My Deathbed Wish: His True Love

On my deathbed, my husband of ten years held my hand. He didn't pray for my soul, but for a next life where he could finally be with his true love, Bianca, free from me.

A single tear fell as I died. And then, I woke up.

I was twenty-five again, back on the day I found him after he' d been missing for five years with amnesia. Last time, I forced his memories to return. It worked, but it drove Bianca to suicide, and he spent the rest of our lives resenting me for it. His care for me as I slowly died from ALS was his penance, not his love.

My love had been his cage.

So this time, when his father called to say he was found, I didn' t rush to the hospital. I walked into his parents' office, slid my terminal ALS diagnosis across the table, and broke our engagement.

"He has a new life," I said. "I won't be his burden."

This time, I would grant his wish.

Chapter 1

Grace's POV:

Jack Day and I were supposed to have the perfect life, but we spent a lifetime steeped in resentment. He resented me for forcing his memories to return after an accident, an act he believed drove his new love, Bianca, to suicide. I resented him for shattering his promise of forever the moment he lost his memory. After ten years of a marriage as cold as a tomb, I was diagnosed with ALS. For seven years, he cared for me with a meticulousness born of guilt, not love. On my deathbed, he held my hand, his voice a ghost of the one I once loved, and whispered his final wish. He prayed for a next life, one where he and Bianca could finally be together, free from me. A single tear escaped my eye as I drew my last breath. My love had been his cage.

And then, I woke up.

The suffocating smell of antiseptic, the rhythmic beep of a heart monitor. The world swam back into focus. I was in a hospital room, sunlight streaming through the window, warming my face.

My phone buzzed on the bedside table. A message from Edwardo Day, Jack' s father.

"Grace, we found him. He' s in a small town hospital three hundred miles north. He' s safe."

My breath hitched. This was the day. The day I found Jack, five years after he' d gone missing and been presumed dead. The day my first life' s tragedy truly began.

Last time, I had sobbed with relief, my hands shaking so badly I could barely type my reply. I had rushed to that hospital, my heart a frantic drum against my ribs, ready to bring my love home.

This time, a chilling calm settled over me.

The final image from my previous life was seared into my mind: Jack' s face, etched with a mixture of grief and relief as I died, finally freeing him. His wish for a life with Bianca.

As you wish, Jack. The thought was a bitter acid in my throat. This time, I would grant it.

I didn' t reply to Mr. Day. Instead, I pressed the call button for the nurse.

"I' d like to request a full neurological workup," I said, my voice steady, betraying none of the turmoil inside me. "Specifically, I want to be screened for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis."

The nurse looked at me, confused. "ALS? Miss Daniels, you' re only twenty-five. Is there a family history?"

"Just a feeling," I said, my smile not reaching my eyes.

The tests confirmed my worst fears, the same fears that had been realized a decade later in my past life. A latent diagnosis. A ticking time bomb in my own cells.

Armed with the damning report, I walked into the Day family' s corporate headquarters. Edwardo and Henrietta Day, the couple who had been more like parents to me than my own, rushed to greet me, their faces a mixture of joy and concern.

"Grace! You heard the news! It' s a miracle!" Henrietta cried, pulling me into a hug.

"We' ll get him the best doctors, Grace. We' ll get his memory back," Edwardo added, his voice firm with resolve.

I gently extracted myself from Henrietta' s embrace. I slid a folder across the polished mahogany table. It contained two things. The first was a series of photos, grainy, taken by the private investigator I' d hired. They showed Jack, alive and well, his arm wrapped protectively around a pretty, dark-haired waitress outside a small diner. He was smiling at her with a tenderness I hadn't seen in years, not even in my memories of our life before he disappeared.

The second was my medical report.

"I' m breaking our engagement," I announced, my voice flat.

Their smiles vanished.

"Grace, what are you talking about?" Edwardo' s voice was sharp. "This is just a temporary setback. He' s had an injury. He' ll remember you."

"It doesn' t matter if he remembers me," I said, pushing the photos toward them. "He has a new life now. A new love. Look at him. He' s happy."

Henrietta' s eyes filled with tears. "But you two... since you were children..."

"And look at this," I said, tapping the medical report. "ALS. The doctors say I might have ten, maybe fifteen good years. After that..." I let the sentence hang in the air, a specter of wheelchairs and feeding tubes. "I won' t be a burden to him. I won' t do that to Jack."

