Chapter 2

Summer POV

New York First Hospital, Cardiology Clinic.

I sat in the chair, my face pale, almost translucent.

The doctor looked at the test reports in his hand, his brows furrowed, his voice heavy. "Summer, your heart failure is end-stage. Have you been experiencing frequent chest pain, shortness of breath, or even fainting spells recently?"

I nodded calmly. "Yes."

"You're not taking your health seriously enough!" The doctor sounded pained and exasperated. "Given your condition, if you don't immediately get admitted for conservative treatment and get on the waiting list for a heart transplant, you have at most... at most one month left."

One month.

My heart skipped a beat, but quickly returned to that dead-eyed calm.

So, my life had only thirty days left.

"What if I refuse treatment?" I asked softly.

The doctor was stunned, his face full of disbelief. "You're only twenty-five! Giving up treatment is just waiting to die! While heart donors are hard to come by, there's still hope if you're hospitalized and maintained with medication!"

"I don't have the money for hospitalization, and I don't have the time to wait." I stood up and bowed slightly to the doctor. "Thank you, Doctor. Please prescribe me some strong painkillers."

I refused the doctor's earnest pleas, took a new bottle of painkillers, and walked out of the hospital.

The sun outside was blinding, but I felt cold all over.

I wasn't afraid to die. I should have died three years ago in that explosion.

I just felt a pang of regret that, in this last month, I wouldn't get to see Ethan let go of his hatred.

It was afternoon when I returned to the library.

The top-floor reading room was a mess. Several workers were roughly dismantling bookshelves, hundreds of precious books were carelessly tossed on the floor, like abandoned piles of trash.

Audrey stood by, directing the workers. "Hurry up! Throw these junk books directly into the trash truck downstairs, don't dirty my space!"

My pupils constricted. I rushed forward.

"Stop! You can't throw them away!"

I threw myself into the piles of books, desperately shielding them with my body. Many of these were rare, out-of-print editions that Ethan had personally found for me, traveling to a dozen European countries.

"Oh, Summer's back?" Audrey crossed her arms, a cold smile on her face as she walked over. "These garbage books are taking up my space. Am I supposed to keep them for Christmas?"

"I told you I'd move them myself!" My eyes were red as I clutched the books in my arms.

"You're too slow. I can't wait." Audrey looked at me contemptuously.

As she spoke, several workers roughly swept books into cardboard boxes. An foreign poetry collection happened to fall to the ground, its pages fanning out, and a hand-drawn ginkgo leaf bookmark fluttered out.

Ethan had stayed up two nights in college to draw that for me.

The worker's cart wheel was about to roll over it.

"Don't touch it!" I lunged forward, protecting the bookmark. My elbow hit the concrete floor hard, scraping a patch of skin raw.

Standing at the door, Ethan's pupils constricted, and he instinctively took half a step forward, his fingers at his side clenching.

But the next second, he stopped himself.

He watched me fiercely clutch the dirty bookmark to my chest, his heart stinging as if something had stung him.

"A piece of scrap paper worth such an act?" Ethan looked down at me, his voice cold. "Throw it away. We don't need any of your trash here."

"No!" I cried out, reaching to snatch it.

Just then, a long, strong hand suddenly reached out, grabbed my wrist, and roughly threw me aside.

I fell heavily to the ground, my elbow hitting a splintered piece of wood, instantly drawing blood.

I looked up and saw Ethan's face, cold as frost.

"Ethan..." My voice trembled. I pointed at the trampled poetry collection on the floor. "You gave that to me... You said there was only one copy in the world..."

"Did I? I forgot." Ethan looked down at me, his eyes full of mockery and coldness.

He raised his foot and, in front of me, stepped on the poetry collection again, pressing down hard.

The exquisite cover instantly tore, pages scattering across the floor.

"Summer, are you still living in the past?" Ethan's voice was like an ice-cold knife. "Do you think protecting these old books proves anything? I gave you those things, and now they disgust me. Just like you, you utterly disgust me."

I stared blankly at the shattered poetry collection on the ground, large tears splashing onto the floor.

Before, when I got tired from reading, Ethan would hold me on his lap, open this poetry collection, and read to me, line by line, in his deep, pleasant voice.

He'd said, "Summer, my world was once barren. You brought me spring."

But now, he had personally crushed that spring.

"Clear out all this junk." Ethan coldly ordered the workers, then turned to me. "If you dare to interfere again, or upset Audrey, I promise you, your father's days in the nursing home will be ten times worse than they are now."

He was using my father's life to threaten me.

I closed my eyes, swallowing the metallic sweetness that rose in my throat.

"Okay." I released my grip, slowly got up from the floor, not looking at the books on the ground, nor at Ethan.

I turned, dragging my heavy steps, and walked out of the reading room, one step at a time.