I Paid for Her Life Until Mine Ran Out

For the 5,475th time, my childhood sweetheart threw me into the river to choke on the water, and I stopped fighting it.

He sent his men to fish me out, then slapped me across the face.

You think playing dead will help?

You love faking depression and jumping in the river so much. So jump. Jump until you've had your fill.

My parents stood off to the side without a word, as cold as strangers.

A tearing pain ripped through my lungs. I knelt at the bank, shaking all over, and my mother's voice came colder than the river itself.

"Angela Fox died saving you. This is what you owe her."

I kept my head down, gripping the water-wrinkled cancer test result in my pocket.

I'd wanted to tell them the life I owed her would be paid back very soon.

But I never imagined that the moment I got home, I'd be greeted by the sister who was supposed to have been dead for years.

Seeing how bloodless my face was put her in a wonderful mood.

"Oh dear, didn't they tell you?"

"Isaac Rodriguez and I got our marriage license two years ago, you know~"

"So, how about it? Is your depression all better now? Have you finally learned your lesson?"

Five years ago, driven into depression by my favoritism-blind parents, I stood on the bridge with nothing left inside me and jumped.

My sister jumped in to save me, and the icy river swallowed her.

Every day since, I've been forced to fall from that bridge, choking on the water 5,475 times, repenting to my dead sister.

But now that I knew the truth, an odd lightness settled over me.

At last, I owed them nothing.

...

"So? Choking on that water every day doesn't feel too good, does it?"

She smiled and stepped closer, and I could smell the perfume on her, the exact same scent that used to linger on Isaac.

I ignored her and turned to leave, but Angela grabbed me and held on.

"Want to know why everyone thinks your depression was fake?"

"Because I tampered with your test reports a long time ago."

I stared at her, unable to believe it.

"What did you say...?"

"Why would you do that!"

A piercing pain shot through my hand as she dug her fingers in, her long pink nails almost sinking into my flesh, drawing thin threads of blood.

The smile on her face was one of absolute certainty. "Because Isaac can only ever be mine."

The pain made me shake her off, and Angela used the motion to fling herself hard to the floor.

"Ah!!"

The three of them, just rushing back in, caught the scene at exactly that moment.

"What are you doing?!"

A huge force slammed into me out of nowhere, and my back crashed into the jutting corner of the table. The pain sent cold sweat pouring off me.

"It's her first day back, and already you're bullying Angela like this."

Isaac gently lifted Angela to her feet, his face full of aching tenderness.

When he saw the faint scrape on the girl's knee, he whipped around and roared at me.

"Eugenia Fox, is this how you treat the person who saved your life!"

Angela's face was streaked with tears, her voice small and frightened.

"I know I lied to my sister, but I really did miss all of you."

"If she doesn't want me here, then maybe I should just go back..."

"I told you we never should have let Angela come home."

My mother stood to the side, looking at me like I was her enemy.

"So she wouldn't have to put up with a certain ungrateful wretch!"

In their eyes, I had never been anything but an ungrateful wretch.

To keep from disappointing my parents, I'd tried to live as her copy. Even when I was forced into a major I hated, forced to cut off the long hair I loved, I never complained.

But now, all the guilt and repentance I'd carried for Angela these past five years felt like a joke.

"If that's how it is, then why did you lie to me?"

Hearing my question, my father answered flatly.

"Just to teach you a lesson."

"Faking an illness for sympathy was bad enough, but you nearly got your sister killed."

"Someone like you needs to choke on a little water and suffer a bit before you'll straighten out that rotten attitude of yours!"

Right. Just a little water.

My lung disease was exactly what grew, day after day, out of all that choking, slowly turning cancerous.

All because they wanted to teach me a lesson, they locked me in a cage of guilt, flaying my conscience one cut at a time.

Only if I spent my whole life living in guilt would they be satisfied.

"I won't hold against you how badly you treated Angela before. But she's back now, and I want you to get along with her."

Isaac's eyes fixed hard on me.

"What just happened, I don't want to see it again."

"Apologize to Angela."

I didn't answer him. Instead I asked my own question.