This was my masterstroke, the selfless excuse that would sever me from them completely. In my first life, I had stormed into that small town, blinded by love and possession. I' d found Jack living in a tiny apartment above a garage with Bianca Bender. He didn' t recognize me, his eyes cold and distant. Bianca, clinging to his arm, had looked at me with open hostility.

I couldn't accept it. I had dragged Jack back to the city, convinced our shared history, our home, would be the key. When it wasn' t, I arranged for the most aggressive form of memory recall therapy available. It worked. His memories came rushing back, a tidal wave of a life he' d forgotten.

And in that tidal wave, Bianca was drowned.

Faced with the reality that Jack was the heir to a corporate dynasty and had a fiancée he' d loved his whole life, she had walked into the ocean.

Jack never forgave me. Our marriage was his penance. His care for me in my final years was his duty. Not his love.

Now, standing before his parents, I held back the tears that threatened to fall. I would not make the same mistake. I would not cage him again.

"We can' t just let you go, Grace," Edwardo pleaded, his composure cracking. "You' re family."

"And I always will be," I said, my voice softening. "But not as his fiancée. Not as his future wife. From now on, I' m just his sister."

I left before they could argue further. This time, I didn't drive the three hundred miles in a frantic haze. I went with a clear, painful purpose.

I found Bianca at the diner, just as the P.I.' s photos had shown. She was wiping down a table, her movements weary. When she saw me, a flicker of panic crossed her face. She knew who I was. In my first life, she had seen my picture in Jack' s wallet-the one photo he couldn' t bring himself to throw away, even with no memory of the girl in it.

"What do you want?" she asked, her chin jutting out defensively.

Jack emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on an apron. His eyes, the same deep blue I had dreamed of for five years, landed on me. There was no recognition. Only a cold, guarded curiosity. He moved to stand slightly in front of Bianca, a protective shield.

That simple movement was the final confirmation. My heart, already broken, fractured into a million more pieces.

"Bianca," I said, my voice surprisingly even. "I believe you know who I am."

Her face paled. "I... I don' t know what you' re talking about."

"There' s no need to pretend," I said gently. "I' m not here to cause trouble. In fact, I' m here to take you both home."

They stared at me, stunned into silence.

"Jack' s parents... Mr. and Mrs. Day... they know about you, Bianca. They' ve accepted your relationship. They want to meet the woman who saved their son and has made him so happy."

The lie flowed from my lips, smooth as silk.

Bianca' s eyes widened, a mixture of disbelief and dawning hope. "They... they do?"

"Yes," I smiled, a perfect, brittle smile. "The engagement is off. I have my own life to live. Jack has his. I' m just here as his sister, to bring him and the woman he loves back to his family."

Jack' s guarded expression softened slightly. He looked from me to Bianca, whose entire demeanor had changed. The defensive hostility was gone, replaced by a dizzying, frantic excitement.

"Jack, did you hear that? We can go! Together!" She threw her arms around his neck.

He looked over her shoulder at me, a hint of apology in his eyes. "I' m sorry. For... whatever happened between us before."

I remembered him saying those exact words in our previous life, after he regained his memory and the full weight of his cruelty settled upon him. Back then, they were filled with anguish. Now, they were just polite words to a stranger.

A stranger he used to promise the moon and stars to.

"There' s nothing to be sorry for," I said, my voice a whisper. "You have a new life. And I have mine."

I drove them back to the Day family estate, the sprawling mansion that was once supposed to be our home. As we pulled up the long, winding driveway, I looked at Jack in the rearview mirror. He was looking at Bianca, his gaze full of a love that was no longer mine.

To the staff, to his parents, to the world, I introduced myself with a cheerful wave.

"Don' t you all remember?" I said with a laugh that felt like swallowing glass. "Jack always promised he' d find a nice girl for his older sister. Looks like he finally delivered."

Jack, caught off guard, played along. "That' s right, sis. Hope you like her."

And with that one word, "sis," my new role was cemented. I was no longer his love, his fiancée, his destiny. I was an accessory. A footnote in the love story he was now living with another woman.

Grace's POV:

I was jolted awake by the smell of smoke, thick and acrid in the night air. Outside my window, an orange glow danced against the darkness. I threw on a robe and ran downstairs, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

In the center of the vast back lawn, a bonfire raged. And standing before it, silhouetted against the flames, was Jack.

He was tossing things into the fire. Things that were once ours.

Our high school yearbooks, opened to the pages where we' d been voted "Cutest Couple." The box of letters we' d written to each other during his first year of college. The pressed gardenia, my favorite flower, from the corsage he' d given me for our senior prom. And, my breath caught in a sob, the hand-carved wooden swing from the old oak tree, the one he' d built for my sixteenth birthday, where he first told me he loved me.

