Part 1The Cheater and His Mistress

Stuck at a long red light, I opened my phone. A question on my feed asked: [Life, freedom, love, and money. How would you rank them?]

The comments were a mess. Most ranked money first. Only one stood out: “Love will always be my number one. Without love, nothing else has any meaning.” Someone mocked them, calling them a hopeless romantic. But I silently agreed. Love should come first. After all, the love Mark gave me was always perfect.

Amidst the ridicule, the original poster calmly replied: “If you were me, you would choose the same. Last year, I had acute kidney failure. He gave me one of his kidneys. And at the time, he wasn’t even my boyfriend. He was just my doctor.”

My heart stopped. Last year, Mark had also donated a kidney—to a stranger. I'd been strongly against it, but he’d soothed me, saying, “Saving lives is a doctor’s duty.”

My fingers went cold, trembling as I scrolled. The comment continued: “He only has one kidney now, but in that department… he’s still more than I can handle. Broad shoulders, narrow waist… he leaves me sore every single night.” A photo was attached: a man’s muscular back in a dimly lit bathroom, a faint bite mark on his left hip.

I had left that mark on him at eighteen, as punishment for punching my high school crush.

* * *

It wasn’t until a chorus of horns honked behind me that I snapped back to reality.

I was still twenty minutes from Mark’s hospital.

I pulled over to the side of the road and killed the engine.

I went back to the post.

The tide in the comment section had already turned.

“What? A love story this pure still exists in the 21st century? You’ve made me believe in love again.”

The original poster continued her calm narration:

“His parents divorced when he was a kid, and neither of them wanted him. Even though he’s successful now, deep down, he’s still a little boy who craves love.”

A sharp pain lanced through my heart.

“I grew up in an orphanage, so I guess we’re kindred spirits. I can’t give him anything but love, but that’s the one thing he needs most.”

“It’s enough that we can heal each other. Even if he’s already married… I don’t care. I just want to be with him, one day at a time.”

A storm of question marks erupted in the comments.

But she seemed oblivious, continuing on.

“I’m dying. I don’t have much time left. I was afraid of hurting him, I rejected him so many times. But every time I saw how broken and sad he looked, I couldn’t bear it.”

“Life is too short, and our meeting was too beautiful. I’ll take whatever time we have.”

The final post.

“Here’s a picture of us.”

I stared at the words, the screen’s brightness searing my eyes. The loading icon spun and spun, making my eyes ache.

My finger hovered over the screen, unable to tap.

The truth was a hand, squeezing the air from my lungs.

A soft thump.

I jerked back to the present. In my rearview mirror, a girl’s electric scooter was lying on its side behind my car. She was scrambling to pick it up.

She was slender and frail, dressed in a faded white sweatshirt.

As she hurried over to my car, my heart gave a strange, painful lurch.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” she said, bowing, her palms pressed against my window in a panic. “It’s my first time riding one, I couldn’t brake in time… I’m really so sorry…”

The window was fogged up.

Her face was a blur through the condensation.

But her silhouette, her eyes… a sudden, terrifying premonition washed over me.

I took a deep breath, and my thumb finally pressed down.

The moment the picture loaded, I heard my own breathing stop.

On the screen, Mark’s head was slightly bowed, his gaze so tender it could drown a person. In his arms was a girl in a white sweatshirt, her face tilted up to his, smiling.

She was identical to the girl outside my car window.

The world went silent.

The only sound was my own heartbeat, thudding so hard it hurt.

I slowly lifted my head.

Her hand was still pressed against the glass. She was still talking.

And my eyes began to burn.