"So all those times you were absent from the moments that mattered to me, you were overseas with Angela the whole time, weren't you?"

Birthdays, our dating anniversaries, my graduation, the graduation trip, even our engagement banquet...

I still remembered that night, when he was drunk, how Angela's name slipped out of his mouth right in front of me.

The man was silent for a moment, then said in a hard voice,

"Don't change the subject."

He didn't deny it. So that was my answer.

Everyone expected me to make a scene, but instead I lowered my head and said,

"I'm sorry."

This family there was nothing left here for me to hold on to.

It's all right, sis.

Angela stepped forward and took my hand with easy affection, for all the world like a devoted sister:

Now that I'm back, I've already let go of what happened all those years ago. I don't blame you for it.

She turned to our parents and said:

Mom, Dad, please stop punishing her.

No matter what, Eugenia is my sister. Saving her back then was the right thing to do.

Hearing this, Isaac hurried to explain:

Angela nearly died saving you back then. As your fiance, taking care of your sister is only right.

He said in a low, firm voice:

There's no reason to keep dredging this up.

Such a noble, righteous tone.

Somehow, I had become the one making an unreasonable scene.

My Angela is just that kindhearted.

Mom pulled her into her arms and held her there, refusing to let go for the longest time.

I had no patience left for watching the three of them play out their cozy little family scene, so I turned and went back to my room.

In all these years at home, my parents had never given me a single dollar.

The hundred thousand dollars in my cabinet was every cent I'd scraped together, working part-time while going to school, going without to save what I could.

I dug out my ID, ready to take that hundred thousand and leave this place.

But I searched the entire room, and the hundred thousand had simply vanished into thin air.

My breathing turned ragged, and almost in the same instant, I knew exactly who the culprit was.

I rushed out of my room, just in time to see Mom fastening that necklace around Angela's neck.

Sis, look at the new necklace Mom gave me. Isn't it pretty?

She glowed with delight:

It's nothing next to the jewelry Isaac gives me, of course, but it's Mom's heart in it, so I love it~

Where's my hundred thousand?

I stared my mother down:

You took the hundred thousand I worked so hard to save and bought Angela a necklace with it?

Panic flickered across her face for an instant, then she smoothed it right back over:

Your sister hasn't been home in ages. What's wrong with an older sister buying her a welcome-home gift?

Besides, Angela saved your life. What's a hundred-thousand-dollar necklace next to that?

You owe her your very life!

I didn't waste another word on her. I pulled out my phone, ready to call the police:

Taking something without asking is stealing.

Give it back, or I'm calling the police.

Angela burst into tears and moved to take the necklace off:

I'm sorry, sis. I didn't know it was your money...

I don't deserve your gift. I don't even deserve to come back. I'm sorry...

Isaac reached out to stop her, then turned on me sharply:

It's only a hundred thousand. What are you nickel-and-diming over?

Eugenia, you owed this to Angela in the first place.

If you keep making a scene, I'll cancel next month's wedding!

The old me would have cried and begged him. But now I only found it laughable:

Then cancel it. Do whatever you want.

You two already registered your marriage anyway. Does it even matter whether this wedding happens?

At the mention of the marriage certificate, the color drained slightly from Angela's face:

I'm sorry, sis.

I just felt so insecure while I was overseas, and I kept begging Isaac to register with me...

Don't blame him. I was the one being selfish.

If it really bothers you, sis, then I'll go divorce Isaac tomorrow...

With that, she turned as if to go handle the paperwork, only for Isaac to pull her back:

You've only just come home. What's the rush about a divorce?

Eugenia, your sister still hasn't gotten out from under the shadow of the past. She's emotionally fragile. So to keep things fair, you get the wedding and she keeps the marriage certificate. Half for each of you. All right?

Once Angela's back on her feet emotionally, we'll register our marriage.

How was that fair?

Ever since Angela was born, I'd never heard that word again.

Coming out of Isaac's mouth now, it was almost funny.

Sure. Fine. You decide.

Whoever he married from here on out had nothing to do with me anymore.

Dinner rolled around soon enough.

