I was born special, with two hearts inside my body.

This was the only thing that could please my parents.

Because my older sister had a congenital heart condition.

My parents gave birth to me solely so my sister's life could be extended.

Later, I met Alec and married him.

He rescued me from the abyss of desperately seeking familial affection.

I thought he would be different from my parents.

But when my sister's condition worsened, he obsessively hoped I could donate one heart to her.

What he didn't know was that I only had one heart left.

And my other heart was already with him.

------

"All I'm asking for is your heart. Why are you being so selfish?"

"Weren't you born just to keep your sister alive?"

Alec gripped my hand tightly.

"But I want to live too. Without my heart, I'll die."

Alec's face tensed, then he continued.

"You have two hearts. Give one away, and you'll still have one left to live on."

"But your sister is different. Without your heart, she'll die."

Ignoring my struggles, Alec dragged me into the prep room.

I helplessly tried to explain.

"I only have one heart now."

"Didn't you see the results on the report?"

Alec refused to listen.

"Who knows what you've done behind our backs to avoid donating your heart? You even dared to bribe the people in the exam room."

Alec thought I had bribed the people who examined me to alter the report results.

"It's not like that, Alec. I had surgery when I was little. I've already donated one heart."

"Enough, Melody. All you have to do is save your sister. Why are you being so stubborn?"

Alec roughly interrupted me.

"I'm not lying. My heart is with you."

Alec didn't hear a word I said, heading straight for my sister's prep room. At that moment, the other doctors in the prep room were equally stunned.

Then someone spoke up.

"Flirting at a time like this? That's just disgusting."

"Your sister is fighting for her life, and here you are, spouting sickening sweet nothings to your brother-in-law."

Only our families knew about my marriage to Alec.

Alec's colleagues didn't know me.

Plus, Alec had personally handled everything regarding my sister's hospitalization, so everyone in the department assumed my sister was Alec's wife.

And Alec had never bothered to correct this misconception.

"Exactly, instead of focusing on saving her own sister, she's trying to seduce her brother-in-law."

"Your heart is wasted on you, truly."

Hearing the other doctors' comments, I couldn't help but want to reveal the truth.

"Actually, I'm the..."

Alec came out of the prep room and grabbed my hand tightly.

"Today, you must donate your heart."

"Your sister is already in the operating room. You're next."

As he spoke, Alec pulled out a stack of documents.

"I've already signed everything. You can go straight to the operating table."

Inside the operating room, I encountered Faye, her frail appearance evoking sympathy from everyone present.

"Sister-in-law, don't worry. Alec will surely ensure you live a long life."

Upon hearing this form of address, Faye didn't object but instead managed a weak smile. "It's all my fault, making my little sister sacrifice so much for someone like me."

The words were filled with self-blame, but the look in her eyes as she gazed at me was challenging.

Hearing this, the other doctors thought my sister was very kind-hearted, while I was cruel and heartless.

After comforting Faye, Alec forcefully pushed me onto the operating table, disregarding my violent struggles.

He ordered the anesthesiologist to quickly come forward and administer the anesthetic.

Moments later, my intense struggling subsided.

Alec brushed my hair aside.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure you survive."

Alec's mentor had performed heart transplant surgeries before, so he was confident he could keep me alive.

"Once your sister recovers, the whole family will accept you, and I'll be by your side too."

Alec and his colleagues performed the surgery with tense precision.

After a long time, Alec extracted a heart from my body.

Without time to examine it closely, he rushed into Faye's operating room with my heart.

My chest lay open, my body abandoned and alone on the operating table.

The sharp blaring of the monitoring equipment startled the attending doctor in the operating room.

"How did she die? Wasn't she supposed to have two hearts?"

One of Alec's colleagues was perplexed.

"You actually believed Dr. Frost when he said that? He was just joking around."

"It's better that she's dead. She did so many terrible things. Not only did she refuse to help Dr. Frost's wife, but she also had the audacity to try and seduce Dr. Frost."

Another colleague replied.

"So what do we do now?"

"She's already dead. We'll wait for someone to collect the body. If no one claims it, the morgue will handle it."

With that, all the doctors left the operating room.

Alec focused intently on Faye's surgery.

Though he was confident, this was his first time performing a heart transplant on a patient.

Fortunately, several hours later, he successfully completed the operation.

After finishing the surgery, Alec followed Faye back to her room.

Only after Faye was settled did he remember me. Alec was about to return to the operating room to check on me when he bumped into a colleague from their joint surgery in the hallway.

"Where's my darling?"

The colleague paused before answering.

"Hasn't she already come back?"

"Don't worry, someone will be watching her after the surgery. The nurses in the department will keep an eye on your darling."

Alec didn't notice the inconsistency in these words, instead thinking his colleague was right.

With him around, the department nurses would pay some attention.

So Alec returned to his office to continue working.

A day later, Faye woke up.

Alec was by Faye's side.

"Faye, you're finally awake."

Faye woke up to see Alec, and she cried out in excitement.

Alec leaned forward and embraced Faye.

"Don't worry, the surgery went smoothly."

