Beyond Reach

After all, he wished for my death so much.

I might as well give him one last surprise.

"Who cares if you lose weight or not? I’d be thrilled if you starved to death!"

Zac let out a cold snort and brushed past me. He then poured a glass of warm water, placing it on the table.

"Seeing you ruins my mood. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come back!"

He seemed disgusted to be in the same room as me, leaving without even touching the water he had just poured.

I watched him grab his suit jacket and hurriedly walk out of the villa.

He treated me like an enemy, and avoided me as if I were a plague.

That was how it had been for six long years.

How had I managed to survive it?

As I stared at the rippling surface of the glass of water, I could not resist taking a small sip.

The warmth was familiar.

At that moment, my vision blurred.

Honestly, I did not even know myself anymore.

I could not figure out why, after our breakup, I kept chasing Zac like I always had.

Was it because he was a hand reaching into the swamp I was sinking in? Or someone I could confide in during difficult times?

Zac gave me one year of sweetness, and that got me through six years of bitterness.

I even wondered, if it weren’t for this sudden liver cancer, would I have eventually chosen to stop loving him?

But now that I was dying, I still wanted to keep loving him.

It was like a sweet illusion I had woven for myself.

On the road to the afterlife, at least I could proudly say that I once had the most genuine love.

……

The next time I saw Zac was at the gynecology department of the hospital.

I was accompanying my best friend, Anna York, for her prenatal checkup.

He was there with his fiancée, Evelyn.

I felt like a sewer rat, desperate to find a dark corner to hide in.

But my awkward posture made me look so pathetic that people were staring at me like I was crazy.

Some even went out of their way, taking a wide detour just to avoid me.

I did not care about the strange looks. My mind was filled with the image of Zac smiling tenderly at Evelyn.

That smile, filled with happiness, was something I had not seen on Zac’s face in a long time.

He was always cold, his voice distant.

I thought that was just how people became after starting work.

But I was wrong.

Zac was only like that with me.

I glanced up to see if he had left, and my eyes met Zac’s probing gaze.

His brows furrowed, and he quickly moved to another window.

He saw me, but he did not come over.

I had always been an awkward person.

I did not like asking for things directly, but when I had nothing, I would sulk on my own.

Even my own mom never noticed this about me, but during that one year of dating Zac, he spoiled me like a princess.

He indulged my stubbornness, giving me everything I did not have the courage to ask for.

At first, it was the dolls I had never had as a child, and later, it was dazzling dresses.

How could I ever forget the boy who once cared so much about me?

The pain started creeping in again.

When Anna finished her checkup, she saw me sitting on the bench and immediately started crying again, her heart breaking for me.

"Emma, you’ve got to hang in there. The baby still wants to call you Godmom."

I glanced enviously at her growing belly, then down at my own flat stomach with a heavy heart.

Once, there had been a life growing here too.

But it never had the chance to take root.

"Anna, don’t cry. Pregnant women shouldn’t cry."

I gently wiped the tears from her eyes. "I’ll stick around long enough to hear your baby call me Godmom."