On the fourteenth day before my departure, Samuel came to the medical station with breakfast.

That had never happened before.

He placed a paper bag on my desk.

“Clara bought too much.”

Of course.

Even his kindness toward me needed her name attached to it.

“Thank you.”

I handed the bag to Nurse Li.

Samuel frowned.

“You don’t like it?”

“I already ate.”

He remained there.

Usually, I would have searched desperately for something to say.

This time I continued completing patient records.

Finally, he asked:

“Why didn’t you come last night?”

“I was working.”

“Nurse Li said your shift ended at eight.”

I looked up.

Samuel seemed to realize he had revealed that he’d asked about me.

“I was tired.”

He stared at me for several seconds.

Then his eyes moved toward the cardboard boxes behind my desk.

“What are those?”

“Medical supplies.”

The lie came easily.

Perhaps because soon it wouldn’t matter.

He left without another question.

Ten days remained.

Clara began volunteering.

Samuel brought her every morning.

He reminded her to eat.

Waited outside when her shift ended.

Once, when rain started unexpectedly, I watched him run back from the pier carrying an umbrella.

For Clara.

Three years earlier, I had walked home through storms after treating his injuries.

I used to believe he simply wasn’t attentive.

Now I understood that people could become extraordinarily attentive when the person mattered enough.

Oddly, realizing that no longer hurt as much.

Then, seven days before I left, Clara found the transfer document.

She entered the pharmacy holding it.

“Elena… you’re leaving?”

Samuel was behind her.

He stopped.

I took the paper.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Next week.”

Clara looked shocked.

Samuel didn’t.

His face simply became very still.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I almost laughed.

“Why would I?”

His jaw tightened.

“We’ve known each other for three years.”

“Yes.”

“Then I should know when you’re leaving.”

I looked directly at him.

“You knew I liked you for three years.”

Silence.

“You never thought I deserved an answer different from the same rejection.”

His expression changed.

“So I assumed my transfer didn’t require your approval either.”

Clara quietly stepped away.

Samuel lowered his voice.

“Is this because of me?”

“No.”

That answer seemed to hurt him.

“It used to be.”

I closed the medicine cabinet.

“Now it’s because of me.”

He left without saying goodbye.

The following days, Samuel stopped bringing Clara to work.

Instead, he began appearing at the station alone.

A scraped hand.

A headache.

A question about medicine he already knew.

Excuses.

On my final night, I found him waiting outside my quarters.

In his hand was the blue-and-white safety rope.

“I got it back.”

I looked at it.

“Keep it.”

“You made this.”

So he knew.

My heart skipped once.

Then became calm again.

“When did you find out?”

“Nurse Li told me.”

He stepped closer.

“Why did you lie?”

“Because you wouldn’t accept anything from me.”

Samuel looked down at the rope.

“I didn’t know what it meant.”

“But you gave it to Clara.”

His fingers tightened.

“She used to make these when we were children. I thought the colors would remind her of home.”

That explanation would once have saved me.

Now it arrived too late.

“Elena.”

He said my name instead of Doctor Lin.

For three years, I had dreamed of hearing it that way.

“I thought you would always be here.”

I smiled.

“That was the problem.”

His eyes reddened slightly.

“Don’t go.”

Two words.

The two words I once would have traded almost anything to hear.

“Why?”

He couldn’t answer immediately.

That was enough.

I took a step backward.

“You don’t suddenly love me because I’m leaving, Samuel.”

“I know.”

“You’re just discovering what my absence feels like.”

His face went pale.

The next morning, almost everyone from the medical station came to the pier.

Nurse Li cried.

The fishermen brought dried fruit.

Several children gave me badly drawn cards.

Samuel didn’t appear.

I told myself I wasn’t disappointed.

Then the ferry sounded its departure warning.

Someone came running down the pier.

Samuel.

He stopped several meters away, breathing hard.

For one foolish second, my old heart woke up.

Then Clara appeared behind him.

And I understood.

She handed me a small box.

“A farewell gift.”

Inside was the blue-and-white rope.

Samuel had returned it to me.

Clara smiled sadly.

“He told me it was never his to give away.”

I closed the box.

“Thank you.”

Samuel looked at me.

“Will you come back?”

“Maybe to visit.”

“And Jingbei?”

“I’ll build a life there.”

He nodded slowly.

This time he didn’t ask me to stay.

Perhaps that was the first truly kind thing he had ever done for me.

The ferry pulled away.

The island became smaller.

Samuel remained on the pier until I could no longer distinguish his face.

Six months later, Jingbei felt like home.

I joined an emergency medicine department.

I rented an apartment with enormous windows.

I made friends who knew nothing about Samuel Shen.

Then one winter morning, the hospital director entered my office.

“Elena, Maritime Rescue requested a medical specialist for a joint emergency program.”

I continued reading.

“Send someone else.”

“I would.”

He placed the application before me.

“But they specifically requested you.”

I finally looked down.

The requesting organization wasn’t Samuel’s old island team.

It was the National Maritime Emergency Center.

And beneath the request was the name of its newly appointed operations director.

Samuel Shen.

My chest tightened.

Then I noticed something else.

Attached was a personnel file.

Clara Qiao.

I frowned.

“Why is her file here?”

The director’s expression became serious.

“Because Miss Qiao submitted a formal statement concerning Samuel.”

“What statement?”

He pushed another document toward me.

I read the first paragraph.

Then the second.

And suddenly the story I had believed for three years began shifting beneath my feet.

Clara hadn’t returned to the island because she wanted Samuel back.

She had returned to warn him.

Someone inside the old rescue team had been falsifying emergency coordinates.

Samuel’s resignation hadn’t been for Clara.

He had left operational duty because he had discovered it.

And beside the final report was a date.

The night of the storm when Samuel had nearly failed to return.

My safety rope had still been tied beneath his uniform that night.

I stared at the page.

For six months, I had believed leaving the island had finally closed our story.

Then I reached the last line of Clara’s statement.

Samuel had known I was transferring before I ever told him.

And the reason he hadn’t stopped me was written in six words:

“If she stays, she becomes a target.”