A Decade, A Signature

1
When the doctor handed the organ donation consent form to Julian Chase, his hand didn't tremble.
Mr. Chase, Ms. Archer is brain-dead. There's nothing more we can do. But her heart... it's a perfect match for Ms. Langford.
Julian's gaze fell on the name Sienna Archer printed on the form, his expression unreadable. He asked only one question. "If I sign this, what are the chances of a successful surgery for Clara?"
"Ninety-nine percent," the doctor replied.
"Good."
He picked up the pen. With two sharp, decisive strokes, he signed his name.
The black ink bled into the paper, the scratch of the nib a cold, final sound. That name, Julian Chase, was the one Sienna had written a thousand times in her diary, the one she'd whispered in her sleep, the one she'd carved into her heart for ten years.
Now, that name was on her death certificate and organ donation form.
Like a merciless god, he had sealed her fate.
I, Sienna Archer, lay in the intensive care unit next door.
My body was still warm. The machines beeped in a steady rhythm, a fragile thread holding onto the last vestiges of my life. But I knew I was already gone. My soul hovered in the air, watching Julian, the man I had loved for a decade.
Ten years.
From twenty to thirty, the brightest, most vibrant years of my life, I gave them all to him.
I learned to cook the dishes he loved, only to find out later they were the favorites of his one true love, Clara Langford.
I wore the white dresses he liked, only to learn that white was Clara's signature color.
I nursed him through his chronic stomach pains, cured his insomnia, and turned his cold, sterile apartment into a warm, inviting home.
I thought even a stone could be warmed.
But when news came that Clara's heart was failing, that she needed a transplant, I finally understood. I wasn't the fire meant to warm the stone. I was just another stepping stone.
Julian had gone mad searching for a donor for Clara. He'd exhausted every connection, thrown money at every possible solution, praying for a miracle.
And then, I had a car accident.
How convenient.
So convenient, it felt like a scene from a meticulously crafted play.
As I lay on the operating table, my consciousness fading, I saw Julian burst in. His eyes were bloodshot, his face a mask of a terror I'd never seen before, mixed with a chilling, unmistakable... elation.
He wasn't worried about me.
He was ecstatic that Clara would be saved.
My surgeon, a friend of Julian's, looked at him, his expression troubled. "Julian, are you absolutely sure? Sienna, she..."
Julian cut him off.
"I just want Clara to live."
His voice was quiet, but each word was a blade of ice, plunging into my soul.
I watched him sign the papers, handing the document that legally declared my death back to the doctor. He never once glanced in the direction of my room. He turned and walked straight to Clara's.
His back was still so straight, so handsome. For ten years, I had chased that back, and not once had he ever stopped for me.
Now, I didn't have to chase anymore.
And that was a relief.
So why did my soul still feel so cold?
Cold, as if I had fallen into a black, bottomless lake that would never freeze over.

2
The surgeries began.
Two operating rooms, at opposite ends of the same sterile corridor.
At one end, a life was being dismantled.
At the other, a life was being extended.
My soul drifted in the space between.
I watched a team of green-gowned surgeons enter my room. They nodded at the still-beeping machines, and then someone picked up a scalpel.
A long, piercing beep.
The monitor connected to my body flatlined, the jagged peaks and valleys of my life smoothing into a single, unwavering line.
Sienna Archer, age thirty, was officially dead.
A sterile cloth was draped over my face, leaving only my chest exposed. The overhead lights were blinding. The lead surgeon made a long, clean incision down the center of my sternum.
Strangely, my soul felt no pain. Perhaps my heart had already been hurt so much, it had simply gone numb.
I watched as they carefully, reverently, lifted the still-beating heart from my warm chest cavity.
It was a strong heart.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It had beaten for Julian for ten years. It beat faster whenever he came home. It threatened to burst whenever he gave me a rare smile. It would shrink into a tight, painful knot whenever he was cold to me because of Clara.
Now, it was free.
A nurse placed it in a cooler filled with ice, snapped the lid shut, and hurried out of the room, running toward the other end of the hall.
There, Clara lay on another operating table.
And Julian stood guard outside her door.
He leaned against the wall, head bowed, hands shoved in his pockets. He looked exhausted, tense. His friend, my surgeon, came out, wanting to say something.
"Julian, it's... it's over. For Sienna."
Julian just grunted, his eyes glued to the red "IN SURGERY" light above the door, as if it were the center of his universe.
"Aren't you... going to see her? One last time?" his friend asked, unable to stop himself.
Julian was silent for a long time. So long, I thought he might actually nod.
But in the end, he just shook his head, his voice raspy. "No. Let her... let her have some dignity."
Dignity?
My soul, floating in the air, began to tremble with laughter. He had subjected me to the greatest indignity imaginable, and now, in a final act of hollow charity, he was pretending to grant me a shred of it.
The cooler was carried into Clara's operating room. My heart would soon be beating in another woman's chest.
It would live on for me. It would watch for me, as Julian loved the woman he was always meant to love.
How cruel.
Not even death could grant me peace.
The red light stayed on for eight hours. Julian stood outside for eight hours, a statue of vigil.
When the light finally turned green and the surgeon emerged, smiling, to tell him, "The surgery was a complete success," the tension in Julian's face finally broke.
He slid down the wall, sinking to the floor, and covered his face with his hands. I couldn't see his expression. I could only see his shoulders, shaking.
Was he crying?
Tears of joy for Clara's new lease on life.
My soul began to fade, turning translucent at the edges.
It was for the best.
Why should I watch the man who didn't love me cry for someone else?
Goodbye, Julian.
This heart... is no longer mine.