"Your heart won't have any problems from now on."

Faye touched her heart.

As she thought about how the disease that had troubled her for years was finally gone, she kept hugging Alec and crying.

Alec reminded her not to let her emotions fluctuate too much while rubbing her back to help her calm down.

Seeing Alec like this, the nurses in the department teased him.

"Dr. Frost is so good to his wife."

Alec froze when he heard this. He remembered I was still in another hospital room in the department, so he began to explain.

"You've got it wrong, she's not..."

Faye covered her heart at the right moment, interrupting Alec's words.

Alec could only pat her back.

"I told you not to cry. What you need to do now is rest more so you can recover."

Perhaps seeing Faye like this, Alec suddenly thought of me.

It seemed he hadn't seen me since the surgery.

"Faye, you rest well. I'm going to check on Melody."

As he said this, Alec was about to stand up.

But Faye suddenly grabbed Alec's hand.

"I had the surgery without telling my parents. It's a critical time for recovery, and I'm afraid I won't recover well if no one's with me."

Alec saw Faye's pitiful look, and his heart softened.

He also thought that the doctors and nurses in the department would more or less consider his position and look after me, so he put his mind at ease.

"Alright, I'll stay with you for a few more days."

Faye slowly closed her eyes only after seeing Alec sit down.

In the morgue, the orderly looked at my corpse with worry.

"It's been two days and no one has come to claim the body. What should we do?"

Another orderly was cleaning up.

"What are you looking at? The sooner we clean up, the sooner we can clock out." So they worked together to carelessly toss my corpse into a bag.

"Looking at the state of it, dying such a gruesome death, doesn't seem like she was a very good person."

"Good person, bad person - doesn't it all look the same once you're cremated?"

"True enough. Just a shame though, still so young."

Two days passed.

After seeing that Faye had mostly recovered, Alec finally remembered to check on me.

He walked to my hospital room and saw it empty.

A nurse was tidying up the bed.

"Where's the patient from this bed?"

The nurse looked up and saw it was Alec.

"Discharged."

Hearing the nurse's words, Alec felt somewhat displeased.

He thought I had just had surgery, and wondered why I wasn't staying in the hospital to recover properly, and where I had gone.

He took out his phone and dialed my number.

But the call wouldn't go through.

"Fine, if you're tough enough to die out there, don't come looking for me."

Alec stormed back to Faye's room, fuming.

Faye sensed Alec's anger and spoke up.

"Is Melody very angry and unwilling to forgive you?"

"It's all my fault. I'll go explain everything to her right away. Don't let there be any misunderstanding between you two because of me."

Faye hurriedly tried to get out of bed, but Alec immediately stopped her.

"Why do you care about her? What you need to do now is focus on getting better."

"That way, when you're discharged, your parents will be happy to hear the good news."

"As for Melody, she won't die. She's already been discharged." Alec recalled my constant pleading before the surgery, and it still left him feeling uneasy.

He couldn't understand why I wouldn't save my sister's life, given that we were family.

Seeing how Faye constantly looked out for me only made him feel that I fell short in comparison to her.

He thought that since I was being so stubborn about leaving the hospital, maybe I should have some time to cool off.

It wouldn't be too late to let me come back when Faye was discharged.

In the doctor's office, colleagues were laughing and chatting.

As soon as Alec entered, everyone immediately shut their mouths.

Alec found it strange.

"What were you all just talking about?"

Nobody said a word.

After a while, one colleague stepped forward and put his arm around Alec's shoulder.

"What else could we be talking about? Of course, we were discussing how deep your love for each other is."

Alec thought about how I was forced to donate my own heart.

He felt that I truly did love him deeply.

Although I was forced into it, I had helped him and saved a life after all.

Thinking about this, he forgave my unexplained disappearance, but he was angry that I wasn't answering his calls.

His colleague noticed the melancholy on his face.

"Is your wife feeling down?"

Alec remained silent.

The colleague continued.

"It's normal for her to be in a bad mood after just having surgery." "Try to be more understanding of her. Do something to make her happy."

Alec's frown gradually softened as he listened to his coworker's advice.

He remembered how much I loved the cupcakes from the bakery near our home. He decided to stop by on his way back from work.

Alec returned to our apartment, cupcakes in hand.

"Darling? I bought your favorite cupcakes," he called out.

There was no response.

He had just set down the cupcakes when he spotted the divorce papers I had left on the table a week ago.

The moment I learned he wanted me to donate my heart, I knew I wanted a divorce.

Alec stared at the papers in disbelief.

He thought to himself, is this really necessary?

It's just a heart.

She actually dares to ask for a divorce over this.

Alec angrily threw the cupcakes in the trash.

"If you don't want this home, then never come back," he muttered.

Just then, the phone rang.

Alec picked up his cell.

"Alec? Where's Melody been lately?" It was my dad, rarely calling to ask about me.

After all, he usually only ever talked about Faye.

Alec pondered for a moment, realizing only my parents could draw me out.

Plus, Faye had mostly recovered by now.

So he told my dad about Faye's surgery.