I’d been dating Quinten Watson for ten years, and I got his favorite flower, the gardenia, tattooed on my collarbone.
He finally agreed to marry me, but he’d been keeping an 18–year–old girl behind my back.
Before the wedding, he let her have her countdown to breaking up.
He took her skydiving, skiing, and to Nevervale to see the polar lights.
What he didn’t know is that I was about to die.
I booked a flight abroad, donated all his money, and got the tattoo removed.
While he was counting down the days to our wedding, I was planning my departure.
***
The day I was diagnosed with stomach cancer, the girl Quinten was keeping outside approached me.
“I know I’m the other woman,” she started off with a terrifying sincerity.
She bit her lip, adding, “Kierra, I know you’re getting married soon, but-
“Quinten doesn’t love you anymore.
“I’ve been with him for a year. We’ve slept together seventy–eight times, fifty–three at hotels, twenty–one at my place. And four times at your house, in your bed.”
She looked at me straight. “If Quinten still loved you, he wouldn’t have slept with me.”
I found it amusing.
So I lit a cigarette, looking at her through the smoke. “What else? Go on.”
Then she pulled out her phone and showed me a video.
Judging from the angle, it was secretly filmed.
“1
In the video, she was crying in Quinten’s arms, “Even if you have to marry her for responsibility, can you not leave me?”
too dangerous.”
Quinten pushed her away, threw a bank card at her. “Find a reliable man. Dating me isn’t a good thing;
it’s
“No!”
She put her arms around his waist, saying in a coquettish tone. ”
“Can you not leave me?
“Quinten, I won’t be a burden to you; I absolutely won’t.”
Quinten paused; his gaze swept over her face.
After staring at her for a few seconds, he kissed her.
I put out my cigarette.
The girl just turned eighteen, looking pure and exuberant.
The moment I saw her, I realized how much she looked like me.
The eighteen–year–old me.
not afraid of danger.BLO
“You’re right about one thing–if Quinten still loved me, he wouldn’t have slept with you.”
I stood up, my stomach ached a bit.
leaned on the table, pretending to be okay.
“But I advise you not to fall for him. Quinten never loved you, or me.
“He only loves the Kierra in his memories.”
C
That pure, beautiful Kierra who died long ago on the way to help him rise. Chapter 1
S
