"You lost your temper at me, over an outsider." I stated it plainly, just the fact. "Phineas, you promised you'd never snap at me."

Phineas blinked, then let out a small, helpless laugh.

He thought I was jealous. He lifted a hand to pinch my cheek, a light, indulgent exasperation in his voice.

"Beryl, stop fussing. What are you imagining now?"

"We've spoiled you too much, that's the problem. It's made you read too much into everything."

I turned away from his hand.

Lowering my eyes, I rubbed at the needle marks dotting my skin.

"Phineas, Miss Carlton came to Searborough because you promised to show her around. She isn't here to donate marrow at all, is she?"

The room went dead silent.

That silence said more than any excuse could.

I leaned back against the headboard and turned my gaze to the window, not looking at him anymore.

"I'd like to be alone for a while."

"Go take her sightseeing. Searborough is huge. Flower fields, night markets, theme parks, it has everything."

Anyone could see I was sulking.

And somewhere underneath it, I was hoping. Hoping he'd notice how hurt I was, that he'd stay and coax me out of it.

But Mona only dabbed at her eyes. "Phineas, let's just forget it. Beryl isn't well. It's fine if I skip the sightseeing."

If anything, those words made up his mind for him.

"This has nothing to do with you."

He cut her off, pressing his temple with a tired sigh. "I don't go back on my word. Don't put yourself through that."

The two of them walked out of the room side by side.

Phineas pulled the door shut behind him. The latch clicked, leaving me alone in a cold, empty world.

A nurse pushed the door open, medication in hand.

She looked at the empty room, a little confused. "Mr. Harding isn't with you? He just got back, didn't he? Why would he leave already?"

I gave a faint nod.

"Honestly, that man. You're about to have surgery and he does this?" The nurse muttered, disapproving. "And he brought a girl back with him, too."

"It's all right," I said softly.

The needle slid into pale, thin skin.

Every mark on my arms was proof of pain I'd ridden out alone.

My parents were running all over the world, chasing down doctors, searching for a marrow match for me.

The only one beside me was Phineas.

He'd proposed when we graduated college, and then I had the bad luck to be diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Phineas swore on the spot that he would never abandon me.

At least both our families were well-off, with the means to pay for my treatment.

No worries about money, and a beautiful love to hold onto.

I used to believe that if I just fought hard enough against the illness, Phineas and I could walk into the future together.

Maybe I was simply too naive.

By the time the treatment was done, the sky had gone dark. The nurse smoothed the tape into place and gave me the usual reminders, no moving around, no getting too worked up.

"And stop dwelling on the things that upset you."

She was trying to comfort me. "Didn't the match come through overseas? Your father even called today, asking us to help get everything ready."

"Mm. My flight's tomorrow morning." I gave a small smile.

The nurse tucked in the corner of my blanket. "Is Mr. Harding buying his own ticket?"

I froze for a beat, and a hollow ripple spread through my chest.

I'd booked Phineas's ticket long ago. Same flight as mine, a window seat.

But I had no intention of giving it to him.

I shook my head, my voice flat. "There's no need. He isn't coming."

The nurse looked startled.

"You're still sick. How can you take a long international flight all by yourself?"

"I can manage on my own."

The hardest rounds of chemo I'd always carried alone, and the searing pain when the illness flared, I'd endured that alone too.

I'd never once cried out.

Whether he was there beside me or not, maybe it had stopped mattering a long time ago.

The nurse's face softened with pity. She swallowed whatever else she'd meant to say and pulled the door shut behind her.

I picked up my phone again.

A few messages from Phineas waited on the screen.

I opened them. Photos, the backdrop an upscale steakhouse.

In them, Phineas looked relaxed, his expression soft and warm.

Then a voice message. The moment I tapped it, Mona's chirping voice filled the ward:

"Beryl, I'm so sorry! Phineas said since it's my first time in Searborough, he just had to show me around so I wouldn't leave with any regrets."

The noise made me wince, and I instinctively turned the volume down.

I looked at the photos again.

A romantic candlelit dinner. Elegant plating.

But sitting on the table was a plastic cup of mango dessert balls, jarringly out of place.

It hit me then, the memory of last month, when I'd started the new medication.

My tongue had gone bitter, and I couldn't help calling Phineas, complaining in a small voice.

