I remembered that week clearly.

When Giang Nghien Chau disappeared into the disaster zone, I barely slept.

I called the hospital every day.

I contacted rescue teams.

I even traveled halfway there before the roads were closed.

Later, when he returned safely, I hugged him and cried.

He had looked uncomfortable and patted my shoulder.

“I’m fine. Don’t make such a fuss.”

Back then, I thought that was simply his personality.

Now I knew better.

He wasn’t incapable of tenderness.

He simply reserved it for someone else.

I looked at him.

“Where did you go last night?”

Giang Nghien Chau hesitated.

“An emergency came up.”

“What emergency?”

“Bai Yueguang was feeling unwell.”

There it was.

No lie.

Perhaps he believed honesty made it less cruel.

I picked up my phone and opened her Weibo post.

Fireworks.

The beach.

His smile.

I held the screen toward him.

“Was this the emergency?”

His expression stiffened.

“Lam Kim.”

“She was sick enough to need you to abandon our engagement party, but healthy enough to watch fireworks on the beach?”

He rubbed his forehead.

“She was emotionally unstable. Yesterday was the anniversary of her father’s death.”

“And yesterday was our engagement.”

Silence.

I suddenly didn’t want to argue anymore.

That frightened him more than my anger ever had.

“I’ll sleep in the guest room,” I said.

“Lam Kim.”

“I’m tired.”

He caught my wrist.

“Don’t overthink this. Yueguang and I grew up together. She’s like family.”

I looked down at his hand.

“Then go take care of your family.”

He released me.

The following morning, I submitted an application I had been postponing for months.

An international medical exchange program in Switzerland.

Two years.

My department director stared at me.

“You rejected this twice because of Dr. Giang.”

“I know.”

“And now?”

“Now I want it.”

He studied me for several seconds.

Then signed.

“Departure is next Friday.”

“That’s fine.”

I didn’t tell Giang Nghien Chau.

Instead, I began packing.

Slowly.

Quietly.

He barely noticed.

For the next four days, he returned home later and later.

Bai Yueguang needed help finding an apartment.

Bai Yueguang needed someone to accompany her for an examination.

Bai Yueguang had nightmares.

There was always a reason.

Then, three days before my flight, everything changed.

I was finishing rounds when someone screamed in the emergency department.

A man had attacked Bai Yueguang outside the hospital.

Giang Nghien Chau had been with her.

When the knife came down, he stepped in front of her.

The blade entered beneath his ribs.

He was rushed into surgery.

I stood at the end of the corridor in my white coat and watched the operating-room doors close.

Five years.

For five years, I had imagined that if something happened to him, I would lose my mind.

Instead, I felt strangely calm.

A nurse ran toward me.

“Dr. Lam! Dr. Giang was asking for you before anesthesia.”

I nodded.

“Is he stable?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s enough.”

The nurse stared at me.

“Aren’t you going to wait?”

“No.”

I still had patients.

That night, Giang Nghien Chau woke up.

I knew because he called me seven times.

I didn’t answer.

On the eighth call, he sent a message.

Where are you?

I replied:

Working.

Three dots appeared immediately.

Then:

Come see me when you’re finished.

I looked at the message for several seconds.

Before, that one sentence would have been enough to make me run across the hospital.

Instead, I typed:

Rest well.

Then I turned off my phone.

The next morning, I completed the final paperwork for Switzerland.

My flight had been moved forward.

Departure: tomorrow, 3:40 p.m.

At noon, Giang Nghien Chau’s closest friend, Zhou Ming, entered his hospital room carrying food.

According to what Zhou Ming later told me, Giang Nghien Chau was sitting against the headboard, irritated.

“Where is Lam Kim?”

Zhou Ming stopped.

“What?”

“I asked her to bring me food.”

“You asked Lam Kim?”

“Who else?”

Zhou Ming stared at him strangely.

“Hasn’t Lam Kim been sent abroad to work?”

The spoon in Giang Nghien Chau’s hand fell into the bowl.

“What did you say?”

“She leaves today, doesn’t she?”

Giang Nghien Chau’s face changed.

“Leaves where?”

“Switzerland.”

Silence.

Zhou Ming frowned.

“You didn’t know?”

Giang Nghien Chau ripped the blanket away.

The movement pulled his wound.

Blood immediately spread beneath the bandage.

Zhou Ming grabbed him.

“Are you insane?”

“When did she apply?”