Each memory, each piece of our shared history, was being consumed by the flames, turning to ash and smoke. It was a funeral pyre for the life we were supposed to have. I felt a pain so sharp, so physical, it was as if the fire was burning through me, charring my very soul.

He turned then, and saw me. There was no malice in his eyes, just a cool, detached resolve.

"Bianca saw these in the attic," he said, his voice stripped of all emotion. "It makes her uncomfortable. She feels like she' s living in your shadow."

My shadow. I was a ghost in my own home.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing my lips into a semblance of a smile. "I understand. You' re right. We should get rid of anything that makes her feel that way."

Before he could react, I turned and walked back into the house, my steps unnaturally steady. I went to my room, the room I had occupied since I was a child, and began to pull things from my closet. The photo albums filled with pictures of us. The oversized university sweatshirt of his that I always slept in. The small, velvet box containing the delicate diamond necklace he' d given me on our fifth anniversary.

I carried the armful of my most precious treasures back outside and, without hesitating, tossed them into the heart of the inferno. The plastic on the albums melted and curled. The fabric of the sweatshirt vanished in a whoosh of flame.

I stood there, watching our past burn, the heat scorching my face while a profound, bone-deep cold settled within me. This was what it meant to let go. It was an amputation of the soul.

In the weeks that followed, the systematic erasure of my existence continued. The sound of construction became a constant backdrop to my life. The gardenia bushes Jack' s mother and I had planted along the driveway were ripped out, replaced with rows of sterile, manicured rose bushes that Bianca admired. The cozy sunroom, where Jack and I had spent countless rainy afternoons reading, was gutted. Its plush armchairs and overflowing bookshelves were replaced with sleek, modern gym equipment for Bianca.

The final blow came when they tore down the gazebo at the edge of the lake. It was where Jack had proposed to me, on a starry summer night, promising a forever that now felt like a cruel joke. In its place, they built a large, garish yoga deck.

I was standing in the redesigned garden one afternoon when Bianca found me. She sauntered over, a smug smile playing on her lips.

"Like the changes?" she asked, gesturing around the yard.

She held up her hand, deliberately catching the sunlight on a newly acquired piece of jewelry. It was a ring, a simple silver band twisted into the shape of a star jasmine vine.

My breath caught.

"Jack made it for me," she purred, twisting her hand back and forth. "He' s going to propose. Officially. He designed it himself. Isn' t it beautiful?"

It was beautiful. It was also the exact design I had sketched in a notebook years ago, a dream of a ring for a future that would never come. He must have found the old notebook and, with no memory of its origin, recreated it for her. The irony was a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.

I forced myself to meet her triumphant gaze. "It' s lovely, Bianca," I said, my voice sincere. "It suits you perfectly."

Her smile faltered, her victory soured by my calm acceptance. A flash of anger crossed her face.

"You' re lying," she snapped. "You hate it. You hate me. I know you do." She took a step closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I saw your old sketchbooks. He made my ring from your design. Does that bother you, Grace? Knowing he still has pieces of you floating around in his head?"

"What do you want, Bianca?" I asked, my patience wearing thin.

Her expression shifted, a strange, calculating look in her eyes. "I want you gone. I want every trace of you erased."

And then, in a move so sudden it took my breath away, she lunged forward. She didn't push me. Instead, she grabbed my wrist, using my own hand to shove herself backward. She stumbled, let out a piercing shriek, and tumbled dramatically into the ornamental pool, a shallow, filthy pond filled with stagnant water and algae.

As she fell, she twisted my body, causing me to lose my balance and fall hard onto the stone pathway. Sharp pain shot up my ankle, and I felt the sting of gravel digging into my palms.

"Bianca!"

Jack' s voice was a roar of pure panic. He came sprinting from the house, his face a mask of terror. Without a second' s hesitation, he vaulted into the filthy water, pulling a sputtering, coughing Bianca into his arms.

He carried her to the edge of the pool, his movements frantic. "Are you okay? Did she hurt you?"

Bianca burst into tears, clinging to him like a frightened child. "My ring," she sobbed, holding up her bare hand. "It' s gone! She... she was trying to take it from me, and it fell into the water. She pushed me, Jack!"

She buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking. "I can' t stay here anymore. She hates me. Everyone hates me. I just want to go back to my little apartment."

Jack' s head snapped up, his eyes locking onto me. The warmth and concern he' d shown Bianca vanished, replaced by a gaze so cold it felt like frostbite. "Who," he said, his voice lethally quiet, "do you think you are?"

