Chapter 7

The hospital room had barely settled into silence when Zoey's phone suddenly rang. She fumbled to pick it up. On the other end was an elderly but powerful voice. "Zo, it's me." Zoey froze. She remembered reading about him in her diary. Morris Pearce, Yves' grandfather, was the only member of the Pearce family who had ever treated her well. "I've heard about everything that's happened lately, Zo," he said, his voice gentle and tinged with worry. "You've been through a lot. "Since Yves married you, he has to treat you right. Don't worry, I'll stand up for you!" It was the first time since losing her memory that Zoey truly felt cared for. Her nose tingled, and she almost broke down in tears. "It's okay, Mr. Pearce Senior. I'm fine." "You always say that, but you have no idea how much it breaks my heart." Morris sighed. "You're the heiress of the Silvain family, yet after being kidnapped and going through so much, instead of treasuring you, your parents doted on the woman they adopted. "Yves, too… After everything you've done for him, he still doesn't know how to cherish you! "Even though he was hard to please and fussy, you learned every massage technique just for him. You also scoured more than a dozen cities to find that rare set of tea he liked. When he was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, you stayed by his side for three days straight without a wink of sleep. "When his mother passed away, you single-handedly took care of all the funeral arrangements. Yet, he still treated you coldly. He'll regret it one day. I promise you that!" Zoey blankly stared at the white ceiling. She didn't remember any of these things, but just hearing about them made her chest ache. "Alright, I have to go for a checkup now," Morris said at last. "Remember, if you ever need help, come to me!" Soon after the call ended, the hospital room door swung open. Yves stood in the doorway, his suit pristine, and his gaze sharp and frosty. "So, first, you fake an allergic reaction to kill yourself. Then, you run to my grandfather for help. Besides killing yourself and calling Grandpa, don't you have any other tricks to get to me?" Zoey wanted to explain herself, but when she noticed the mockery in his eyes, she decided against it. "I didn't mean to take my own life," she softly said. "I forgot I was allergic to peanuts." "You forgot you're allergic to peanuts?" he sneered. "Why don't you go all the way and say you forgot who you are too?" Zoey wordlessly looked at him. In a way, he was right—she had forgotten who she was. She'd forgotten the Zoey who'd once abandoned her pride for love, forgotten about all those painful years, and even forgotten the love that once ran deep in her bones. However, she didn't say a word. Perhaps under pressure from Morris, Yves begrudgingly stayed to care for her. However, his so-called care felt more like another form of torture. When her IV line backflowed with blood, he didn't even glance at it. When she spilled scalding water on her hand, he didn't move a muscle. Even when she was gasping for air and hit the call button in a panic, he kept talking on the phone with his assistant, Dale Rodriguez. "Did Wendy get her bandage changed? Good. Send her the best scar-removal cream." The most ridiculous thing was that even though Zoey no longer loved him, she still felt suffocated. She couldn't imagine how the old Zoey, the one who'd loved Yves deeply, had survived all those years of torment. As the leaves outside fluttered down, she suddenly thought of the final words she had penned in her diary. "If the day ever comes when I stop loving you, it must mean my heart has died." In retrospect, the woman who wrote those words had probably died a long time ago—somewhere in the middle of all those sleepless nights where she was nothing more than an afterthought.