The day Liam Blackwood won the Super Bowl and was named MVP, I was in the crowd, applauding him through my tears.

During the post-game interview, a reporter asked him:

"Mr. Blackwood, it’s been widely reported that at your lowest point, your former physical therapist—and girlfriend—left you for fame and fortune. Now that you have this championship ring, what, if anything, would you like to say to her?"

Liam’s expression hardened. Staring down the lens, his voice dripped with raw hatred:

"Elara, you said I couldn't give you the spotlight you wanted, so you left. Now, looking at my championship ring and this multi-million dollar contract, do you regret it?"

I gritted my teeth, fighting back the searing pain in my kidney, and whispered to the roaring stadium, "No regrets."

Because when I gave him my kidney, my only wish was for him to live out his dream.

————————

1

Just as my eyes met Liam’s on the giant screen, my phone vibrated. It was my doctor.

"Elara, what are you doing out? You should be in your hotel room, resting!"

"Your kidney failure is accelerating! You have a month left, at most. Even without a donor or the money for a transplant, the last thing you should be doing is running around!"

I took a shaky breath, silently wiping away the tears that blurred my vision.

Seeing Liam here, at the absolute pinnacle of his career and so vibrant, felt like my last wish had been granted.

"I'm on my way back now."

After hanging up, I started for the hotel. As I descended from the stands, a large entourage swarmed toward me, with Liam at its center.

I tried to slip past them, but a figure suddenly stepped into my path.

"Well, look who it is. Our former star physical therapist, Elara."

"What, you ditch Liam without a word, and now that he's hit the big time, you’re crawling back for a piece of the pie?"

It was Jake Miller, Liam's best friend on the team. He’d had a front-row seat to our entire relationship.

His sarcastic taunt made every head in the corridor turn in my direction.

Liam stopped in his tracks. The moment his eyes locked on me, his confident stride faltered. He stared, silent, as if he, too, was waiting for my answer.

I hid a bitter smile behind a deliberately flippant one.

"What if I said I regret backing the wrong horse? That I want to come back and be the champion's wife? Would you take me back, Liam?"

If there was one thing Liam despised, it was an opportunistic social climber.

As I expected, the words extinguished the last glimmer of warmth in his eyes, replacing it with pure disgust.

"Elara, what makes you think I would ever wait for a woman like you?"

With that, he tightened his arm around his new girlfriend's waist, tilted his chin, and looked down at me as if I were something he’d scraped off his shoe.

"Since you're here today, why don't you witness something special? It might shatter any delusions you’re clinging to about us."

Liam pulled a diamond ring from his pocket and, in the next second, dropped to one knee before Sophia Vance.

His eyes were slightly red-rimmed, but his gaze was tender, as if she were his entire world.

"Sophia, for the past four years, you walked me through my darkest times. You helped me stand up again, to face myself, to face the field. This ring might have my name on it, but it was forged from your devotion!"

"Today, I, Liam Blackwood, swear on this ring, on the glory of being a Super Bowl champion, that I want to marry you and only you! Sophia Vance, will you marry me?"

"Marry him! Marry him!"

The romantic spectacle whipped the crowd into a frenzy.

Onlookers cheered, and reporters surged forward, cameras flashing, all vying to capture this moment.

I was shoved aside by the surging bodies. From a distance, I watched Liam place the ring on Sophia's finger after she tearfully nodded, then cup her face for a deep, passionate kiss. My thoughts, however, drifted uncontrollably back four years.

It was the eve of the Super Bowl season four years ago. Liam was in peak condition, with his sights set on the championship.

He had slipped his family heirloom ring onto my hand, held me close, and promised that after winning his first championship, he would propose to me in front of the whole world, making me the happiest woman alive.

My hand had drifted to my stomach then, tears welling in my eyes.

I was already eight weeks pregnant, but not wanting to distract him, I planned to tell him after the season.

However, shortly after the season began, Liam suddenly fell ill. His performance on the field cratered, and he was quickly benched.

Team management was furious. Under immense pressure, I secretly arranged a full physical for him.

"The results are in. It's a rare case of acute kidney failure. Without a transplant, he won't live more than three months."

When the doctor delivered the news, the world tilted on its axis.

I didn’t dare tell Liam. I could only search desperately for a donor while getting myself tested for a match.

Fortunately, the results came back quickly. They found a match for Liam.

It was me.

"Elara, if you agree to the transplant, to ensure the surgery's success… I'm afraid… we can't save the pregnancy."

To save Liam’s life, on an unremarkable afternoon, I said goodbye to our baby.

Our baby was so small, gone before I ever had the chance to know if they were a boy or a girl.

There was no time for grief. A few hours later, the transplant surgery, which I had secretly arranged with his mother, Catherine, began.

The surgery was a complete success. But just as I was planning to hide it all and simply stay by Liam's side, the unexpected happened again.

On the day Liam was cleared to return to the team, his mother, Catherine, was on her way to bring him a celebratory meal when she was hit by a truck that ran a red light.

By the time she reached the hospital, she was hemorrhaging and verging on shock.

When I rushed to her side, her eyes were open but vacant.

But when she saw me, her hand shot out and clamped onto mine, her grip impossibly strong for a dying woman.

"Leave him... Elara... I'm begging you! Leave Liam..."