Mom and Dad cooked themselves, laying out a whole spread of dishes for Angela.

I looked at the table crowded with spicy food, and my lungs ached as if the peppers were scorching them from the inside.

"All right, you've been chatting with him all day. Go wash up and eat."

Angela's cheeks flushed pink.

"Mom~ you're teasing me again!"

I stared at my chat window, forever a wall of green. Something bitter welled up in me.

In every conversation between Isaac and me, the last message was always the one I'd sent.

He almost never replied.

At the table, my parents fussed over Angela, asking after her every comfort, ignoring me entirely beside them.

The truth was, days like this were no different from the ones when Angela wasn't around.

I'd gotten used to it.

"Angela, we kept your room for you all this time. Nothing in it has changed."

Angela lifted a blissful smile and nuzzled against Mom.

"Thank you, Mom!"

Ever since the accident with Angela years ago, my room had been moved out of the one beside hers and into the guest room.

"If it weren't for saving you, Angela never would have died."

"How do you have the nerve to live right next to Angela!"

Over all these years, my already partial parents had turned their grief over Angela's death into pure hatred for me.

That hatred was so real that I'd actually believed Angela had truly died.

I never expected the one to die first would be me.

"Cough, cough..."

I really couldn't stand the reek of spice filling the table, and I couldn't help covering my mouth and coughing a few times.

The whole family turned to me in disgust.

"You ill-mannered thing, can't you see everyone's eating? What kind of behavior is coughing like that?"

"If you have to cough, get out and cough!"

Fine by me. I'd been wanting to leave for a long time.

Every cough tore through my lungs like something ripping apart. I fought back the tears, and it was a good while before I steadied myself.

I looked down. The sink was full of blood.

The whole night, I ate nothing.

That was how it went, coughing all the way to daybreak.

The next day, I went out alone to see a doctor, but while I was waiting for a car, I happened to run into Isaac.

"Why do you look so awful?"

He asked me as he opened the car door.

"Get in. I'll take you."

"Where are you going?"

I leaned against the window, my gaze drifting to the "Angela's Seat" sticker on the passenger side.

"To the city hospital."

He frowned.

"What illness are you faking this time?"

"Last time it was depression. What is it now?"

I was just about to say I had lung cancer when a special, extra-attentive ringtone came through, and he cut me off.

"I'll be right there."

He hung up, pulled over to the roadside, and said coldly,

"The hospital isn't far from here. I won't go with you."

"I've got no interest in what illness you're faking anyway. Grab a cab yourself."

In a hundred-degree heat, he left me on the roadside just like that.

I didn't make a scene. I opened the door and got out.

I stood under the sun for a long time before I finally flagged down a car.

"Miss Fox, your condition is very serious. It can't be put off any longer."

In the doctor's office, I asked softly,

"How much longer do I have?"

"Without treatment, six months at most."

That was enough.

My soul was already past bearing it. This was, if anything, a release.

The moment I stepped out of the hospital, I opened my messages and came across Angela's latest post.

In the photo, she was ringed by a huge pile of gifts, the girl in a princess dress leaning against a man's shoulder, her expression bashful.

The caption underneath read:

"My very own little puppy who comes running whenever I call~"

From my alt account, I quietly gave them a like.

Back home, Angela came bounding up with a wedding dress in her arms, grinning.

"Sis! This is for you~"

"Isaac and I bought it for you at the couture bridal shop. We both thought it would suit you perfectly."

"Do you like it?"

Isaac held out a bouquet of roses to me as well.

"When the day comes, you can use these for your bridal bouquet."

I took none of it.

"No need."

"I don't intend to go through with this wedding."

"Also" I pretended not to see the word "complimentary" tagged beside the bouquet, and my voice came out cold and hard, "Isaac, we've been together five years. You can't even remember that I'm allergic to rose pollen?"

He was quiet for a moment, then pointed at the dress.

"Eugenia, whatever's going on between us, this is still Angela's way of showing she cares. How can you be so cold?"

"She thought of you even when she was out shopping. Are you really that ungrateful?"

My parents looked at me like they wanted me dead.

