On the tenth day after I perished in the avalanche, my husband finally remembered me.

His first love was suffering from aplastic anemia and urgently needed a bone marrow transplant—one that only I could provide.

He came home holding a donation consent form, ready for me to sign, only to find the house empty.

Kelly leaned weakly against him. "Vanessa must really hate me. She doesn't want to donate her bone marrow, so she ran away on purpose, didn't she?"

"Maybe we should just forget it," she sighed. "I can hold on a little longer."

Caden gently comforted her, his heart aching. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"It's just a bone marrow donation. It's not like she'll die from it."

Then he pulled out his phone and sent me a message:

[No matter where you are, come back immediately and sign the donation consent form.]

[Don't be so selfish! Kelly is seriously ill. If she doesn't get a transplant soon, she'll die. It's just bone marrow—I'm not asking for your life!]

[If you keep refusing, I'll stop paying for your mother's medical bills!]

Caden… I died the moment you walked away from the ski resort with Kelly.

The avalanche buried me and our unborn child beneath the snow.

My mother, in her desperate attempt to save me, was torn apart by wild wolves.

How could you not know?

A week and a half ago, I had made plans with my husband, Caden Hall, to hit the slopes at Saint Lorenzo Snow Mountain.

Decked out in my ski gear, I was relaxing in the lobby as I waited for the instructor when Caden showed up with his high school sweetheart, Kelly Turner, in tow.

He pushed a consent form into my hands, his eyes pleading. "Vanessa, you're a bone marrow match for Kelly. After we return, let's get the surgery done, okay?"

Kelly, looking ghostly pale, clutched my hand, her voice a whisper of thanks. "Vanessa, I can't tell you how much it means that you'd do this for me. Caden and I are both so thankful."

I pulled my hand back, a lump forming in my throat. "Caden, I'm pregnant. Can we... Can we put off the donation?" I was about to ditch the ski gear and dig out the pregnancy test from my bag to prove it.

However, Kelly's eyes brimmed with tears as she stared at me. "Vanessa, Caden's been by my side in the hospital for months. How could you be pregnant?

"I know you're not my biggest fan, but you can't just make stuff up because you're scared of the procedure."

Caden, who had softened at the news of the pregnancy, then glared at me, his voice icy. "Vanessa, enough with the games. If you didn't want to go through with the donation, you shouldn't have agreed to get tested.

"Now you're backing out after we've got a match? You think this is some kind of joke?

"And this pregnancy? I've hardly been home. How could you possibly… There's a limit to how far you can push a lie."

Kelly gently tugged at Caden's sleeve, trying to calm him. "Let it go, Caden. If Vanessa resents me, it's her right not to help. It's my fault for coming between you two."

With those words, she bolted for the door but only made it a few steps before collapsing on the icy floor.

Caden rushed to her and cradled her in his arms. He then shot me a look that could freeze fire. "See what you've caused? Strip off that gear. We're heading to the hospital so you can make things right and donate to Kelly."

He did not even glance back at me as he walked away, Kelly in his arms.

It was like he was sure I had tagged along, but I was not playing games—I was actually three months pregnant.

He just had not been home lately, so I never got the chance to tell him.

By the time I got my gear on and stepped outside, Caden and Kelly were gone.

I pulled my coat tighter around me, a wry smile on my face, ready to brave the mountain alone. That was when I heard the shout: "Avalanche! Run for it!"

Alas, I was not fast enough.

The snow swallowed me whole, and rescue never came. I suffocated under the weight of the white blanket.

I became a ghost, stuck haunting Caden, unable to move on.

10 days have passed since I died.

He has not thought of me once, all wrapped up in caring for Kelly. She had been really sick.

"Caden, am I going to die?"

He held her weak form, vowing, "No way. I'll call Vanessa right now."

He dialed my number, only to find my phone off.

With Kelly's condition critical, he rushed home.

The house was just as we left it 10 days ago, the flowers on the table a telltale sign of our long absence.

"Vanessa's not here? She couldn't still be on that mountain, could she?" Kelly had insisted on coming home from the hospital to thank me herself.

"That can't be. She drove herself there."

"Maybe she doesn't want to donate her bone marrow to me. Is that why she's hiding? I can't believe she'd hate me enough to refuse.

"Maybe we should just drop it. I'm just happy I got to see you again." She said it with such frailty that she almost collapsed.

Caden held her close, his arms gentle but firm. "She won't let us down, she promised me already."

His messages kept pinging my phone. [Vanessa, wherever you are, get back here now to sign the bone marrow donation papers.]

[It's just a bone marrow donation; nobody's dying from that. What are you so scared of? Are you really going to just stand by and watch Kelly fade away?]

[Do you really dislike her that much?]

They waited and waited at home, but I never replied.

In a fit of rage, he booted the door so hard the sound echoed like thunder.

Mom's spirit was trembling, taking refuge in my arms.

"Vanessa, why is Caden so mad?"

Mom had heard about the avalanche and dashed to the mountain, ignoring the rescue team's warnings, desperate to save me.

However, she had just had surgery and was weak. Halfway up, she just could not go any further.

Then, wild wolves appeared. She was too weak to fight back, and the wolves got her, just a hundred meters from where I lay.

"Is it because my sickness cost so much?

"I won't get treatment anymore, just tell him to stop being angry," said my mother.

I caressed her hair, my heart aching so bad I thought it might split. My throat felt blocked—words just would not come out.

The noise caught the attention of the neighbors next door.

One neighbor came out and, seeing Caden, offered a sympathetic pat on the shoulder after a moment of shock. "Caden? You're back? Have you sorted everything out with your wife's... you know, her funeral? I'm so sorry for your loss."