3. He Won, But He Didn't Seem Happy
Clara was moved to a private recovery room. My heart, now hers, began to beat with a steady, powerful rhythm inside her chest. All her vitals pointed to a perfect, textbook transplant.
Julian had won.
He had traded my life for his true love's. In the silent, decade-long war between me, him, and the woman in his heart, he was the victor.
He should have been happy.
But he didn't look happy.
Clara was still unconscious, and Julian sat by her bedside, a loyal sentinel. He gently wiped her face with a damp cloth and tucked the blankets around her, his movements so tender they seemed to ache. It was a tenderness I had dreamed of for ten years but never received.
But there was no smile on his face. Only a profound weariness, an unsettling... emptiness.
His friend, the doctor, brought him a meal. "You should eat something. You haven't slept in two days."
Julian shook his head. "Not hungry."
"You saved her. Why the long face?" The doctor sighed, sinking into a nearby chair. "I know. Sienna's death... it can't be easy on you."
Julian said nothing, his gaze fixed on Clara's pale face.
"Look," the doctor continued, "Sienna's injuries were severe. Even without the transplant, she... she wouldn't have made it much longer. Don't blame yourself too much."
He was trying to comfort Julian. Even he thought Julian should feel guilty for my death.
But Julian's reply was flat, devoid of emotion. "I have nothing to blame myself for. This was the best possible outcome for her."
His words sent another chill through my soul. The best possible outcome? Becoming spare parts to save his lover was my "best outcome"?
The doctor stared at him, at a loss for words, his attempt at comfort turning into a heavier sigh. "What are your plans for... the arrangements?"
"Have her cremated. Scatter the ashes... at sea," Julian said, as if discussing the disposal of an inconvenient object.
"You're not keeping them?"
"What for?" Julian shot back, a hint of irritation in his voice. "She's dead. What's the point of keeping a pile of ashes?"
The doctor finally snapped. He stood up, his voice rising. "Julian! It's not a pile of ashes! It's Sienna! She was with you for ten years!"
"So what?" Julian stood too, his eyes blazing with bloodshot fury, his composure finally cracking. "Did I force her? It was her choice to stay with me! Now she's gone, and her heart saved Clara. Isn't that a good thing? At least her death wasn't for nothing!"
"You bastard!" The doctor's fist connected with Julian's jaw.
Julian didn't even try to dodge it. He stumbled back, hitting the wall, a trickle of blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away, his eyes growing even colder.
"Are you done? If you're done, get out. Clara needs to rest."
He had dismissed him. The doctor pointed a trembling finger at Julian, speechless with rage, and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
Silence returned to the room. Julian sat back down, picked up a cotton swab, dipped it in water, and began to gently moisten Clara's dry lips. His movements were still so gentle.
But in his eyes, I saw a wasteland.
It was the desolation of a man who had won the world, only to find it utterly meaningless. He thought he had won a war. He didn't realize he had just personally, methodically, destroyed the only world that had ever let in the light.

