The Heroine Who Refused to Die for Him

To punish Ethan Reed, the woman sent here to win his heart traded years of her life to the system. She wanted him to know what it felt like to lose her forever. When she called to tell him she had bone cancer, Ethan and I were exchanging rings. Without hesitation, Ethan chose a different bride. What he didn’t know was that I was the one who really had bone cancer. Vanessa didn’t die. But I vanished from Ethan’s world for good. “Ethan, I’m dying. Are you really not even going to come see me?” At our wedding, Vanessa Hayes’s weak, sorrowful voice rang out over the speakerphone. The guests exchanged looks. Most glanced around eagerly, hungry for gossip. Then every eye turned to Ethan. Mine included. He froze for a moment, staring without blinking. Carefully, he took the phone from my hand. “What did you say?” His voice was low and faint. He was clearly struggling to keep it from shaking. Then, as though something had occurred to him, he let out an easy laugh. “It’s my wedding to Claire today. This isn’t funny. Even if you really were dying, I wouldn’t leave her.” Vanessa had lied to Ethan plenty of times before. Four years ago, I broke up with Ethan after my family went bankrupt. Then I secretly gave him almost everything I had left so he could study abroad. Years later, he returned as a rising star in the business world. By then, he had a stand-in at his side who loved him desperately: Vanessa. He introduced her to me as his employee and his “special someone.” But the instant I shook Vanessa’s hand, I became self-aware. Ethan and I were characters in a second-chance romance. He didn’t know everything I had sacrificed for him years ago, so he both loved and hated me. Vanessa used that to play the demanding, troublesome replacement. One day, she lied about being hit by a car, making Ethan abandon me while a business partner pressured me to drink. The next, while Ethan and I were visiting a remote mountain community, she claimed some thugs were harassing her. One phone call, and he left me stranded there alone. Just as I was ready to give up on him, things changed. Ethan learned the truth about why I had left him. The prodigal lover returned, realized I was the woman he loved, and walked me down the aisle—only for Vanessa to interrupt the ceremony with a phone call. Ethan hadn’t intended to answer. But I knew perfectly well that if he didn’t, he would regret it for the rest of his life. Because Vanessa had already come to see me. Two weeks earlier, while I was trying on dresses at the bridal boutique, she slipped into my fitting room. Ignoring my surprise, she studied the white gown. Disappointment and envy filled her eyes. “It’s beautiful. Too bad I’ll never get to wear one.” She stroked the hem carefully, as if caressing something precious she was about to be forced to give away. “I’ve worked so hard, and I still haven’t gotten to wear that dress. Why do you only have to stand there and do nothing, and he’s happy to make you his wife? Just because you’re the female lead?” I lowered my eyes and smiled, then undid the lacing down my back. The heavy dress slid off my body. I stood there before Vanessa, completely exposed. “Then you wear it.” I offered her the gown. Her head snapped up. The sadness in her eyes disappeared, replaced by something cold. “You’re giving it to me? What do you think I am?” “Claire Bennett, I was the one taking care of him all those years you were apart.” “I taught him how to love someone. I told him which boutique had the prettiest wedding dresses and which ring a woman would love most.” “Why should you get to enjoy everything I worked for?”Vanessa’s words reminded me of the day Ethan and I were choosing a bridal boutique. We had come across one called Beloved. Ethan stared at one of the designer’s gowns for so long that I had to call his name several times. When he finally came back to himself, he murmured, “It really is beautiful.” Then he turned to me. “You should wear that one at our wedding.” Remembering his distracted expression and the way he had looked at me, I finally understood. He had been looking through me at someone else. Someone he hadn’t married, but had once promised a wedding dress from Beloved. I said nothing. I simply watched Vanessa with a quiet smile. “Claire, I’m dying. Did you know that? I have bone cancer.” Vanessa smiled too. Against her paper-white face, it looked tragically beautiful. If I hadn’t known the truth, I might have felt sorry for her. But she had failed her mission to win Ethan’s heart and was about to be forcibly removed from this world. To stay, to punish him, to watch him tear himself apart with regret as her life hung by a thread, she had gambled with her life. She traded her remaining years to the system for the right to remain here. The problem was, her character had never existed in the original novel. The obstacles on my road back to Ethan had always been our different values and views on life. Not some ridiculous stand-in. The wedding hall was so quiet that all I could hear was the guests’ uneven breathing. Ethan stared at the phone as if he could burn a hole through it and drag the woman on the other end out. Then the call disconnected. At the same moment, a text notification sounded. Ethan opened the message and went blank. His fingers loosened, and the phone fell to the floor. From where I stood, I could see a photo of a bone cancer diagnosis on the screen. Vanessa’s name was printed clearly in black. Ethan looked at me in panic. Guilt flooded his eyes, turning their rims red. “I’m sorry… Claire.” He dropped the ring and ran out of the chapel without looking back. The guests erupted. The silent hall filled with gasps and exclamations. As the bride, I had to preserve what dignity I could after my groom abandoned our wedding for another woman. At some point, my smile had gone stiff. My eyes ached from holding it. “I’m sorry you had to witness this. We’ll hold the wedding another day.” Soon