Chapter 4

My body went stiff. I lifted my head and looked straight at him.

"Les, I thought you'd be on my side."

He said, "I just don't want to see you fall out with your family and turn them into enemies."

"Do you want to know what happens to me if I donate a kidney?"

He shrugged it off. "It's just doing a little less housework, staying up a little less at night, isn't it? Isn't that exactly what you want?"

I remembered how cold and final he'd been in my last life, and I slammed my chopsticks down on the table.

"It is not that simple!"

"After the donation, I won't just be unable to do heavy work or stay up late. My body will break down. I'll have chronic back pain, I'll be on medication all year round just to hold myself together, I'll get depression, and no one will be there to take care of our daughter. You—"

Before I could finish, my phone rang.

It was my nephew, Percy Fox.

I hesitated, then tapped to answer.

"Aunt Vera, are you really not going to save me?"

"I'm only twelve. I don't want to die. I want to grow up and see the world."

"Aunt Vera, please, give me a kidney. When I grow up I'll be good to you, I'll take care of you in your old age, I'll pay you back."

I looked at the phone and said nothing.

In my last life, I gave everything to save him.

After the surgery he ignored the doctor's orders, kept staying up all night gaming, kept overeating and drinking with no limits, and in the end he turned around and blamed my kidney for being bad.

I answered him with one line.

"Percy, my life is a life too. This time, I have no obligation to pay for the way you live yours."

My nephew hung up, then turned around and posted the recording to the family group chat.

The chat exploded in an instant.

The relatives came at me in waves again, every message cursing me out.

"Vera is so cold-blooded. She's beyond saving."

"Saying that kind of thing to a child. Are you trying to drive him to his death?"

"Poor Percy, stuck with an aunt like that."

My parents heard the recording and sent voice messages ripping into me.

"Your nephew is dying! What is it going to cost you to save him?! Why do you have to be this heartless!"

"Are you trying to make us drop dead from the stress?"

The next second, my brother called, saying Percy had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and was in the emergency room right now.

Our whole family rushed to the hospital. Everyone outside the emergency room was white in the face, the air so heavy it was hard to breathe.

I don't know how long it was before the doctor came out of the emergency room, looked at my brother, and told him Percy was out of immediate danger for now,

but his condition was still critical, and he needed a kidney transplant as soon as possible. There was no time left to wait.

In an instant, every eye fixed on me at once.

My brother's wife lunged first, eyes red, and clamped both hands onto my arm, her nails digging into my flesh.

"This is all you, Vera! You were too heartless to donate, you set Percy off on purpose, and now his condition's flared up and he nearly died!"

"If you'd just agreed to donate, how could he have ended up like this!"

My brother shoved a sheet of paper into my hands, his voice low and heavy.

"If anything really happens to Percy, you're a murderer, and you'll never wash it off for the rest of your life!"

"Sign this organ donation agreement right now, and we'll still treat you as family!"

My parents and the crowd of relatives closed in, pinning me against the hallway wall.

"It's because you're so stubborn and cold-blooded that you pushed Percy's condition over the edge!"

"Hurry up and sign, save him, stop putting the boy through this!"

Percy's mother pressed the agreement down flat, jammed the pen into my hand, and screamed at me to hurry.

"Sign it! You are signing this today, and you are saving my son!"

Every one of them was forcing me to sign away the rest of my life, forcing me to repeat the same ruin as my last life.

But what I said next shut every one of them up.