Chapter 7

Summer POV

In the following days, Ethan didn't return to the apartment.

In the empty room, the only sound was the growing weakness of my own heartbeat. I used the last of my remaining strength to visit New York First Hospital.

In the Chief of Cardiology's office, the smell of disinfectant was pungent and cold. I calmly took the pen and, with steady strokes, signed my name on the "Do Not Resuscitate Order" and "Organ Donation Agreement." My fingertips were faintly bluish-white from the pressure, but my handwriting was remarkably steady.

"Summer, are you really not going to reconsider?" The chief took off his glasses, looking at my thin figure, his eyes filled with sorrow and regret. "While hope is slim, if you're willing to be hospitalized and maintained with medication, there's still a chance to wait for a donor. You're so young."

"No, thank you." I put down the pen, a relieved smile on my pale face, as if I were handing over not my life and death, but a long-sealed old item. "My corneas are still healthy. If someone needs them, I hope they can help. I need to leave something behind, to prove I was here."

Walking out of the hospital, the bitter cold wind of early winter mercilessly cut through my thin coat, like a knife cutting into my skin. But I felt it was just right. At least it kept me soberly aware that I was still alive.

I didn't return to that apartment, filled with suffocating memories. Instead, I turned and went to the city library.

The top-floor reading room had been completely transformed into Zach's memorial gallery. I stood at the entrance, not far away, looking at the newly arranged space. His keepsakes, photos, meticulously placed in his favorite spots, as if he had never left.

I watched silently for a long time, but I didn't step inside.

I turned and went to the management office on the first floor, placing a clearly itemized handover list, the library access card, and the keys to that apartment neatly on the table.

They made a soft thud as they hit the wooden table, like the last echoes of me in this city, now cleanly severed.

After doing all this, I took out my phone, opened the memo app, and, using the last of my strength, wrote a short letter.

No accusations, no pleas, just a calm statement. Three years of heartache, crushed into these few dry lines of text.

"Ethan,

When you read this letter, I will no longer be in New York.

Three years ago, during the yacht explosion, I didn't lock the cabin door. I fought with all my might to save Zach, but I failed. I know you don't believe me, but this is my last explanation.

For these three years, I've accepted all the punishments you've given me.

Now, my heart has completely failed. The doctor says I won't live past this month.

I am paying for Zach's life with my own. We are completely even now.

I wish you and Audrey a happy engagement."

I set this letter for timed delivery, scheduled for my twenty-sixth birthday, also the day of his and Audrey's engagement.

That was his happiest day, and the countdown to the end of my life.

It would be my last birthday gift to myself.

Then, I removed my phone's SIM card. I snapped it, and threw it, along with all the ties and potential calls from these three years, into a roadside trash can.

At dusk, I boarded a bus alone, heading for a remote coastal town in Maine. It was where my mother had grown up, where a dilapidated but quiet old house stood.

There was an empty coast there, salty sea breeze, no Ethan, and no endless torment. I wanted to quietly live out the last leg of my life there.

The bus slowly pulled out of New York, the cabin dim and bumpy. I leaned against the cold window, watching the city that had trapped me for three years gradually recede in the sunset, the skyline merging into the twilight, eventually becoming a blurred halo of light.

I slowly closed my eyes, my broken heart beating faintly and peacefully in my chest.

Goodbye, Ethan.

If there's a next life, I hope we never meet again.