I Gave Away My Two Hearts, and He Lost Me Forever

I was born with a rare medical anomaly: I have two beating hearts. Growing up, that was the only reason my parents ever cared about me—because my older sister Naomi Blake had a congenital heart disease. They only brought me into this world to serve as a spare parts catalog to keep her alive. Then I met Noah Sullivan, and we got married. He was the one who pulled me out of the dark abyss of desperately begging for my family’s love. Chapter 1 I thought he would be different from my parents. Yet when my sister suffered a relapse, he became consumed by a single, obsessive thought: he wanted me to donate one of my hearts to her. What he didn’t know was that I only had one heart left. And my other heart was already inside him. “It’s just one of your hearts. Why do you have to be so selfish? “Weren’t you brought into this world just so your sister could live?” Noah held my wrist in a vice grip. “But I want to live, too. I’ll die without a heart!” Noah’s face stiffened for a second, but he pressed on. “You have two hearts. If you give one up, you’ll still have one left. You’ll survive! But your sister is different. Without this heart, she’s going to die.” Ignoring my frantic struggles, Noah dragged me toward the prep room. I tried to explain, completely helpless. “I only have one heart right now! You saw the report yourself, didn’t you?” Noah refused to listen. “Who knows what you did behind my back just to avoid donating? You even had the nerve to bribe the staff in the imaging department.” He genuinely believed I had bribed the technician to falsify my scan results. “That’s not true, Noah! I had a surgery when I was a child. I already donated one of my hearts!” “Enough, Sophia! All we’re asking is for you to save your sister. Why are you being so stubborn?” Noah cut me off brutally. “I’m not lying to you! My other heart is inside you!” Noah didn’t hear a word I said. He turned and walked straight into my sister’s prep room. The other medical staff in the room stood frozen in shock. Then someone scoffed. “Whispering love professions at a time like this? How disgusting.” “Your sister is fighting for her life, and here you are, dropping vile flirtations on your own brother-in-law.” Only our families knew that Noah and I were married. None of Noah’s colleagues knew who I was. Since Noah had personally handled all of Naomi’s hospital arrangements, everyone in the department assumed Naomi was his wife. And Noah had never once bothered to correct them. “Exactly. Instead of trying to save her own sister, she’s trying to seduce her brother-in-law.” “Having a heart inside someone like you is a complete waste.” Hearing the doctors’ harsh remarks, I couldn’t stop myself from blurting out the truth. “Actually, I’m the real—” Noah stepped back out of the prep room and grabbed my hand tight. “You are donating your heart today. No exceptions.” “Your sister is already in the operating room. You’re up next.” Saying that, Noah pulled out a stack of documents. “I’ve already signed the consent forms. Go straight onto the operating table.” Inside the operating room, I saw Naomi. Her frail, sickly appearance immediately earned her everyone’s sympathy. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Sullivan. Dr. Sullivan will make sure you live a long life.” Naomi didn’t refute the title when the nurse called her “Mrs. Sullivan.” Instead, she offered a weak, delicate smile. “It’s all my fault... making Sophia sacrifice so much for me.” Her voice was filled with self-reproach, but the look she gave me was pure provocation. Hearing those words, the other doctors saw Naomi as a saint—and me as a cold-blooded monster. After comforting Naomi, Noah ignored my desperate thrashing and forcefully shoved me onto the operating table. He ordered the anesthesiologist to step forward and administer the sedative immediately. A few moments later, my violent struggles slowly faded away. Noah gently brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. Chapter 2 “Don’t worry, I will make sure you survive.” Noah’s mentor had once performed a successful heart transplant, giving him the supreme confidence that he could keep me alive. “Once your sister recovers, my family will accept you, and I will stay by your side.” Noah and his colleagues began the operation with tense, orderly precision. After a long while, Noah extracted a heart from my body. Before he even had a chance to inspect it, he grabbed my heart and rushed into Naomi's operating room. My chest lay wide open, my body abandoned and alone on the operating table. The piercing, shrill shriek of the monitor jolted the remaining doctor guarding the room back to reality. “How did she die? Didn’t they say she has two hearts?” one of Noah’s colleagues asked, completely baffled. “You actually believed Dr. Sullivan when he said that as a joke?” “Good riddance. Serves her right for doing so many evil things—not only refusing to save Dr. Sullivan’s wife, but even trying to seduce him,” another colleague replied. “What do we do now?” “She’s dead. Just wait for someone to claim the body. If nobody wants it, let the morgue handle it.” With that, every doctor in the operating room left. Noah focused entirely on operating on Naomi. Although he was confident, this was his first time performing a heart transplant on a patient. Fortunately, after several hours, the surgery was successfully completed. Once it was over, Noah accompanied Naomi back to her private ward. Only after Naomi was settled did he