"Do we really have to make this so ugly?"

I stared at their shameless faces, disgust churning in my gut.

I was about to leave when the phone in my bag started buzzing nonstop.

It was the hospital.

I hit answer.

The nurse's panicked voice came through immediately.

"Are you Violet Abbott's family?"

"Violet just suffered a massive stroke. She's in emergency surgery right now!"

"Her condition is extremely critical. Please come to City Central Hospital immediately to handle payment and sign the consent forms!"

My brain went blank. Every drop of blood in my body seemed to rush backward at once.

Grandma had always been healthy. How could she have a stroke out of nowhere?

My voice shook as I asked the nurse what happened.

She sighed, her tone helpless.

"The elderly woman collapsed while looking at her phone."

"The screen was still on when we found her. She seemed to have been looking at a social media post."

"We didn't get a close look at the content. It appeared to be some kind of vacation photos..."

Social media?

While I stood there trembling, Ronnie let out a gasp from behind Pearl.

"Grandma's hurt? How could this happen..."

"Pearl, this is all my fault... While I was waiting for you two earlier, I posted a set of our photos from the Maldives with a caption..."

"I could've sworn I blocked everyone in Marcus's family. I must have... I must have accidentally missed Grandma."

The second I heard Ronnie's words, every piece fell into place.

He'd posted those photos and deliberately blocked me, but somehow left out the one person I loved most in this world.

Grandma adored Pearl. She'd been counting the days until we registered our marriage today. Seeing that post would have been a knife through her heart.

I locked my eyes on Pearl and Ronnie, and every word that left my mouth was carved from stone.

"If anything happens to my grandmother, I will make you both pay with your lives."

Then I turned and stormed out of the marriage bureau without looking back.

The moment I dropped into the taxi, the wall I'd been holding up shattered.

I buried my face in my hands. The muffled sobs I tried to swallow filled the backseat no matter how hard I fought them.

Grandma was the only family I had left in this world.

My parents died when I was young. She raised me alone, scraping by on whatever she could earn collecting recyclables.

Later, when Pearl's startup was hemorrhaging cash and on the verge of collapse, it was Grandma who handed over her entire life savings to pull her through.

And now the woman Grandma had loved like her own granddaughter had pushed her to the brink of death.

The taxi pulled up to City Central Hospital.

I sprinted toward the emergency building.

The red light above the operating room was still on. I pressed my back against the wall, silently begging for her to be okay.

More than ten minutes passed before hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor.

I lifted my head slowly.

Pearl and Ronnie were rushing toward me.

Pearl's chest heaved with each breath, her face flushed from running. She looked like she'd come in a hurry.

She stopped in front of me and pulled a bank card from her pocket, holding it out.

"Ronnie told me everything. He didn't do it on purpose. He just forgot to set the privacy filter when he posted."

"Grandma's always been in great health. She just got a little worked up, that's all. Stop blowing this out of proportion."

"There's three hundred thousand dollars on this card. Consider it Ronnie's compensation, plus full repayment with interest for the five years you sponsored him."

"And stop holding that favor over his head. He's sensitive. His pride can't take it."

I stared at the bank card in disbelief.

My grandmother was behind those doors fighting for her life, and Pearl had come here to buy off my kindness? To protect her lover's fragile ego?

I shoved his hand away. The bank card flew from my grip and clattered into a far corner of the hallway.

Pearl's face went white with fury.

"Don't push your luck, Marcus!"

I stared at her, my voice shaking with a rage I could barely contain.

"Self-respect?"

"He's a parasite who'd be on the streets without my charity, and he wants to talk about self-respect?"

"Where was his self-respect when he came crawling to me in tears, begging me to pay for his education?"

"Where was his self-respect when he was in bed with you on that island?!"

Ronnie flinched as though I'd driven a knife into his softest wound. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

"How can you humiliate me like this, Marcus?"

"I know I owe you. I'll pay it all back, every last cent, I swear!"

Pearl pulled him behind her, shielding him with her body. The look she turned on me was pure disgust.

"You're out of your mind, Marcus!"

"You think throwing money around gives you the right to own someone's life?"

"You've always been like this. Domineering, steamrolling everyone, never once caring how anyone else feels. I've had enough of you!"

"If you weren't so goddamn suffocating all the time, do you think I would have fallen for Ronnie?"

"Do you think I would've slept with him while you were in the hospital vomiting blood?!"

The words hit me like a wall of static. My mind went blank. I couldn't even form a sentence.

"What...?"

Last week, to lock down the most critical round of funding before her company's IPO, I'd sat across from the investor and drained three full bottles of liquor. I drank until I was coughing up blood and they rushed me to the ER.

I'd been curled up in that hospital bed, half-delirious with pain, calling Pearl over and over. Her phone was off every single time.

Afterward, she'd come to me with guilt written all over her face, wrapped her arms around me, and said she'd pulled two all-nighters at the office and passed out from exhaustion.

I believed her. I even felt sorry for her, working herself to the bone for the company.

But the truth was...

The truth was that while I lay there bleeding, she was tangled up in the sheets with Ronnie.

The tears I'd been holding back finally broke loose, hitting the floor one after another.

"Pearl, are you even human?"

I lunged at her like something inside me had snapped, wanting nothing more than to tear apart this woman I no longer recognized.

