Chapter 2

The monotonous electronic ticking of the monitor forcibly pulled my consciousness back from the abyss.

The stark white light of the intensive care unit stung my eyes. A heavy non-invasive ventilator mask covered my face, and high-pressure oxygen was being pumped into my lungs. Each rise and fall of my chest was accompanied by excruciating pain.

"Awake? Don't try to take a deep breath."

At my bedside, my longtime friend and cardiologist, Davis, was staring at the data on the screen, his eyes red-rimmed and dark circles under his eyes . He lowered his voice and said , "Your vital signs were extremely bad when you collapsed yesterday. If the cardiac pump hadn't been running at maximum dose to keep you alive, you wouldn't have made it through last night."

I looked at him and managed a weak smile through the mask.

Actually, not making it through was a relief. I was so tired that I didn't even have the strength to struggle anymore.

Just then, the pneumatic door to the intensive care unit was pushed open from the outside.

Sarah completely disregarded the ICU visitation policy and pushed Liam, who was in a wheelchair, into the ICU.

Hearing footsteps, I numbly turned my head away , not wanting to look at them .

Liam broke the silence first. He clutched his chest and spoke in an extremely weak voice, "Ivan, I heard you suddenly collapsed in your office yesterday. I was terrified... My heart palpitations flared up again last night, and I didn't sleep well at all. Are you feeling any better now?"

He was concerned about me in every word, but he was also emphasizing to Sarah that my "illness" had worsened his condition.

Sure enough, Sarah's beautiful brows furrowed immediately upon hearing Liam's words. She stepped forward and stood beside my bed, looking down at me.

“Ivan, it’s time to end this farce.” Sarah looked at me coldly, her tone revealing a knowing contempt. “You didn’t actually have organic failure yesterday. You just deliberately overtaxed your sympathetic nervous system and faked a shock in front of me, didn’t you?”

In her logic, as long as I'm not dead, as long as the numbers on the machine haven't completely gone down, I'm using my life as a bargaining chip to try and force her to give me back my heart.

"Do you know how much trouble your reckless emotional outburst has caused the entire department?" she rebuked sharply, her tone carrying the impatience of a superior. "Liam was supposed to have pre-operative preparations this afternoon, but because of your act of fainting, his stress levels have fluctuated wildly, multiplying the surgical risks. When did you become so selfish and despicable?"

The ward was eerily quiet.

Davis stood to the side, his fists clenched so tightly that the veins on the back of his hands bulged: "Director Sarah! You didn't even look at his echocardiogram carefully! His heart is already..."

"Davis".

I spoke weakly, interrupting my friend's desperate defense.

I didn't get angry , nor did I question her as I used to.

I simply turned my head and looked calmly through the oxygen mask filled with water vapor at the woman I had loved for seven years.

Looking into her beautiful yet arrogant eyes, I felt nothing but utter absurdity.

She seems to have long forgotten that seven years ago, I gave up a tenured position at an Ivy League university and retreated behind the scenes to become her academic ghost. Those core clinical trials and top SCI papers that made her the youngest person to sit in the director's seat, every medical statistical model, every piece of data, were all done by me, enduring the excruciating pain of heart failure, for her.

She thought she was a once-in-a-century surgical genius, and even arrogantly regarded me as a patient burden who needed to depend on her. She completely ignored the fact that it was I who, through countless days and nights of clinical simulations, had eliminated all the potential minefields of fatal complications for her in advance at the operating table.

At this moment, all resentment, grievances, and pleas died completely.

“I’m sorry, Sarah.” I heard my hoarse voice echo in the ICU, as light as a wisp of ashes about to dissipate. “I was too impulsive. I won’t interfere with Liam’s surgery anymore.”

Sarah was slightly taken aback.

She clearly didn't expect that I, who was trembling with fear in the office yesterday for a single survival spot, would compromise so quickly today.

This incongruous calm caused her eyes to flicker for a moment, but this slight surprise was quickly smoothed over by her pride.

In her view, I had finally come to terms with reality and given up my unreasonable resistance.

"It would be best if you could figure it out." She snorted coldly, looking at me as if I were a burden that had finally been tamed. "As long as you behave yourself and cooperate with conservative treatment, your vital signs will hold out until the next donor. Don't try to test my limits with these self-destructive tricks again."

She turned around and gripped Liam's wheelchair handle again.

Without even turning her head, she left behind a final, unquestionable instruction:

"Take this time to reflect on your actions. Once you've calmed down and learned to communicate like an adult, we can talk again tomorrow."

The pneumatic door slid open with a "whoosh" and then closed mercilessly.

Only after the footsteps outside the door completely disappeared did Davis slam his fist on the bed railing, his voice choked with suppressed screams: "Why did you apologize to her?! She took away your only chance to live!"

“Davis,” I weakly reached out and grabbed the cuff of his white coat, “do me a favor. Please give me that Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) form to fill out, following standard procedure.”

Davis shuddered, his eyes instantly turning bloodshot: "Ivan! What nonsense are you spouting?!"

“I’m not lying… I’m perfectly lucid.” I gasped for breath, each breath accompanied by a faint, crackling sound. “If there were any other way to survive, why would I have waited until today? I want to live too, but I’ve really reached my limit. My compensatory period collapsed last night.”

I looked at my closest friend, his eyes filled with pleading:

“I know how horrific the resuscitation will be once my heart stops beating. I don’t want my skin to be scorched by the heavy defibrillator, I don’t want all my ribs to be broken during CPR, and I certainly don’t want my trachea to be brutally cut open…”

"I don't want to die such a gruesome death. Even if it's just a last bit of mercy... let me go with dignity."

Davis's tears fell onto the back of my hand. As a doctor, he saw the light in my eyes had been completely extinguished.

“There’s one last thing, Davis.” I looked up at the stark white ceiling, my voice growing weaker and weaker.

"If I fall asleep... lock the ICU door for me. Don't let anyone in except you."

"I don't want to see her again in my last moments in this world."