Chapter 2

The red light over the operating room stayed on for five hours before it went dark.

My mother sat on the bench in the hallway, her nails digging into her palms.

My father stood in the smoking area, lighting one cigarette off the last.

A nurse came by twice to remind him. He said fine, fine, fine, then turned and brought the cigarette back to his lips.

I read the room and stayed at the other end of the bench, not crowding in to add to their misery.

When the operating room doors swung open, the three of us pressed forward at once.

The lead surgeon pulled down his mask, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"His life is out of danger, but both hands are shattered. The nerve damage is severe. After amputation, he'll have to learn to live using his feet."

"Amputation? His feet?"

My mother staggered, her voice thin and drifting.

"My son just started at State General. He's supposed to be holding a scalpel for the rest of his life..."

The doctor glanced at her, his tone flat. "Save his life first. Everything else can wait."

Her legs gave out, and my father caught her.

She sagged against his shoulder, her lips trembling,

crying so hard no sound came, only a thin hiss of air in her throat.

I stood off to the side and watched it happen.

In my last life, she leaned against my father's shoulder just like this.

"Ivy just graduated. She wanted to be a doctor too, like her brother..."

That time she cried until she was dehydrated. I held out a bottle of water, and she knocked it out of my hand.

The water soaked me, the cold seeping from my chest all the way into my bones.

"Spare me the act! If you hadn't stopped your brother, how would Ivy have ended up like this?!"

Back then, the Edwards family had only found me three years earlier.

I still thought that if I were good enough, obedient enough, one day they would see me.

Later I learned some things can't be earned by being good.

When Roger was wheeled out, the anesthesia hadn't fully worn off.

His eyes were half open, his lips moving, his voice a slurred mumble.

After I went deaf in my last life, I taught myself to read lips.

Almost the instant he spoke, I knew what he was saying.

Roger was asking, "Ivy... is she okay?"

My mother lunged over, pressed her ear to his mouth, and listened a long while before she made it out.

She froze for a beat, then answered half a beat late.

"She's fine, she's fine. Don't talk. Just rest and get better."

That look of tenderness, as if every extra word out of Roger's mouth would cost him years of his life.

But from the moment I came back to the Edwards family,

in everyone's eyes,

the fewer words I said, the more years they'd get to live.

Ivy was different. Pretty face, sweet mouth.

As if all she had to do was smile a little more and it would keep them young forever.

Maybe it was hearing that Ivy was fine that finally let my brother slip into sleep.

He never once thought to ask whether his own hands could still feel anything.

Ivy was driven over by a relative.

By the time she arrived, Roger was already in the ward.

She stood at the bend in the hallway, her pink gown still smudged with dirt from where she'd fallen on the lawn.

When my mother saw her, her step hitched,

and the light in her eyes turned cold enough to chill your skin.

Ivy kept her head down, not daring to look at my mother, picking at her nails until they nearly came off.

I waved her over. "Ivy, come on. My brother's awake."

As she walked over, a few relatives in the hallway were murmuring among themselves.

"That Roger, he really loves Ivy like his own sister. Look at the state he's in, and the first thing out of his mouth was worrying about her."

"Isn't that something. Threw away his whole life to save her."

"The Edwards couple are so lucky, to have a brother and sister this close."

Their words praised how close Roger and Ivy were,

but listen a little harder and it was all barbed.

Ivy bit her lip until it bled, her eyes rimmed red, and quickened her steps.

She pushed open the ward door and walked in, and saw Roger lying there with tubes in him,

his face paler than the wall, tears dropping one after another.

"Roger..."

She threw herself to the bedside, wanting to touch his hands but not daring to, just clutching the sheet and crying.

Roger seemed to sense something. He slowly opened his eyes,

turned his head toward her with effort, and tugged the corner of his mouth, probably meaning to smile.

His voice was so hoarse it was almost gone. "Don't cry. Your makeup will run, and then you won't look nice."

My mother stood at the head of the bed, watching, her expression hard to read.

She used to eat this up.

One cry from Ivy and her heart melted; one pout and she'd give her anything.

But the one lying in that bed now wasn't Ivy.

It was her own son.