I told him the side effects were brutal. Not just the bone-deep exhaustion. Even breathing tasted bitter. I said I'd kill for those mango dessert balls from the cart outside our old college.

He listened quietly, then cut me off in his gentlest tone:

"Beryl, I'm not in Searborough. How am I supposed to buy them? Don't be so spoiled."

"Just wait till I'm back, okay? Good girl."

I believed him. I thought Phineas was out there working for our future.

The mango dessert balls I never got to taste, the tenderness and care I waited for and never received, all of it had fallen into Mona's lap instead.

On the screen, Phineas's profile photo was still a picture of the two of us.

In it, the way he looked at me brimmed with love.

Maybe he really had loved me.

He'd just changed his heart. And now that love was like a dessert past its expiration date.

Nothing left but bitterness.

It wasn't until the dead of night that Phineas came back to the ward.

He still reeked of alcohol.

He took the folding cot from the cabinet and set it up with practiced ease.

All those nights at my bedside had carved the habit into him, one he couldn't shake.

Phineas peeled off his coat and draped it over the edge of the cot. A woman's perfume drifted off it, cloying and sweet, not the scent I ever wore.

I turned my head and watched him without a word.

"Still awake?" His voice was hoarse. "My fault. I shouldn't have kept Mona out so late."

His apology felt like checking off a task.

"I'm not angry," I said softly.

Phineas seemed to relax. He sat on the edge of the bed and reached to take my hand.

I shifted just slightly, slipping away without making anything of it.

"Phineas, I need surgery."

The words weren't even fully out before his face changed. It went cold in an instant.

"You just can't let Mona go, can you? You know she's timid, that she's scared of surgery, and you're still bent on forcing her to donate?"

Understanding crashed over me in a single beat.

Phineas had it all wrong. He'd already convicted me before I'd said a thing.

He thought I'd brought up the surgery now to use the match as leverage, to strong-arm Mona into donating her marrow.

In his mind, I was no longer the fiancée who needed his protection.

I was a shameless woman who would coerce someone else.

"I didn't force her." My voice was light as a feather, threaded with a trace of exhaustion. "Every volunteer in the registry has to sign an agreement. They're there by choice."

"Phineas, you say she's timid. Then have you ever stopped to think? Would a timid girl run off to a strange city with a man she's known all of three months?"

When the words faded, the ward went so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Phineas's profile looked hard in the moonlight, nothing like his usual warmth.

"Beryl." He was clearly holding back his anger. "When did you become this selfish? Slandering someone just to serve your own agenda."

So this was what it felt like, to have no defense anyone would believe.

The pain in my body, the kind I could barely stand, crested in that exact moment.

Any other time, Phineas would have rushed to hold me, doing whatever he could to ease it until the doctor arrived.

Now he didn't even seem to notice. My suffering meant nothing to him.

"I don't want to fight with you."

"Just calm down on your own. I'm going to call Mona. She gets scared by herself."

Before he could leave the room, I stopped him.

"I get scared too."

Every single moment the illness tore at me, I was afraid.

Phineas paused, just barely, and turned back in the dim light of the hallway, as if there was something he wanted to say.

His phone cut him off.

The screen showed Mona's name.

He picked up, his brow knotting as he listened, and walked out of the ward without looking back.

He left only one line behind. "Beryl, stop making a scene. Whatever it is, it can wait until I'm back."

I leaned against the headboard, the words I wanted to say lodged in my throat.

Everything in front of me blurred.

The tears came down like rain.

I had never once doubted that Phineas truly loved me.

But I had forgotten that a true heart can change in an instant.

I sat up and calmly tore the plane ticket I'd bought for Phineas into pieces.

Along with the love I'd once felt for him, and the last tear I would ever shed over him, I left it all behind in Searborough.

Once a nurse helped me change my clothes, I dragged my suitcase out and took a cab to the airport.

On my phone, Phineas's messages kept popping up, one after another.

"Something came up on Mona's end."

"I'll come back once I've sorted out her situation. Just wait for me like before, be good and wait, okay?"

Looking at the words flashing on the screen, I lowered my eyes and blocked every one of Phineas's contacts.

I would not stand in place and wait obediently for him to come back.

And I had no need to be saved by him.

I was flying to a foreign country, racing toward a new life of my own.