"Angela's just too kind-hearted, always picking out things for an ungrateful wretch like this!"

I ignored my father and asked calmly,

"Isaac, who is it you actually want to marry?"

The size and style of that wedding gown clearly weren't meant for me.

He hesitated.

Angela shrank behind him, timid.

"Isaac, maybe, maybe we should just forget it..."

"Genie, I won't hide it from you. Angela says she never plans to marry in her whole life, but she wants to know what it feels like to be a bride, just once."

He kept Angela tucked behind him, as if he expected me to snap at any second.

"So as her older sister, could you, for the sake of the time Angela saved your life, give the first wedding to your little sister?"

"Don't worry, I'll put together a grander, more spectacular one for you later on..."

"Fine."

I turned and went up the stairs without looking back.

"Do whatever you want."

His voice came from behind me, startled and unsure.

"You're not angry?"

I smiled. "Aren't the two of you always telling me to be the bigger person?"

Silence behind me.

The old me might have broken down and demanded answers. But now, I truly didn't care.

In the middle of the night, I was hunched over the bathroom sink again, coughing until I had nothing left.

Expressionless, I rinsed the blood down the drain, when I heard a knock at the door.

I opened it and found Isaac standing there.

He held out a bottle of cough syrup, brows drawn together.

"I know you're coughing this loudly on purpose, so I'll pay attention to you."

"But you're too loud. Angela's a light sleeper. She won't be able to fall asleep."

I took the medicine from him. All I felt was that metallic sweetness rising in my throat, and a bitterness that spread through my chest.

Since when was this the kind of illness a bottle of cough syrup could cure?

Not that Isaac would care what the truth was.

The only one he cared about was Angela.

I shut the door, and by the dim yellow light I made out the words on the label. Without a moment's hesitation, I dropped it in the trash.

This medicine had expired a long time ago.

With the last of my money, I bought a plane ticket for the day after next.

Where I was going didn't matter.

As far as I could get, that's how far I would go.

I didn't sleep well that night.

Half-conscious, I heard someone shouting outside.

"Fire! There's a fire!"

By the time I was fully awake, the flames had already climbed the stairs to the third floor.

A deep grief welled up inside me.

In that moment, I even thought about simply dying there in the sea of fire.

But I still used every last bit of strength I had and threw myself out the window.

Ignoring the injuries all over my body, I followed a firefighter out and saw Angela trembling in our parents' arms, and Isaac, who was about to go looking for me.

When he saw me come out, he couldn't hide the joy in his eyes.

"Genie!"

He rushed up to me and looked me over, front and back.

"I was just about to go find you."

Seeing my blank face, he assumed I was too frightened to speak, and he didn't get upset.

"Are you okay? The fire started so suddenly, I figured I'd get Angela downstairs first, then come back for you..."

"Mm. I know."

When my parents saw that I wasn't shouting or making a scene, a flicker of relief finally crossed their faces.

"Eugenia, you're finally acting like an older sister should."

"Angela isn't like you. She's frail, she's timid. It was only right that we saved her first."

I looked at the pet dog wagging its tail off to the side, and my heart was already still, without a ripple.

The dog's safety ranked above mine too. Of course it did.

My mother fished twenty dollars out of her pocket and pressed it into my hand, her tone one of charity.

"This twenty is a reward for being sensible. Go and spend it."

Then she turned and cooed at Angela.

"Angela was so brave and so good. That two-hundred-thousand-dollar dress you had your eye on? Mommy will buy it for you tomorrow."

Angela nuzzled into our mother's arms.

"Mommy, you're the best..."

After the fire, Angela suggested that while the house was being renovated, we all go abroad to unwind.

Just as I expected, the three of them set off early and left me behind, alone, in the wrecked shell of our home.

"Oh, sis, I forgot to remind you."

"Mommy forgot to book your ticket. If you still want to come, just wait around for the next flight yourself."

I didn't follow after them.

Instead, I blocked and deleted every single one of them, and boarded my own flight.

...

At that same moment, Isaac was in his car, head down, searching for something, when he unexpectedly found a test report under the seat.

The instant he opened it, the man froze where he sat.