“Months ago, apparently.”

“No.”

He shook his head.

“She wouldn’t leave without telling me.”

Zhou Ming looked at him.

“Didn’t you leave your own engagement party without telling her?”

That sentence finally silenced him.

But only for a second.

Then Giang Nghien Chau pulled out his IV.

He ignored the nurse shouting behind him.

Ignored the blood staining his hospital clothes.

Ignored the pain.

For once, Bai Yueguang called him.

And he rejected it.

He called me instead.

I was already at the airport.

My suitcase stood beside me.

My passport was in my hand.

When his name appeared on the screen, I watched it ring until it stopped.

Then again.

And again.

Finally, I answered.

“Lam Kim.”

His breathing was ragged.

“Where are you?”

“Airport.”

“Wait for me.”

“No.”

“Just twenty minutes.”

“My flight boards in fifteen.”

“Then don’t board.”

I smiled.

It was almost funny.

For five years, I had waited.

For his shifts to end.

For his surgeries to finish.

For him to remember birthdays.

For him to choose me over Bai Yueguang.

Now he wanted fifteen more minutes.

“I’ve waited enough.”

His breathing stopped.

“Is this because of Yueguang?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Because of you.”

Silence.

“You left our engagement party for her.”

“She needed me.”

“So did I.”

“I didn’t know—”

“You never know.”

My voice remained calm.

“You didn’t know I cried after my mother died because you were working.”

“You didn’t know I rejected Switzerland twice because I wanted to stay with you.”

“You didn’t know I had already packed half my apartment.”

“And you didn’t know I stopped loving you.”

The line became completely silent.

Then his voice came quietly.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“Lam Kim, I was wrong.”

I closed my eyes.

For years, those words were all I wanted.

Now they arrived without meaning.

Behind me, boarding began.

“I have to go.”

“Wait!”

His voice finally broke.

“I love you.”

I opened my eyes.

There were hundreds of people around me.

Suitcases rolling.

Children laughing.

Announcements echoing overhead.

And strangely, I felt free.

“No, Nghien Chau.”

I tightened my hand around the suitcase handle.

“You love the version of me that always waits for you.”

Then I ended the call.

He reached the airport twenty-three minutes later.

Too late.

Through the enormous glass windows, he could see my plane moving away from the gate.

For the first time in five years, Giang Nghien Chau was the one left behind.

Bai Yueguang came to see him after he returned to the hospital.

She cried beside his bed.

“You scared me to death.”

He looked at her for a long time.

Then asked:

“Why did you post those photographs?”

Her crying stopped.

“What?”

“The fireworks.”

She looked away.

“I was happy.”

“You knew it was my engagement night.”

Silence.

“And you knew Lam Kim would see them.”

“Nghien Chau…”

He finally understood.

Not because Bai Yueguang confessed anything.

Because for the first time, he wanted to understand.

He remembered every emergency that somehow happened when I needed him.

Every phone call.

Every coincidence.

But he also understood something worse.

Bai Yueguang had been selfish.

Yet she had never forced him to choose her.

He had done that himself.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Two years later, I returned home for an international medical conference.

I saw Giang Nghien Chau in the hospital corridor.

He had become deputy director of surgery.

He looked older.

So did I, probably.

For several seconds, we simply stared at each other.

Then he smiled faintly.

“Dr. Lam.”

“Dr. Giang.”

His eyes dropped to my hand.

There was no ring.

Hope appeared in his expression.

“Are you staying?”

“No.”

It disappeared.

“I’ve accepted a permanent position in Geneva.”

He nodded slowly.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

I walked past him.

Then he called my name.

“Lam Kim.”

I turned.

“If I had gone back to the engagement party that night…”

He stopped.

Perhaps even he realized how pointless the question was.

I smiled.

“Then maybe I would have stayed a little longer.”

His eyes reddened.

“But eventually, I still would have learned.”

“Learned what?”

I looked at the man I once believed I couldn’t live without.

“That love shouldn’t require one person to spend a lifetime proving she’s worth choosing.”

Neither of us spoke again.

I turned and continued down the corridor.

This time, Giang Nghien Chau didn’t chase me.

Perhaps that was the last kindness he could give me.

Years earlier, I had believed love meant waiting outside an operating room until the person you loved came back.

Then I spent five years waiting outside Giang Nghien Chau’s heart.

By the time he finally opened the door and asked me to enter…

I had already carried my suitcase somewhere else.