finally remember me. Just as Noah was about to head back to the operating room to check on me, he ran into one of the colleagues who had assisted in the surgery out in the hallway. “Where is my wife?” The colleague paused, thinking for a moment before answering, “Didn’t she already come back? Don’t worry, someone’s keeping an eye on her post-op. The nurses in the department will look after your wife.” Noah didn’t catch the strange phrasing. Instead, he figured his colleague was right; with him around, the ward nurses would naturally keep a close eye on things. Satisfied, Noah returned to his office to resume work. A day later, Naomi woke up. Noah stayed right by her bedside. “Naomi, you’re finally awake.” Seeing Noah when she opened her eyes, Naomi burst into tears of overwhelming emotion. Noah stepped forward and pulled her into an embrace. “Don’t worry, the surgery went smoothly. Your heart won’t give you any more trouble from now on.” Naomi touched her chest, weeping continuously as the realization hit her that the illness which had plagued her for years was finally gone. Noah gently stroked her back to soothe her, reminding her not to experience such violent emotional swings. Seeing this, one of the department nurses teased, “Dr. Sullivan is certainly good to his wife.” Noah froze upon hearing that. Remembering that I was still in another room down the hall, he opened his mouth to clarify, “You’ve got it wrong, she isn’t—” Right on cue, Naomi clutched her chest, cutting Noah off. Left with no choice, Noah could only pat her back. “I told you not to cry. All you need to do right now is rest so you can recover.” Perhaps seeing Naomi like this suddenly jogged his memory. It struck him that he hadn’t checked on me even once since the operation. “Naomi, get some rest. I’m going to go check on Sophia.” With that, Noah started to stand up. However, Naomi suddenly grabbed his hand. “I went behind my parents’ backs to have this surgery, and I’m in the most critical stage of recovery. Without anyone here with me, I’m scared I won’t heal properly.” Seeing Naomi’s pitiful, vulnerable expression, Noah’s heart softened. He figured the doctors and nurses would surely look after me out of respect for him anyway, so his worries melted away. “Alright. I’ll stay and keep you company for a few more days.” Chapter 3 Naomi watched Noah sit back down before slowly closing her eyes, a faint, contented smile gracing her lips. Meanwhile, inside the hospital morgue, an attendant stared down at my body with a troubled frown. “It’s been two days and no one’s come to claim her. What are we supposed to do?” Another attendant was busy packing up his gear. “What are you staring at? Finish up quickly so we can get off work.” Together, the two men heaved my body into a body bag. “Looking at the state she’s in... dying such a gruesome death, she probably wasn’t a good person anyway.” “Good person, bad person—once they turn to ash, it’s all the same.” “True. Still a shame, though. She was so young.” Another two days passed. Only when Noah saw that Naomi had mostly recovered did he finally remember to come looking for me. He walked over to my recovery room, only to find it completely empty. A nurse was in the middle of changing the bedding. “Where is the patient in this bed?” The nurse looked up, recognizing him. “She checked out.” Noah’s brow furrowed in immediate irritation. She just had major surgery. Instead of resting in the hospital, where on earth did she run off to? He pulled out his phone and dialed my number, but the call refused to connect. “Fine. Have it your way,” Noah muttered, his anger flaring. “Feel free to die out there for all I care—just don’t come begging to me.” He stormed back into Naomi’s room. Noticing his foul mood, Naomi spoke up gently. “Is Sophia really angry? Is she refusing to forgive you? It’s all my fault. Let me go talk to her and explain everything right away—I don’t want the two of you having a misunderstanding because of me.” As Naomi made a move to get out of bed, Noah immediately held her back. “Why are you bothering with her? Your only priority right now is to recover properly. That way, Mom and Dad will be overjoyed when they hear the good news on the day you’re discharged.” He scoffed. “As for Sophia, she’s not going to die. She’s already been discharged.” Recalling how I had frantically begged him right before the surgery, a lingering bitterness gnawed at Noah’s chest. He simply couldn’t comprehend it: we were sisters, so why had I been so willing to watch Naomi die without lifting a finger? Comparing that to how Naomi was constantly thinking of my well-being, he found me utterly lacking in comparison. Since I wanted to play tough and insisted on leaving the hospital, he decided to let me stew in my own anger for a while. It wouldn’t be too late to fetch me when Naomi was officially discharged. Inside the doctors’ office, his colleagues were chatting and laughing among themselves. But the moment Noah stepped through the door, everyone instantly fell silent. Noah sensed the weird shift in energy. “What were you all talking about just now?” No one answered. After a long pause, one colleague stepped forward and put a friendly hand on Noah’s shoulder. “What else could we be talking about? Your deep, devoted love for your wife, of course.” Noah’s mind flashed to how I had been forced to surrender one of my hearts. In a twisted way, he took that as proof that I truly loved him deeply. Though forced into it, I had ultimately helped him and saved a