Confused, I shook my head, tears streaming down my face.

But Catherine craned her neck, her voice a hoarse rasp, every word a desperate plea.

"You only have one kidney… The doctor said it would be very difficult for you to get pregnant again… This secret will become a lifelong burden for him. It will shatter the focus he needs to become a legend!"

Tears streamed down her face. "I know I'm being selfish... but I'm his mother... I have to think of him, of the Blackwood family's honor...!"

"His father died young. His only wish was to see Liam lift the Super Bowl trophy. Every day you stay by his side is a risk that he’ll discover the truth. Knowing Liam, he'd throw away his career to take care of you... I absolutely refuse to watch his future be destroyed!"

She squeezed my hand tighter, her nails digging into my flesh.

"Promise me. Tell him you don't love him anymore... Let him find a better girl... someone who can give him children, a family of his own..."

Through a blur of tears, I thought of all the nights Liam and I had cuddled in our apartment, dreaming about our future.

He always joked he wanted a whole football team of kids with me, hoping they'd inherit his athletic talent, and he would personally coach them into stars.

And after every practice, he would stare at the championship posters on our wall, rehearsing how he would one day lift that trophy.

It seemed I couldn't give him any of that anymore.

My very existence had become an obstacle to his dream.

"Promise me!" Catherine rasped, using her last ounce of strength.

I closed my eyes, letting the tears fall freely.

"I promise you."

The heart monitor let out a piercing, continuous wail.

When I opened my eyes again, I was facing a sea of camera flashes.

Liam had placed the championship ring on a chain around Sophia's neck. Reporters frantically snapped photos, scrambling to interview them.

I lowered my eyes, about to slip away, when Jake, standing beside them, suddenly shouted in my direction.

"Elara, look at that dazed expression. You must be kicking yourself now that he’s marrying someone else, right?"

"Too bad you can't undo the past! A shallow, heartless woman like you who betrayed him deserves this!"

A wave of snickering rippled through the crowd. Everyone stared at me as if I were the punchline to a joke they all understood.

I forced a smile. "You're right. I brought this on myself."

"Liam, congratulations."

A sharp pain shot through my side. I fought it back and turned to leave.

"Wait."

Liam's voice, cold and laced with mockery, stopped me.

"Actually, Sophia and I are still short one special guest for our wedding. Since you're an old acquaintance, how about you fill the role?"

Sophia sauntered over and took my hand.

"That's right, Elara. You can't refuse. After all, if you hadn't left him, I never would have had the chance to stand by him and support him to this day."

"Come to think of it, we really should be thanking you."

The triumphant gleam in her eyes seared me.

When this intern couldn't find a job, it was me who begged my supervisor to take her in.

Back then, she would look at Liam and me with wide-eyed envy, always saying how she hoped to find a love as sweet as ours.

Now, she was the one by his side, wearing his ring, his fiancée.

The grinding ache in my side was a stark reminder that I probably wouldn’t even live to see their wedding day.

"Alright," I heard myself say. "I'll be there."

Back in my small apartment, I watched the IV fluid drip, drop by drop, into my arm.

The cold liquid flowing through my veins chilled me to the bone, just like that stormy night four years ago.

That day, after his mother's funeral, the vibrant, brilliant young man I loved had knelt before me.

Liam looked up, his eyes filled with disbelief.

"Why? Why are you breaking up with me now?"

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood, my nails digging into my palms to keep from breaking down.

I forced the well-rehearsed mask of disgust onto my face.

"Why else? Because I've had enough!"

"Look at yourself. No father, no mother, no family money, and you can barely even get on the field. You still dream of winning a Super Bowl?"

"The team is talking about cutting you. What future do I have with you? Why should I waste my youth on a sick man!"

The shock and hurt in Liam's eyes stabbed my heart, a bitter poison corroding me from the inside.

I had even arranged for a tabloid reporter to take staged "intimate" photos of me with his rival, ensuring he would see them.

"I don't believe you... You don't mean that..."

He was crying so hard that every word trembled.

"Elara... you're just messing with me, right? You're all I have left. Please... please don't leave me..."

The rain that night was a torrent.

Rainwater mixed with tears on my face, so cold my bones ached.

I closed my eyes and turned away.

"Elara!"

Liam's voice, thick with despair, echoed behind me.

"If you take one more step, I swear I’ll kill myself right here!"

I didn't dare stop. I didn't dare look back.

A screech of tires, then the sickening crunch of metal on metal.

Liam had been speeding through the rain and had crashed into the guardrail.

Through my sobs, I frantically called 911, begging them to save him.

But I couldn't turn back. I couldn't let it all be for nothing.

Liam was rushed to the hospital. The car accident triggered a severe organ rejection episode, and his life hung by a thread.

"The best option is an experimental therapy called plasmapheresis. But as the original donor, it will put extreme stress on your remaining kidney."

I just nodded. "Begin. Extract as much as you can. Save it for him."

Outside the treatment room, I watched the unconscious Liam through the glass, his expression pained as if he were trapped in a nightmare.

That was the last time I let myself imagine smoothing his brow, the last time I let myself imagine holding his hands.

*Just live. Please. Get your dream, live the life you want. If you hate me forever... it’s worth it.*