Chapter 2

I froze in place.

After a long while, I finally heard Ethan's defeated voice:

"But I can't bear to let you go."

"Every time I see you, I can't help but want you."

"What am I supposed to do?"

I smiled bitterly and crumpled the pregnancy test report into a ball, tossing it into the trash.

That's easy to solve—

That evening, I scheduled an abortion appointment for one week later.

Over the past three years, to avoid affecting Ethan's sleep therapy, I would always wait downstairs.

I'd wait until I was nearly dozing off, wait until Stella had gently lulled him to sleep, then she'd quietly come downstairs and scoop me up with concern:

"Luna, stop exhausting yourself waiting like this. No man is worth sacrificing your health for."

Back then, I would nestle in her arms, feeling completely safe.

Now, sitting on the sofa, looking at this home.

My heart grew cold inch by inch.

Back then, to make her comfortable, I had deliberately filled the home Ethan and I would share after marriage with things she liked, little by little.

Ethan had even gotten jealous:

"Babe, if you keep decorating like this, it's going to turn into Stella's home."

She had looked smug:

"Jealousy won't help you. Who told you Luna loves me most?"

Seeing them about to argue again, I had worried and mediated between them, finally coaxing them both into good moods.

I couldn't understand it.

How did things turn out like this?

It wasn't until late at night that Stella came downstairs quietly, wrapped in a trench coat, her eyes rimmed with red.

Seeing I was awake, her body stiffened slightly. She grabbed my ice-cold hand:

"Luna, why didn't you listen and go to bed early again?"

I opened my mouth but didn't know what to say.

She looked at me, unable to hold back a sob, though her eyes held some indescribable emotion:

"Look how cold your hands are. Ethan's a grown man, and I'm here. What are you afraid of?"

I instinctively wanted to nod and smile.

But from the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the red marks on her neck, half-hidden by the trench coat.

My heart felt like it was being gouged out with a knife. I immediately lowered my eyes.

That's right.

Before I met Ethan in college, as long as she was there, I wasn't afraid of anything.

Growing up in an orphanage, I was thin and small. On the way to school, I couldn't avoid being bullied.

It was Stella with her purple-dyed hair who grabbed a stick and drove them all away.

I pulled out a few dollars I'd earned selling scrap and treated her to cake.

She squatted by the roadside, eating, and tears fell:

"Kid, in all my life, I've never received a gift before."

"From now on, your problems are my problems."

After that, she would boldly protect me on my way to and from school.

When she learned I'd almost been assaulted by the orphanage director, she went crazy and charged in with a knife, forcibly taking me away.

We huddled in the cheap rental apartment she'd found. Life was so hard, yet she still found ways to give me proper nutrition every day.

I washed dishes at a restaurant to save up tuition. Somehow she came back one night with a thick wad of cash, her body covered in bruises. But she just smiled, took my wet hands, and gently dried them:

"Our Luna is such a good student. You should be hanging high up in the sky like the moon. You can't end up like me."

Later, she hugged me and suddenly said she wanted to change her name.

"Luna, you're educated. I don't like the name Pandi. Help me think of a new one. Preferably one that makes people know we're sisters right away."

I thought about it all night, then told her: Stella.

She smiled, her eyes reddening as she nodded. "Luna and Stella. That's right, that's right."

"From now on, I'll be Stella. I'll always revolve around you. You can see me whenever you look up."

And then later, she got pregnant with my lover's child.

I looked up.

Stella was cupping my hands, breathing warm air into them.

Uncontrollable bitterness welled up in my heart.

I forced a relaxed smile:

"Of course. With you here, I'm not afraid of anything."

So you don't need to be afraid either.

The two people I love most don't need to be afraid.

Because in one week, I'll be gone.