human life. At that thought, he found it in his heart to forgive my sudden disappearance—though he was still furious that I was ignoring his calls. Noticing the dark cloud on his face, his colleague added, “Is your wife in a bad mood?” Noah stayed quiet. “It’s completely normal for her to be upset right after a major operation,” his colleague advised. “Be a little more understanding. Do something nice to cheer her up.” Listening to his colleague’s advice, the tension in Noah’s brow gradually smoothed out. He remembered how much I loved the small pastries from the bakery near our complex, and he decided to head home right after his shift. Carrying a box of little pastries, Noah unlocked the door and stepped into our apartment. “Honey? I bought those pastries you like.” Silence greeted him. Just as he set the pastry box down on the entryway table, his eyes landed on a document resting right on the center table—the divorce papers I had left behind a week ago. The moment I first learned he was going to force me to donate my heart, I had already made up my mind to divorce him. Noah stared at the document, his eyes widening in complete disbelief. Chapter 4 “Is this really necessary?” he thought to himself. It was just one heart. She actually had the nerve to demand a divorce over this? Noah slammed the box of pastries into the trash can with a violent swing. “If you don’t want this home, then don’t ever come back!” Just then, his phone rang. Noah glanced at the screen and saw that my father, Vincent, was calling. “Noah? Where’s Sophia been lately?” It was rare for my father to call and actually ask about me. After all, every other word out of his mouth was usually about Naomi. Noah thought about it for a moment, realizing that only my parents could goad me into showing my face. Besides, Naomi had already mostly recovered. So, he decided to tell my father about Naomi’s surgery. My parents rushed over to the hospital that very night. The moment Naomi saw our parents, her tears fell like an open faucet. After the three of them wept in a tight embrace for a while, my parents finally asked about me. “Where is your sister? She’s in the same department, yet she hasn’t even come over to visit you?” Naomi hesitated slightly. “Sophia has already been discharged.” My mother, Eleanor, held Naomi tight. “Discharged? Her health sure is robust—checking out just a few days after surgery. Isn’t she afraid of dropping dead out there?” My father immediately cut in to stop her. “What are you saying? Even though Naomi had the surgery, there’s no guarantee there won’t be complications down the road. If Sophia dies, what happens to Naomi?” Hearing this, my mother tapped her own lips repeatedly. “Don’t say that! Even if she’s going to die, she better wait until after Naomi! Don’t worry, Naomi, Mom and Dad will definitely look after you.” Warmth flooded Naomi’s heart as she listened to our parents’ words. The next day, Noah walked into the ward and was greeted by the cozy, heartwarming scene of Vincent and Eleanor surrounding Naomi’s bedside. For some reason, the sight felt strangely glaring to him—perhaps because he realized he had never seen my parents treat me that way. “Noah, you’re here! We owe you so much for saving Naomi’s heart.” My parents focused entirely on thanking Noah, without mentioning a single word about me. Noah asked my parents if they had heard anything from me, but the mere mention of my name soured their mood instantly. “Why are you bothering with her? She’s already been discharged, which means she’s perfectly fine. You should focus on caring for Naomi instead.” “Naomi has been frail since she was a child, whereas Sophia has always been as healthy as an ox.” My parents had always subtly tried to match-make Naomi and Noah, though they had never said it out loud due to Naomi’s illness. But now, everything was aligning. As long as Noah and I got divorced, he and Naomi could end up together. Before Noah could speak, a colleague walked into the room. “Dr. Sullivan is truly such a devoted husband, coming by every single day to stay by his wife’s side.” Hearing this, my parents assumed the matter was practically sealed, while Naomi couldn’t hide her shy bashfulness. Noah’s face, on the other hand, flushed with anger. “Who told you she’s my wife?” The colleague didn’t notice the sudden shift in Noah’s expression and grinned in response. “Everyone in the department knows! No need to play modest with us.” With that, he turned and hurried back to work. Vincent and Eleanor grabbed Noah’s arm. “Noah, since Sophia isn’t around anyway, letting your colleagues think Naomi is your wife means everyone will take extra good care of her.” Noticing that Naomi’s eyes were welling up with tears, Noah forced his anger down. Back in his office, before Noah could track down that colleague to set the record straight, someone informed him that his former mentor had arrived. Hearing this, Noah rushed straight to the department director’s office. The moment he saw Dr. Richard Vaughn, Noah stepped forward and pulled him into a warm hug. “Dr. Vaughn! It’s been so many years! How are you holding up?” Dr. Vaughn nodded, sizing Noah up with a proud smile. “I heard you just performed a heart transplant. The student truly surpasses the master!” Dr. Vaughn went on to reminisce about how he had performed surgery on Noah when Noah was just a young boy, never imagining that Noah would grow up to follow in his footsteps. Noah froze dead in his tracks. “Dr. Vaughn... what surgery are you talking about?”