3: 3

I didn't answer her. I pulled my wrist free, turned, and walked away.

The sand came up out of nowhere, and the sky changed in a breath.

The three of us, along with the other travelers, ended up stranded in the same restaurant beside the desert highway, waiting out the storm.

I took a corner table, a few tables away from them.

Not long after we ordered, Cynthia pressed a hand to her stomach and leaned against Kent.

"Kent, my stomach hurts a little."

Kent's arm went around her at once, and he called out for the server.

"Excuse me, could we get a cup of hot water? Quickly, please!"

Cynthia scolded him softly.

"It's your fault. You just had to take me for seafood yesterday. You know my stomach can't take that, and you saw I wanted it, so you spoiled me anyway."

"My fault. It's all my fault."

Kent dug a pill case out of his own bag like he'd done it a hundred times.

"Here, take your medicine first."

He coaxed her, his voice gentle.

I watched it all in silence.

And that burning started up in my stomach again.

Three years ago, the night I was first diagnosed with stomach cancer.

I was alone in my rented room, frightened and shaking, the pain soaking the back of my shirt with cold sweat.

I held my phone in my hand, Kent's number glowing on the screen.

That day, his company's cash had run dry. Creditors were after him. He was drowning.

Over and over I told myself I couldn't be a distraction, couldn't drag him down.

In the end, I never made that call for help.

I took a bottle of pills out of the inner pocket of my coat.

The painkillers I used to take, all the time. I didn't need them now.

I dropped the bottle into the trash bin at the corner of the table.

Kent settled Cynthia and turned around, and his eyes landed right on the bottle in my hand.

He read the label, and his face changed.

Hospital prescription only. He frowned, and it looked like he wanted to come over and ask.

Cynthia called to him, low.

"Kent... it still really hurts..."

Kent's step toward me stopped short.

He turned back to Cynthia, drew her half into his arms, and murmured to her.

"There now, it's all right. The medicine takes a while. Just hold on a little longer."

Cynthia leaned into him, and over his shoulder her eyes settled on me.

She looked at the bottle in my hand, something complicated in her face.

"Sylvia, these three years, have you... been unwell the whole time?"

I gave a small smile.

"I was. But I'm fine now."

I picked up my water and took a sip.

I'd meant to finish out the rest of the trip, but a moment ago I changed my mind.

Enough.

All I wanted now was to be far away from them.

Outside, the raging sand had stopped at some point, and sunlight spilled through the clouds, staining the desert a warm gold.

I shouldered my backpack, walked out fast, flagged down a car at the roadside, gave the airport address, and left without looking back.

I never noticed that the worn side pocket of my backpack had split at the bottom.

An old phone and some papers slid quietly onto the seat.

Kent stared out the door in the direction I'd disappeared, then hesitated and picked up what I'd left on the seat.

His eyes locked onto the diagnosis report.

*Patient: Sylvia Floyd.*

*Diagnosis: stomach cancer, late stage.*

Cynthia leaned in to look too, and clapped a hand over her mouth, disbelief flooding her eyes.

"So... the international remains-transport service on that refund slip was real?"

4: 4

Kent said nothing. He grabbed the diagnosis report and the old phone and ran after me, out of the restaurant. But I was already gone.

That night, Kent didn't go back to the room he shared with Cynthia.

He avoided everyone, got a separate room, and plugged my old phone in to charge.

When it powered on, the wallpaper was still there—a selfie of him holding me, taken three years ago.

His hands shook as he opened the photo album.

There was only one photo inside.

My late-stage stomach cancer diagnosis.

The date it was taken was the day before I told him we were over.

He backed out and opened the notes app.

Inside was one unfinished draft.

【Kent, I'm leaving. I sold the old house on the east side of town. The money will go into your startup through a trust fund. That house was what my parents left me, the one thing I had of them. It's yours now. Consider it settled, for these years you spent with me. Don't look for me. Forget me. Live well.】

That was meant to be the breakup letter I'd send him. In the end, I changed the words.

Kent's breath stopped.

He kept searching like a madman and opened the call log.

The night of the diagnosis. Three in the morning.

My number had called him three times.

Every time, the second it started ringing, I hung up in a hurry.

He remembered that night. He'd been cornered at a dinner table by a few creditors, and he'd turned his phone off and thrown it aside.

He thought that night had been agony for him.

He never knew that on the other side of the city, I was alone, living through a despair he couldn't imagine.

The next day, when he turned his phone back on, the first message he got was my breakup text.

【Kent, I'm done. I gave up my dreams and stuck it out with you for three years, and I just can't do it anymore. I happened to meet someone new. He's richer than you. Don't come after me. It would only make me look down on you.】

"Aaah——!"

He drove his fist into the wall, hard, until it was bleeding.

He rushed out of the room, wanting to chase after me, to tell me he was wrong.

After that breakup text, he'd never gone looking for the truth. His heart had held nothing but hate for me.

He'd been so wrong it was unforgivable.

He'd just reached the corner of the hallway when a figure blocked his path.

Cynthia's face was streaked with tears.

She looked at Kent, tears falling one after another.

"I know you should go after her right now. I know you want to tell her you love her."

"But Kent…"

She stepped closer and grabbed his arm.

"What about these three years? I went to every business dinner with you, I clawed our way up out of having nothing with you… don't these three years count for anything?"

Kent's feet stopped.

It wasn't that he no longer loved Sylvia.

It was that he couldn't erase Cynthia's three years of standing by him and holding him up.

He looked at her tear-covered face, and something painful and torn flickered in his eyes.

"Cynthia, give me some time."

I'd realized I left something behind and come back to get it from Kent. I stood at the end of the hallway, listening to them, watching him hesitate.

Never mind. So now I knew. These old things were of no use to me anymore.

I didn't make a sound. I left down the stairs on the other side.

Walking through the empty corner of the street, I took out that Aladdin's lamp again and rubbed it gently against my palm.

The purple smoke rose once more, and the Genie's faint shape bowed its head before me.

"Master, speak your second wish."

I looked out along the direction the streetlights stretched, and said quietly,

"I want money. I want a lot of money. Enough to live on my own, free, for the rest of my life."

The moment I finished, my phone buzzed.

A financial news alert popped up.

【The long-dormant startup "Singularity AI" was acquired by an industry giant today. Its share price has soared a thousandfold, and early angel investors are now estimated to be worth over a hundred million!】

That was the small company I'd put a hundred thousand into, right out of college, on a whim, backing an upperclassman.

And now it had actually made me rich…

Boarding the flight home, I turned off my phone, leaned against the window, and watched that stretch of golden desert grow smaller and smaller behind me.

Back in the terminal, Kent, who'd finally made it there, was stopped by security outside the checkpoint.

Only, none of it had anything to do with me anymore.