"Jack, I didn't..." I started, scrambling to my feet, the pain in my ankle making me wince.

"Don' t lie to me," he snarled. He looked at my scraped hands, the dirt on my clothes, and then at Bianca' s tear-streaked face. His verdict was instantaneous.

He gently set Bianca down and walked towards me, his every step menacing.

"You' re jealous," he said, his voice dripping with contempt. "You can' t stand to see me happy with someone else, so you torment her. You act like a saint, but you' re a manipulative bitch."

The words hit me harder than any physical blow.

"I didn' t push her," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I wouldn' t."

"I don' t believe you," he said flatly. He gestured to the murky pool. "That ring meant everything to Bianca. You' re going to find it."

He snapped his fingers, and two of the burly estate bodyguards appeared at his side.

"Put her in," he commanded.

Before I could protest, they seized my arms. I cried out as they lifted me off the ground and, with a callous heave, threw me into the freezing, disgusting water. The shock of the cold stole my breath. I flailed, trying to get to the side, but one of the guards planted a heavy hand on my shoulder, pushing me back.

"Mr. Day' s orders, Miss Daniels," the man said, his face impassive. "You find the ring, you can get out."

And so I searched. I waded through the thick sludge at the bottom of the pool, my hands blindly groping through slime and decaying leaves. The sun set, and the garden lights flickered on, casting long, distorted shadows. The cold seeped into my bones, a deep, agonizing ache. My fingers grew numb, my movements clumsy. A familiar tremor started in my left hand, a terrifying reminder of the disease slowly claiming my body.

Hours passed. It was nearly midnight when my numb fingers finally closed around a small, hard object. The ring.

I stumbled out of the pool, shivering uncontrollably, my clothes and hair dripping with foul-smelling water. I walked on autopilot to his wing of the house and knocked on his door.

He opened it, wearing a plush robe. His hair was damp, and he looked at me with cold, impatient eyes. I held out my trembling hand, the ring sitting in my palm.

He didn't take it.

"From now on, Grace," he said, his voice a low warning, "you will stay away from Bianca. If you so much as look at her the wrong way again, I will make you regret it."

Then, he took the ring from my hand, walked to the open window, and flicked it out into the darkness of the night.

I stared at him, uncomprehending.

"Bianca decided she doesn' t like that design after all," he said coolly, turning back to me. "It reminds her of you. I' ll make her a new one."

He closed the door in my face.

I stood there, dripping and shivering in the hallway, staring at the closed door. The ring wasn' t the point. My hours of freezing torment weren' t about finding it. They were about punishing me.

He was right. I was a ghost in this house. And he was the one who was going to haunt me to my grave.

Grace's POV:

Despite their reservations, Edwardo and Henrietta threw a lavish engagement party for Jack and Bianca. The Day family estate was transformed, glittering with fairy lights and overflowing with champagne and flowers-roses, of course. Not a single gardenia was in sight.

I moved through the crowd like a phantom, acutely aware of the curious glances and hushed whispers that followed me.

"That' s Grace Daniels... they were childhood sweethearts, you know."

"I heard she was the one who found him after all those years."

"So why is he marrying that other girl? And why is Grace even here? It' s just so... sad."

I pretended not to hear, my smile fixed in place, a perfect, brittle mask. My gaze found Jack across the ballroom. He was standing with Bianca, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. She was radiant in a custom-made designer gown, a diamond necklace that must have cost a fortune sparkling at her throat. He leaned down and whispered something in her ear, and her laughter tinkled through the room. They looked like a fairy-tale couple. The prince and the girl he chose.

My heart gave a familiar, painful lurch. I turned away, heading for the relative quiet of the terrace.

Jack stepped onto the central dais, tapping a champagne flute for attention. "Friends, family," he began, his voice ringing with happiness, "I want to thank you all for coming tonight to celebrate with me and the love of my life, Bianca..."

Suddenly, the lights flickered violently and then plunged the entire ballroom into absolute darkness.

A collective gasp rippled through the crowd, followed by nervous laughter. Then came the sound of a table crashing over, a woman' s scream, and a man' s sharp curse. The atmosphere shifted from festive to panicked in a heartbeat. People were shoving, shouting. Chaos erupted.

Instinct took over. I backed away from the surging crowd, pressing myself into a corner to avoid being trampled. In the disorienting darkness, a hand clamped down on my wrist like a steel trap. Another hand, reeking of chloroform, was pressed hard over my nose and mouth.