Caden straightened up, confused. "What are you talking about? What funeral?"

The neighbor let out a heavy sigh. "I know it's tough, the thought of your wife being gone. But it was a disaster, out of our hands."

Caden froze for a second.

Kelly pulled at Caden's sleeve. "What's with Vanessa? If she didn't want to give blood, she could've just said so. Why tell people she's dead? That's not cool."

Caden snapped out of his daze. "Yeah, she's too tough to just kick the bucket like that. She has to be playing me."

He turned to the neighbor. "Look, if you're in touch with her, pass on a message: if she's not at the hospital in three days, I'm cutting off her mother's treatment money."

The neighbor watched Caden step into the elevator, a look of confusion on his face. "But didn't her mom die with her in that avalanche?

"People say Vanessa's got a three-month-old baby on the way. Man, that's rough."

Caden was back at the hospital with Vanessa, and they looked every bit the happy couple.

"Caden, does Vanessa despise me so much that she's hiding on purpose?

"I never should've come back, never should've thought about seeing you one last time before the end. You don't need to hang around the hospital for me. Go home and make things right with Vanessa. Once I'm gone, you two will patch things up." Kelly looked like she was about to cry as she weakly pushed Caden away from her hospital bed.

Caden gently tousled her hair.

"Silly girl, it's just anemia. You're not going to die. And even if Vanessa won't give her bone marrow, I'll do whatever it takes to find a match for you."

Kelly's eyes filled with gratitude. "Thank you, Caden. Meeting you has been the highlight of my life.

"I don't know how much time I've got left, if I can hold out for another bone marrow match. The doctor said Vanessa's marrow is a perfect match for mine, like nothing he's ever seen before."

With a voice full of resolve, Caden promised, "For you, I'll turn the world upside down to find her."

At that moment, my heart could not help but ache.

They looked so perfect together, like a scene from a painting, bringing back a flood of old memories.

Five years back, my friend set up that wild trek across a snow-capped mountain. Halfway up, we bumped into Caden, a solo traveler with a heavy heart.

It turned out he had just been dumped at the time. His first love ditched him, saying he was not cut out to give her the cushy life she wanted, and went abroad.

I felt for the guy and we ended up chatting for ages.

Eventually, we clicked—same interests, same wavelength.

It was a chance meeting, but in the rush, we forgot to exchange numbers.

I figured that was it, that I would never see him again. However, life was full of surprises. A week later, there he was at a product launch I was at.

He had landed a new gig, with a boss who thought the world of him.

In fact, his job was tied to a project my company was working on with him.

The more we saw each other, the more sparks flew.

He called me his beacon, the one who smoothed over the rough patches his ex left behind.

So, we tied the knot.

He vowed to be my rock, forever and always.

He was, at least at the start.

However, dreams and reality did not always get along.

Three years ago, he took the plunge and started his own thing. I quit my job to be his right hand.

Business being what it was, I ran into my old boss, Jett Parker.

Caden was on fire, snagging deals right from Jett's grasp.

Jett was ticked off and started aiming for our little startup.

To cool things down, I had to play peacemaker.

Jett had one condition. He pointed to a bottle and said, "Down this, and I'll back off."

We were the underdog to his giant—no contest.

Caden's dream was on the line, and I was not about to watch it crumble.

So, I downed that bottle.

The next day, I was in the ER with alcohol poisoning.

That was when they told me—I was a month pregnant.

However, because I had had too much to drink, there was a big chance the baby I had would come into the world sick.

I had no choice but to make the heartbreaking decision to let her go.

Caden was furious, and he stormed off to confront Jett.

However, he could not even get past the front gates of the company.

He made a solemn promise to me, filled with remorse, vowing to turn his life around and spoil me with a good life.

He said once he hit it big, he would never let anyone push me around again.

Sure enough, when he made it, no one else did.

The only problem was, he became the bully himself.

…

A phone call snapped me out of my reverie.

It was from a number he did not recognize. It rang and rang until Caden finally picked up, clearly annoyed.

Whatever the person on the other end said got him riled up. "Who is this? Some actor Vanessa hired? She's fine, why would I need to identify a body?"

I had a hunch about who was calling—it had to be the rescue workers who found my body.

Mom was gone, and Caden was the only family I had left, so they reached out to him.

Unfortunately, he was so wrapped up in his own misconceptions about me that he would not believe anything they told him.

Kelly watched him, worried.

He gave Kelly's shoulder a comforting pat, but his eyes kept darting back to the phone.

What was he waiting for? Hoping I would call to say I was at the hospital, ready to donate bone marrow any minute?

Sadly, that call would never come.

"Get some rest, I'll go grab you something tasty," he said.

He grabbed his phone and walked out of the room. I had no choice but to trail behind him.

I watched as he tried to call back the number that had just rung.

He dialed again and again, but it was always busy. "Hmph, just as I thought, they're trying to trick me. They won't pick up now that I've caught on.

"Vanessa, Vanessa. When will you stop this nonsense?"

I could not, for the life of me, figure out why he kept thinking I was up to something.

Did he really see me as nothing more than a troublemaker without a cause?

The phone buzzed again with a number Caden did not recognize.

He sighed and answered anyway. "A prenatal checkup? I didn't schedule any checkups.

"Is it for my wife Vanessa? You must have the wrong person. She's not even pregnant.

"Got it, you're just another actor she's hired, aren't you? What's she up to? Why does she keep playing these tricks on me?"

He stormed up and down the hallway, fuming. "Listen up, this is the last time I'm warning you. If you keep up with her silly games, I'm calling the cops!"

He ended the call and shut off his phone, not knowing he had just missed an important callback from the rescue team.