Chapter 2

It was the hospital.

"Dr. Miller, surgery starts in half an hour."

Ethan let out a soft laugh.

It was quiet, but it pierced my ears like a needle.

"Go on, Dr. Miller. Your fiancé is sleeping with your best friend, and you still have to go perform surgery."

"You really are the most tolerant woman I've ever met."

I gripped my phone, my knuckles white.

Fearing tears, I turned and walked away.

The surgical lights were blinding.

I gritted my teeth, forcing back the tears, my hand steady with the scalpel.

No one could tell that just half an hour ago, I'd seen my fiancé and my best friend intimately in my own bed.

When the surgery ended, my wrist ached so much I could barely lift it.

"Dr. Miller, congratulations are in order!"

The anesthesiologist, charting notes, smiled.

"I heard you're taking six months off for your wedding? Everyone in the department is saying that Dr. Carter, who sends you a bouquet every day, is finally marrying our 'Ice Queen' Dr. Miller!"

My grip on the paper cup tightened instantly.

For these six months of leave, I'd used all my accumulated vacation days and scheduled every possible surgery in advance.

I'd get so exhausted I'd faint from low blood sugar in the changing room, then pick myself up, chug a glucose drink, and go right back to it.

Ethan came to pick me up that day, and when he saw my pale lips, he actually frowned.

"Can't you be a little kinder to yourself?"

I smiled. "Are you worried about me, Dr. Carter?"

He pulled me into his arms.

"Sophie, I just want to marry you, take you home, and put you on a pedestal."

Now, looking back, his arms had already embraced someone else.

All my efforts these past months were nothing but a joke.

"Mhm."

I managed only one word, afraid that another would trigger my collapse.

I walked into the changing room.

The moment the door locked, I slid down the door panel to the floor.

My shoulders shook violently, tears streaming endlessly through my fingers.

I could never shake Ethan off, not since we were kids.

He was like my shadow, always tagging along wherever I went.

When I was nine, I snapped impatiently, "Can you stop following me?"

He looked down and said, "I want to be your shadow. Wherever you go, I go."

At eighteen, he handed me a note: "I don't want to be a shadow anymore. I want to stand beside you."

We started dating.

From eighteen to twenty-eight, a full ten years, he kept every promise.

He always picked me up when I worked late, he took time off to care for me when I was sick, he remembered every word I said.

Everyone said this was love at its best.

I believed them.

I pulled out my phone and saw a message from Chloe, sent two hours ago.

[Sophie, I know I've wronged you, but I truly love him. I'll do anything you want. Just let us be, okay?]

I stared at the words and suddenly found it hilarious.

Chloe probably didn't even remember how she'd gotten out of that miserable, dead-end town she came from.

That year, her grandma was critically ill, no money for hospital bills. Chloe knelt in the hospital corridor, sobbing uncontrollably, tears and snot streaming down her face.

I was the one who paid for her surgery, arranged everything.

I was the one who paid her tuition, encouraged her to get her teaching license.

She said I was her biggest benefactor, saying:

"Sophie Miller, you're the one person I'll never betray in my life."

But now?

She was sleeping with my fiancé, and asking me to bless their "love."

But who would bless my ten years of youth?

The phone screen blurred. I wiped my tears, ready to stand up.

Just then, I heard nurses talking outside the door.

"Did you hear? We got a patient in the ER, pregnant, had intense sex, and hemorrhaged."

"The baby's okay. But her husband looks really powerful. When he came in, he said if we couldn't save the baby, he'd shut down the hospital."

"No wonder rich people are so arrogant..."

"That's not the point. The point is, the guy looks exactly like Dr. Miller's fiancé!"

"Oh my god! She's pregnant! Is Dr. Miller, like, the other woman?"