I struggled, kicking out, but my attacker was too strong. The world began to spin, the sounds of the party dissolving into a muffled roar. My lungs burned. Just before I lost consciousness, the last thing I heard was Bianca' s terrified shriek, closer than it should have been.

I came to in a state of nauseous confusion, my head throbbing. I was slumped in the back of a moving van, the air thick with the smell of gasoline and fear. My hands were tied behind my back. Across from me, I could just make out another figure. Bianca.

Her voice, a harsh, panicked whisper, cut through the darkness. "You idiots! I told you to do it after the party, not during! You were supposed to make it look like she kidnapped me! You' ve ruined everything!"

A gruff voice replied, "Plans change, lady. We got a better offer."

"Better offer?" Bianca shrieked. "I' m not paying you the rest! Not a dime!"

My mind, still foggy, began to piece it together. Bianca had hired these men. She had planned to stage her own kidnapping and frame me. But someone else had intervened.

A sliver of light from a passing car illuminated the van' s interior for a second. In that brief flash, I saw the glint of metal. These weren't the low-level thugs Bianca would have hired. These men had guns. And the man who had spoken, the one in charge... I recognized his voice. It was Marcus Thorne, one of Jack' s most ruthless business rivals, a man Jack had nearly driven to bankruptcy last year.

This wasn' t a fake kidnapping anymore. This was real. And it wasn' t about me. It was about Jack.

The van screeched to a halt. The back doors were thrown open, and we were dragged out onto a dark, deserted pier. The salty air was cold against my skin. Thorne pulled out a phone and made a video call. A moment later, Jack' s face appeared on the screen, pale and strained.

"Thorne," Jack snarled. "Let them go. Whatever you want, I' ll give it to you."

Thorne laughed, a cruel, grating sound. He yanked Bianca forward, pressing the cold barrel of his gun to her temple. "It' s not so simple, Day. You see, I want you to feel what it' s like to lose everything. So you' re going to make a choice."

He shoved Bianca aside and grabbed me, dragging me into the frame next to her. "Your new love, or your old one? You can only save one. Who' s it going to be?"

Jack' s eyes darted between us. His professional mask was gone, replaced by raw, primal fear. When his gaze landed on the gun against Bianca' s head, a strangled sound escaped his lips.

"Don' t you dare touch her!" he roared, his voice cracking with desperation. "Take me! Just let her go!"

I closed my eyes. A single, hot tear traced a path down my cold cheek. I already knew his answer. I had always known. In his heart, there was no choice to be made.

Thorne chuckled. "Oh, I' m not going to give you the choice, Day. I' m just going to take them both."

The world dissolved into a blur of motion. I was being dragged, shoved, and then I was inside a cramped, dark space. A moment later, Bianca' s body was thrown in beside me, her warmth a strange comfort in the terrifying closeness. I realized we were inside a large glass box.

With a horrifying lurch, the box was tipped over the edge of the pier. It hit the water with a deafening splash, and the dark, icy ocean immediately began to swallow us. Heavy stones were chained to the bottom, pulling us down with terrifying speed.

Panic, cold and sharp, seized Bianca. She started screaming, beating her fists against the glass. But I was strangely calm. My mind went into survival mode. I kicked off my high heels, gripped one in my hand, and began smashing it against the top of the box with all my might.

On the third strike, the tempered glass fractured, then shattered. Shards rained down, slicing my arms and legs, but I barely felt the pain. The ocean rushed in. I took a deep breath, grabbed the now-unconscious Bianca by her dress, and pulled her through the opening.

My lungs were screaming as I kicked toward the distant, shimmering surface. I broke through with a gasp, dragging Bianca with me. I saw a large piece of wooden debris from the pier floating nearby. With the last of my strength, I shoved her onto it.

She was safe. My promise to myself was fulfilled. Jack would not lose her. He would have his happiness.

I patted her cheek gently. "Live a good life, Bianca," I whispered into the waves. "For him."

I tried to start swimming toward the shore, one hand on the floating wood, but a sudden, terrifying numbness shot down my right arm. It went completely limp, useless. The ALS. The cold, the shock, the exertion-it had triggered a major attack.

I couldn' t fight anymore. My body was a dead weight, pulling me down. I let go of the wood, my head dipping below the surface. I looked up at the moonlight filtering through the water, a beautiful, rippling silver.

This is it, then.

A strange peace settled over me. I had saved her. I had set him free. My task was done.

I closed my eyes, welcoming the encroaching darkness.

Just as my consciousness began to fade, a hand closed around my wrist, strong and sure, pulling me up from the abyss.