Chapter 4

The next two days passed in eerie tranquility.

I discovered that an invisible tether bound me, trapping my soul within thirty feet of Ethan Vance.

I was a prisoner of his presence.

I was forced to watch them go shopping, grab brunch, visit theme parks—

doing every single romantic thing Ethan had adamantly refused to do with me.

What cruel irony.

When I was breathing, I begged just to catch a glimpse of him and was denied.

Now that I longed for nothing more than to leave this world behind, I was forced to haunt his shadow day and night.

On the third day, the police finally called him in to identify a body.

I followed him to the precinct, where I came face-to-face with my own corpse.

Mangled, broken, and unrecognizable.

Ethan looked as if my battered remains were dirtying his vision. He took a brief, detached glance before letting the white sheet fall back over my face.

His expression was pitch-black, a strange, unreadable shadow flickering in his downcast eyes.

As he walked out of the morgue, I saw my mother standing at the end of the sterile hallway.

Her face was haggard, her eyes bloodshot.

"Why didn't you save her?!"

Ethan replied coldly, "If she hadn't schemed to trap me in the first place, we wouldn't have had anything to do with each other."

"Schemed to trap you?!" My mother’s voice instantly rose to a shrill pitch.

Floating helplessly in the air, a wave of suffocating sorrow and fury crashed over me.

"No, I never lied to you..."

I tried to speak, but I couldn't. Invisible tears spilled down my spectral cheeks.

I loved him. That, at least, was real.

A bitter sneer curved Ethan's lips. "You two are cut from the exact same cloth."

"She tricked me, and you? What are you playing the saint for? Weren't you out chartering a luxury yacht to throw a massive birthday party for your golden son the night she died?"

My mother’s face instantly drained of color. "That... that was because..."

"Because you never gave a damn about her!"

Ethan leaned against the wall, his gaze piercing.

"Every single month, you came crying poverty, demanding money from her. You knew damn well she didn't have a job—do you have any idea how much of my money went into supporting your habits over the years?"

"Just to fund your spoiled brat’s lavish parties?"

"If you had the cash to rent a yacht, why didn't you spare a single dime to help her when she was struggling?"

Ethan's relentless accusations hammered into her. My mother stood there, trembling violently.

So... she had money all along.

Ever since graduating from college, I barely worked outside the home.

After high school, my mother remarried and had a baby boy.

She constantly cried to me, claiming my stepdad abused her and refused to give them any allowance.

My heart broke for her. I starved myself, living on scraps, sending every penny I earned back to her.

Even after I married Ethan, she demanded more and more money.

I thought my stepdad's cruelty was escalating. I never once imagined this was the sickening truth.

Ha. And here I thought my own mother loved me.

How utterly ridiculous.

In the end, not a single person on this earth was mourning my death.

"I already signed the organ and body donation forms," Ethan said, turning toward the precinct exit.

"Why won't you let her have a proper burial?!"

"A proper burial?" Ethan seemed to hear the world's funniest joke.

"Are you paying for the funeral expenses?"

My mother went completely silent. Ethan scoffed, turning on his heel and walking out the door.

Look at that. I lived an entire lifetime, only to die without anyone willing to buy me a grave.

Ethan Vance, you lied to me again.

You were the one who promised that if I died, you would buy me the most expensive plot in the cemetery.