Ronnie rushed forward and grabbed my arm.

"Marcus, don't hit her!"

In the struggle, I wrenched my arm free.

Ronnie let the momentum carry him backward. He crumpled to the floor, clutching his ankle, moaning in pain.

"Ow... it hurts..."

Pearl immediately shook me off and rushed to his side, pulling him to his feet.

When she turned back to me, her eyes were ice.

"You're beyond saving, Marcus. Stay here and think about what you've done."

She propped Ronnie up and walked away without another word.

I slid to the floor, staring at the empty hallway where they'd disappeared. I couldn't even muster a bitter laugh.

Then the doors to the emergency room burst open. A doctor stumbled out, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead.

"Who's the family of the patient Violet Abbott?"

I scrambled to my feet, half-crawling, half-running, and grabbed the front of his white coat.

"Me! I am!"

"Doctor, how is my grandmother?"

He pulled his mask down and let out a long breath.

"She made it."

"But her condition is still very serious. It could deteriorate at any time."

"We'll move her to a room for observation."

They wheeled Grandma into a private room.

An oxygen mask covered her face. The gentle, warm expression I'd known my entire life was gone, replaced by something still and lifeless.

I sat at her bedside, holding her wrinkled hand in both of mine. Tears fell silently onto the sheets.

"You have to pull through, Grandma. You're all I have."

I prayed in silence.

If she would just wake up, I would give up everything else without a second thought.

Pearl, Ronnie, the money they'd swindled, the sincerity they'd stolen.

None of it mattered anymore.

At eight that evening, Grandma's condition had stabilized slightly.

I got up and headed to the hospital cafeteria to buy some soft food for her, something she could eat once she woke up.

But when I hurried back carrying the thermos container, I saw Ronnie slipping into her room while I was gone.

He was standing at the side of her bed, leaning down, his lips close to her ear, whispering something I couldn't make out.

The next second, Grandma's body seized violently. The vital signs monitor erupted in alarm, its red indicator light flashing in a frenzy.

I rushed forward and shoved Ronnie away from her.

"What are you doing!"

He stumbled back, eyes wide with feigned panic.

"I just came to tell Grandma some good news."

"I told her that Pearl is already carrying my child."

"I have no idea why she reacted like this!"

I turned back to the bed.

Two lines of tears were sliding from the corners of Grandma's eyes. A rattling sound rose from her throat, as if she were trying to speak, but no words came out.

The heart rate on the monitor plummeted in a straight line. Her blood pressure dropped to critical.

I screamed, slamming the call button over and over.

"Doctor! Nurse!"

"Somebody help! Somebody save my grandmother!"

Her pupils were going glassy, unfocused, drifting. My vision blurred red. I lunged at Ronnie, locked both hands around his throat, and squeezed.

"I'll kill you!"

His eyes rolled back. His hands slapped uselessly against my arms.

"Let... let go..."

That was when Pearl appeared in the doorway, a fruit basket in her hand.

"Marcus, have you lost your mind!"

She screamed and charged at me, shoving me off. She caught Ronnie as he crumpled to the floor and pulled him close.

"Ronnie, are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"

He clutched his neck, whimpering.

"Pearl, my back really hurts. I think something's broken. What if I can't take care of you anymore?"

The moment she heard that, Pearl hauled him to his feet and rushed him out of the room.

"Doctor!"

"Save my husband!"

Grandma's chest had stopped moving.

A flat, unbroken line stretched across the monitor. The alarm screamed through the room, steady and merciless.

Doctors and nurses flooded in, pushing me aside. They started emergency resuscitation.

The defibrillator fired again and again, jolting Grandma's body each time. But no spark of life returned.

Half an hour later.

The doctor set down his equipment. He pulled the white sheet up slowly, drawing it over Grandma's face.

"The patient shows no vital signs."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

I stared at him blankly.

Sorry for my loss? How was I supposed to bear this loss?

Grandma was the only family I had left.

I walked to the bed, one step at a time, and dropped to my knees.

The grief was so total, so absolute, that not a single tear would come.

I knelt there for three full hours.

Only when both legs had gone completely numb did I grip the edge of the bed and pull myself upright.

I called the funeral home. They sent a vehicle, and I handled the cremation paperwork through the night.

The moment the furnace door closed, I thought I saw Grandma smiling at me. She told me to keep living, to never shed another tear for people who weren't worth it.

It was four in the morning when I walked out of the funeral home, the urn cradled in my arms.

I pulled out my phone. The screen was clean.

No missed calls from Pearl. No messages. Nothing.

She was probably with Ronnie right now.

I put my phone away and took a cab back to the place that had once been called home.

When I pushed open the door, every inch of the apartment was stamped with traces of the life Pearl and I had shared. The wedding portrait on the wall. The matching slippers by the entryway. The pair of custom mugs on the coffee table.

How ironic.

I packed a few clothes, then set my grandmother's death certificate on the table.

Before I left, I took one last look at the apartment. Then I shut the door without mercy.

The airport terminal was a blur of strangers coming and going.

I watched the planes lift off through the window. My heart was strangely still.

The boarding announcement crackled over the speakers.

I stood, clutching the urn tight against my chest, and walked toward the gate without looking back.

Goodbye, city that took everything from me.

Goodbye, Pearl.