My boyfriend, Yves Steward, is the head of the orthopedic department.

When Julia Henderson and I get into an accident at the same time, he pushes my hands away and shouts, "Stop this nonsense, Summer Simpson! Julia needs to be operated on immediately!"

So, I'm the one who deserves to die.

The day my skeleton is donated to the orthopedic department, Yves sits in his office for a day and night.

Later, the man known as the hospital's genius orthopedist never holds a scalpel ever again.

The lights in the ward flickered unsteadily above me. Vaguely, I saw a person in a white doctor's coat running in hurriedly.

"Dr. Steward, there's only one opening left for the operating room. Who should go first?"

I reached out and tugged at Yves Steward's coat. He turned his head and seemed to have frowned at me—I couldn't see clearly.

In the bed beside me, Julia Henderson began crying again. "Yves, am I going to become a cripple? Will the surgery leave scars on me?"

Without hesitation, Yves pushed my hand aside. "Summer, you’ve only got a few cuts on your face and hands. You'll just need some local anesthesia and simple first aid; Julia's bone fracture needs immediate attention. Stop making a fuss!"

My head spun as I watched Yves comfort Julia tenderly, not even sparing me a glance. Weakly, I opened my mouth to speak.

I wanted to tell him that I wasn't trying to make a fuss. I couldn't even remember how Julia got hurt.

I never did anything to her. Why didn't he believe me?

I was willing to leave him on my own accord—I wasn't that pathetic.

I wanted him to look at me.

The hollow rumbling of the hospital bed's wheels echoed down the hallway. The sound hurt my ears.

He never looked back.

With a long beep, my heart monitor flatlined. My soul began to rise from my body.

I saw a nurse calling for the on-duty doctor while rushing toward me with a crash cart. I felt a little guilty,

I was sorry that they would have to file a report on my death, thus adding to the paperwork.

My soul floated upward, drifting into the operation theater.

Yves had just finished scrubbing in and was putting on his gloves.

After all that fighting over the last few days, I finally had the chance to really look at my boyfriend of seven years.

If I were honest with myself, Yves was really good-looking.

Back in school, I had been drawn to the sharp focus in his eyes when he was doing his experiments. It was the reason why I had decided to pursue him, after all.

I hadn't known that he had a childhood sweetheart back then.

Trailing after him, I poked at his back. "You know, a lot of people liked me back in school too. If you had told me that you liked her earlier, I wouldn't have gone after you."

Yves couldn't hear me. After putting on his gloves, he turned and walked right through me, giving me a scare.

I wanted to tell him off, but then I bit my lip.

It didn't matter. He wouldn't hear me anyway.

The doors to the operating theater swung open just then. One of the nurses entered, holding a phone. "Dr. Steward, the ER called and said that one of your patients just coded. Do you want to go take a look?"

Yves did not even pause in his movements. "Tell them to handle it themselves. I'm already scrubbed in."

I sighed. That was just how Yves was—in his mind, nothing was more important than surgery.

However, if he could hear me, I would've told him to go take a look. After all, the patient who was being resuscitated was none other than me, his girlfriend.

Then, I turned and saw Julia on the table and instantly had doubts.

It was hard to say whether my death was more important than Julia's surgery to him.

Fixing Julia's fracture wasn't an easy surgery, but neither was my resuscitation.

Just as he was piecing together the bone fragments, brows furrowed, the door swung open a second time.

"Dr. Steward, the ER is asking for Dr. Leeson to help intubate the coding patient."

Even in the hospital, connections mattered. A top surgeon like Yves naturally had the best anesthesiologist, Alex Leeson, with him in the surgery.

Disembodied as I was, I figured that I was likely a goner, which was probably why they called for the best anesthesiologist in the hospital, Alex, to help.

However, Yves rejected the idea. "I don't like changing anesthesiologists mid-surgery."

Well, of course. Julia's surgery was more important than my life.

Slightly frustrated, I pulled a face at Yves.

The third time the door to the operating theater was pushed open, Julia's surgery was almost halfway done.

"Dr. Steward, they've been trying to resuscitate the patient for 30 minutes. They want to know if they should keep going with it."

Yves finally lost his temper and threw down his drill into the instrument tray. "Do you people have no common sense? If it's been half an hour, you should be calling their parents to see if they want to keep trying! If you ask me, I'd say don't bother!"

I nodded in agreement.

To terminate resuscitation efforts, they would need consent from the patient's next of kin. There was no use asking Yves about this anyway.

From a doctor's perspective, attempting further resuscitation was useless since I had coded half an hour ago.

Unless it was for a loved one, no one would exhaust every effort just for an unguaranteed miracle.

Julia's surgery finally ended late into the night.

For some reason, my soul wasn't tied to my lifeless body. Instead, I was tethered to Yves, unable to drift any further than two feet away from him.

He seemed to have completely forgotten about me. He waited another two hours in the observation room until Julia woke up, then brought her to her room himself.

He carried her to her bed and tucked a pillow under her head, only glancing at my bed after ensuring that the nurse had hooked up the IV bags.

"Where's Summer?" he asked.

The nurse paused, seemingly surprised by his calmness, and said cautiously, "She was taken home by her mother earlier in the night."

