Could you please come to identify and claim it?"

I watched as Caleb’s entire frame went rigid. His hand froze in midair, the blood draining from his face. He forced out a bitter laugh, his voice dripping with disbelief.

"Is this some kind of sick joke? Grace? That woman wouldn’t die even if the world were ending."

"I’m sorry, sir," the voice on the other end continued, unshaken. "You’re currently listed as her primary emergency contact. You’re the only one we could reach."

A sharp, humorless laugh burst from his throat. "Then, just treat her like an unclaimed body," he spat before slamming the phone down.

His eyes burned darkly, his chest rising and falling with each angry breath.

I felt a twisted sense of satisfaction. He really hadn’t considered, not even for a second, that I might actually be gone. To him, I was just a schemer, a conniving woman who would do anything to hold onto him.

Immediately, he dialed my only close friend, Zoe Lovery, his tone sharp and seething.

"Zoe, where’s Grace? Tell her to stop this nonsense and come home, or so help me, I won’t even bother collecting her if she ends up dead in a ditch somewhere."

There was a stunned silence on the other end before Zoe’s voice, thick with rage and fear, burst through the line.

"Caleb, are you insane? I should be asking you where Grace is! She’s been missing for weeks!"

Caleb let out a cold, mocking laugh. "This is just her latest trick, isn’t it? Disappear for a while, make me worry, and then come crawling back, begging for my attention. Pathetic."

Tears blurred my vision as his words sliced through what little remained of my soul.

In that moment, my heart, already long dead, shattered into a thousand unrecognizable pieces.