enough, there would be another wedding for them to attend. I turned away and picked up Ethan’s discarded phone and ring, fighting to keep my tears from falling. If Ethan and I had gotten married today, Vanessa would have failed her mission and been forced out of this world. But she had gambled with her life, betting that the thought of her dying would make Ethan abandon me. She won. A character who had never existed on the page had won Ethan.I didn’t just know I was the female lead. I also knew that six months after the wedding, I would suddenly die of bone cancer, leaving Ethan to mourn me for the rest of his life. My death came without warning or clues. In the original novel, it was a rushed ending that forced a tragedy on the readers. Vanessa had deliberately let me learn how I was destined to die. She wanted me to know she had come to save Ethan from being abandoned by the woman he loved twice. She thought I loved Ethan so much that, once I learned I was dying, I would voluntarily bow out of our love triangle. She never expected me to keep following the plot even after I knew the truth. That day at the bridal boutique, when she tried to make me pity her, I refused to indulge her. Still smiling politely, I took my bone cancer diagnosis out of my bag and showed it to her. “Since you brought up bone cancer, I should thank you, Vanessa.” Ever since reuniting with Ethan and learning my ending, I had gone to the hospital for a checkup every two weeks. The first few months of tests showed nothing wrong. Then Ethan proposed, and I was diagnosed with bone cancer. Yet I felt perfectly fine. Vanessa stared at my diagnosis. Realizing there was no point pretending we were on friendly terms, she laid her cards on the table. “Claire, do you think I don’t know you’re stalling? You want to drag this out until you marry Ethan and I have to leave this world, don’t you?” “Well, sorry to disappoint you. I traded my life for the chance to stay here forever.” My eyes widened. I covered my mouth and stared at her in disbelief. “You actually… You’re insane!” She really was. God knew how much I envied her healthy body. I knew I was going to die, but there was nothing I could do. I could only wait as the date crept closer. She glared and advanced on me. “You forced me to do this. If it weren’t for you, why would I have to suffer through bone cancer every day?” “Do you have any idea how much it hurts?” How interesting. Hadn’t she volunteered for all of it? I was this world’s female lead. It was perfectly reasonable for me to hold on to my male lead, yet she blamed me for not stepping aside. Then she suddenly smiled, looking relieved. “At least it’ll all be over soon.” “Why don’t you take a guess? If I have an attack during your wedding, will Ethan abandon you for me?” Of course he would. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have answered that call for him.I circled December 31 in red on my desk calendar. That was the day my bone cancer would kill me. My death warranted only a few lines. It was so ordinary that it happened on an otherwise unremarkable New Year’s Eve. On the day I died, Ethan would be at work. He would buy flowers on his way home, then find me lying quietly on the couch. Only when he went to hold me would he discover that my body had long since gone cold. Today was July 16. I had less than five months until my death. Ethan had been gone for an entire month. When he finally came home, he still smelled faintly of disinfectant. I reheated dinner and set it gently on the coffee table in front of him, then asked where he had been. He tugged off his tie impatiently. “You know perfectly well.” Hearing the blame in his voice, I frowned slightly. “Ethan, have I done something to upset you? I didn’t say anything inappropriate at the wedding.” I had even handled the bad press afterward. For a week after the wedding, I worked nonstop. I went three straight days without sleep, all so I could explain things to the media. “The woman who called during the wedding is a close friend of Ethan’s. They had a misunderstanding over something minor and hadn’t spoken for a long time.” “Neither of us knew she had cancer. Ethan went to her as a friend. After all, we can reschedule a wedding. But once someone is gone, there’s nothing you can do.” Even I knew my explanation was flimsy and absurd. Ethan had appeared before the press with Vanessa before. Under countless flashing cameras, he had openly declared: “Vanessa is someone I love deeply.” A lover, not a friend. The beloved woman who had stayed beside him abroad through four years of financial hardship and emotional struggle. That history let Vanessa cause as much trouble as she pleased. She could act like a spoiled little girl and make Ethan go four blocks out of his way to buy her favorite salted-caramel ice cream. She had been spoiled by her lover for four years and helped him climb from poverty into the elite. From any angle, I looked like the other woman. But I clearly remembered the third time I rejected Ethan’s advances. He told me, “Vanessa hates salted-caramel ice cream. You’re the only one who’s ever loved that flavor, Claire.” Then why, Ethan, when I said I wanted ice cream, did you tell me that shop no longer made salted caramel? I went to check. Just as you said, they had stopped making it because the two new owners didn’t like it. But one owner’s last name was Reed. The other’s was Hayes. I knew exactly what kind of existence I had, so I was always careful around Ethan. Like a sapling desperate for shelter beneath a towering tree. Even after I lowered myself and made it clear that I was willing to be gracious about the wedding disaster, it wasn’t enough. Ethan paused while taking off his jacket. Then his movements suddenly turned angry, and he flung it onto the couch. “Claire, you already knew Vanessa had bone cancer. Why didn’t you tell me?” “Do you hate her that much? Do you want her dead?” “I’ve already married you. What else do you want from me?”