4. Her Funeral Had No Tears for Her
My funeral was quick and simple.
Julian didn't hold a service. He said I had no family to speak of, and few friends, so there was no need for such formalities. He took me straight to the crematorium.
The sky that day was a flat, miserable gray, a cold drizzle falling from the clouds. The crematorium was empty, save for Julian and his doctor friend, who had apparently come along out of a sense of duty.
Julian chose the cheapest urn. "It's all going into the sea anyway," he said. "The box doesn't matter."
I watched as my body was slid into the cold, black furnace. My soul couldn't feel the heat of the flames, but I felt something deep within me turn to ash. It was the last trace of Sienna Archer, the woman who had loved Julian Chase, being erased from existence.
Two hours later, a worker handed the cheap wooden box to Julian. It was so small, so light. Thirty years of life, ten years of love, all reduced to this.
Julian held the box, his face a blank mask. The rain fell harder. His friend held a black umbrella over him.
"Where to now? Straight to the coast?"
Julian shook his head. "No. I'll keep it at my place for now."
"I thought you were going to scatter them," his friend said, surprised.
"Clara's not strong enough yet. When she's better, we'll go together." His reasons always, always came back to Clara. Even my final resting place was dependent on the whims of his true love.
His friend said no more. He drove Julian back to the apartment we had shared for five years. The place I had once thought was home.
As soon as he walked in, Julian placed my urn on the shoe cabinet in the entryway, as casually as if it were a set of keys or a wet umbrella.
Then he began to walk through the apartment.
He opened the closet and looked at my clothes. So many white dresses, all chosen to mimic Clara's style. He opened the fridge. Inside were the dumplings I'd made for him, his favorite comfort food for his bad stomach. He walked out to the balcony and saw the succulents I'd been tending to, now wilting from neglect.
The apartment was saturated with me. With the presence of the living, breathing Sienna who had loved him for a decade. But now, the mistress of the house was a cold, wooden box on the shoe cabinet.
For the first time, an emotion I couldn't decipher crossed Julian's face. It wasn't sadness, or nostalgia. It was... a profound disorientation. Like someone accustomed to a constant background noise, who is suddenly plunged into a silence so absolute it becomes deafening.
He tugged at his tie, a restless energy about him, and then he began to act.
He ripped all my clothes from the closet and stuffed them into black trash bags.
He emptied the fridge of all the food I had made and threw it away.
He took my succulents, pot and all, and tossed them into the dumpster below.
He was systematically erasing every trace of "Sienna" from the apartment, as if cleaning out the belongings of a dismissed maid.
His friend couldn't watch anymore. "Julian, do you have to do this?"
"What else am I supposed to do?" Julian didn't even look up. "Clara will be discharged soon. I don't want her to come back to this, to be reminded."
He always had a reason. It was always for Clara.
The doctor exploded. "Reminded of what? Reminded of who? Sienna is dead because of you! Even if you were made of stone, you should have some semblance of a heart!"
Julian stopped. He turned to face his friend, his eyes filled with a terrifying, hollow calm.
"You're wrong," he said. "She didn't die for me. She died for Clara."
"Her death saved Clara's life. That was her purpose. Her honor."
With that, he took the last remaining item—a framed photo of me—and threw it face down into a trash bag.
In that moment, I heard the glass shatter.
And I felt my soul shatter with it.

5. Her Things, Like Her, Were Bagged and Thrown Away
Julian's purge was brutally efficient.
In less than a day, the apartment that had once been filled with the warmth of my life was transformed into a sterile, impersonal show home. My clothes, my makeup, my books, the scarf I had secretly knitted for him—everything was packed into black trash bags, piled by the door like a small mountain of refuse.
When he was done, Julian seemed to have expended all his energy. He sank onto the sofa, staring at the empty room, his eyes vacant. His friend, likely too angry to speak, silently carried the bags of "trash" downstairs.
I followed them. I watched as a garbage truck swallowed them whole, its compactor groaning as it crushed my life into a neat, disposable block. Ten years, reduced to garbage, compacted, and discarded.
Not a trace left behind.
When the doctor returned, Julian was still staring into space.
"It's all gone," his friend said, his voice hard.
Julian grunted in acknowledgment.
"There's one more thing." The doctor reached into his pocket and tossed a small object onto the coffee table.
It was a small, locked diary.

First, search for and download the MotoNovel app from Google. Then, open the app and use the code "262951" to read the entire book.