Yves nodded and said nothing more.

After a while, I watched him walk over to the window and pull out his phone. He pulled up a contact labeled "Wife".

He hesitated, his slender fingers hovering over the call button. Just as he was about to tap on it, Julia's voice came from behind.

Frail and pale, she twisted her fingers nervously as she said timidly, "Yves, why don't you call Summer? I'm sure she hadn't meant to hurt me so badly when she pushed me…"

Yves paused. He glanced over at Julia, anger flashing in his eyes when his gaze swept over her legs, then exited the contact screen.

He went back to the side of Julia's bed and patted her on the head fondly. "There's no need for that. You're hurt so badly. Letting her reflect on her errors for a few days would do her good."

What?

I almost burst out laughing out of sheer disbelief.

If I could touch Yves, I would kick him right now.

It was all my fault, was it?

Julia had almost been hit by a motorcycle—I had pushed her out of the way to save her life!

Did he not see the injury on my head where the motorcycle had hit me? I had sustained a brain hemorrhage!

The memory had been blurry earlier due to my head injury, but now that I was dead, I remembered everything clearly.

Then again, what would would it have been if I had remembered earlier? He wouldn't have believed me anyway.

I wilted.

Yves stayed in Julia's ward until the next morning.

When his colleagues saw him walking out of her room to end his shift, they were shocked.

After glancing at each other for a while, one of the doctors who was close to him asked cautiously, "Dr. Steward, your girlfriend… aren't you going to go back to check on her?"

Yves waved his hand impatiently like he didn't want them to talk about me. "There's no need to check on her. It's just a minor issue."

No one dared to push further.

I heard one of the female trainees mutter behind his back, "I didn't know Dr. Steward had a heart of stone."

I scoffed. Yves wasn't a heartless, emotionless person.

The doctors and nurses would see the truth when it was time for rounds.

Yves's expression softened noticeably when he got to Julia's room. "I'll handle the dressing changes for this patient myself. A young woman shouldn't have scars on her body."

I looked over at the trainee who had muttered about him earlier. Her jaw was practically on the floor.

See? Yves was different when it came to Julia.

…

Yves was peeling an apple for Julia when my mom called.

She sounded tired over the phone, which made me worried. "Yves, are you not coming to see Summer?"

Yves put down the knife. His voice became more respectful. "Mrs. Simpson, Julia broke her leg. I can't leave her just yet. Can you…"

Mom's voice suddenly turned sharp. "You can't leave her? Did you know that Summer was pregnant? She was carrying your child!"

Yves's eyes widened, his grip on the phone tightening. Before he could say anything, Mom started sobbing. "Forget it. Why am I even telling you this? She's gone now anyway. Go ahead and stay with your precious Julia, Yves. Don't contact us anymore from now on."

Mom hung up.

I was almost vibrating with anxiety, wishing that I could travel through the phone and go to her.

I didn't know how my body left the hospital last night, but Mom must have been devastated.

I reached for Yves's phone, wanting to call her back, but my hand passed through the phone uselessly.

Souls could not cry.

I wanted to tell Mom that I was here. She didn't need to worry about me or cry over me; I was right here.

Yves was still staring at his phone, dazed. Unable to hold in my anger, I tried to kick and punch him.

"Are you freaking stupid, Yves? Call Mom back! Go and check on her and see how she's doing!" I screamed at him.

"What does she mean, gone?" Yves muttered to himself. Then, he bolted out of the room, storming straight to the doctor's office. He slammed his hand down on the desk of the doctor who had tried to resuscitate me last night, Elliot Lewis.

"Elliot, you were on duty last night. Were you the one who treated Summer?" he asked, his voice trembling.

Elliot looked up at him, startled, taking in his reddened eyes. "Dr. Steward… You…"

"Did she miscarry?"

Yves' raised voice startled Elliot. "Please accept my condolences, Dr. Stewart. We only realized she was pregnant at the very end…"

Yves stumbled backward, all the strength seeming to drain from his body. Abruptly, he took off his coat and turned to leave.

I followed beside him, urging him on. "Hurry up! Move faster! Go check on my mom!"

The elevator arrived. I prepared to step in with Yves, but he froze in place.

I followed his gaze and saw Julia hobbling out of her room, dragging her injured leg after her.

Dammit.

Clearly, we weren't going to get into the elevator.

Sure enough, the elevator doors closed. As the elevator descended without us, Yves carried Julia back to her bed.

She trembled in his arms, tears shining in her eyes. "Has something happened to Summer, Yves? I'm so sorry. I saw her buying abortion pills, and… it was all my fault. If I hadn't broken my leg, I would've told you earlier."

Julia continued to speak, but Yves was dazed, his face ashen.

Eyes red, he sat down stiffly beside the bed.

"She didn't want my child," he said hoarsely after a while. "It's got nothing to do with you."

He looked devastated, but all I felt was cold amusement.

I was medically trained, and he knew that. If he had just rubbed more than two brain cells together, he would know that I would've opted for a surgical procedure over abortion pills if I had wanted to terminate a pregnancy.

But whatever Julia said, he believed.

That was why I could never win against her.

I patted my flat stomach, making sure that the fetus hadn't become a ghost like me, and sighed.