Chapter 4
Pamela turned to see Scott glaring at her with stormy eyes.
Her heart clenched. After a heavy silence, she whispered, “Because I’ll be gone soon.”
The air stilled.
To her surprise, her raw honesty drew a scornful laugh from him. “If I recall, you’ve said that since kindergarten. Aren’t you tired of repeating it?”
Pamela’s face paled, but no rebuttal came.
Countless childhood surgeries had taught her the meaning of death far earlier than her peers.
When they met in kindergarten, he’d invited her to play on the slide.
She refused: “It might kill me.”
Five-year-old Scott didn’t understand death but sensed its gravity.
He shoved all his candy at her. “I won’t play! Don’t die!
I’ll be your immortal knight-just stay alive, okay?”
Now, seventeen-year-old Pamela heard her once-knight snarl:
“Pamela, if you must die, do it far away. Don’t even haunt my father in the afterlife!”
He strode off without a backward glance.
Wind rustled the trees.
That summer breeze carried a chilling bite, piercing straight through Pamela’s heart.
She pressed a hand to her chest, standing frozen for eternity.
Only when her mother’s necklace drew blood from her palm did she swallow the bitterness. “Understood.”
She’d remember to avoid George Brown after death.
Kim White from the next class approached Scott. “Where are you going this summer, Victor?”
Amidst classmates’ teasing,
Scott answered flatly, “Capital City.”
Kim pressed, “Why?”
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His gaze drifted forward. “To find a doctor for my mother.”
Silence fell instantly.
Pamela’s grip tightened on her pen, her heart throbbing.
She remembered fifteen-year-old Scott declaring: “I’ll study medicine to fix your fragile heart!”
Back then, she’d just emerged from surgery-
the first time he’d witnessed her being wheeled into an operating room.
The fearless boy had reportedly wept before the Moon God all night.
Kim giggled. “Then I’ll visit Capital City too.”
The mood lightened again.
Scott didn’t object to Kim’s blushing suggestion.
Each word stabbed Pamela’s heart.
No one knew she alone had no summer plans.
Pamela’s health deteriorated rapidly afterward.
After yet another emergency resuscitation, she told Anna: “Withdraw me from school. I won’t take the College En- trance Exams.”
She couldn’t bear distracting Scott’s studies.
Anna wiped tears, eyes red-rimmed. “Anything you wish, darling.”
The withdrawal was processed that day.
Pamela moved into the hospice ward.
On her third day there, Scott’s unexpected call shattered the silence.
Pamela’s fingers trembled as the familiar number danced across her screen, nearly making her doubt her own senses.
She pressed answer, greeted by a young man’s icy tone demanding:
“Why would you abandon the College Entrance Exams, Pamela?”
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