Stars In The Snow

In order to save his crush, Zach Clark bought a dismembered female torso from the black market. He personally removed the kidney from the torso for his crush’s kidney transplant. To prevent the police from chasing him down, he threw the torso into sulphuric acid to destroy the evidence. But he did not know that the torso belonged to me. Chapter 1 When my body was placed on the simple operating table, it was still warm. Not that anyone cared, of course. With a surgical knife in hand, Zach Clark slowly but meticulously cut open my chest, and then, he was puzzled. “Huh? Why is there only one kidney?” But he soon resumed what he was doing. His movements were sure and smooth. As expected of the top nephrologist in the city. Some moments later, he removed a bloody kidney from my body and placed it on a uniquely-shaped instrument. “Send it to the hospital and have the staff perform the kidney transplant for Catherine immediately.” Gale Queen, Zach’s best friend, stared at the torso on the operating table and asked, “What about the woman’s body? Even though she only had a torso left when we bought her, it still feels weird to keep her around. Should we call the police?” Zach just washed off the blood on his hands and did not even spare the torso a look. He said in his usual nonchalant tone, “Just destroy it. We don’t want any accidents happening.” Chapter 2 But Zach and Gale found something surprising when they were on their way to destroy my torso. I was pregnant. Zach even saw the burns he had adored on my stomach. Throughout the years, Zach always turned off the lights when he slept with me. It was probably because he did not want to see my disgusting face. But he should have been familiar with my body. Those burns were all marks left behind courtesy of my father, who burned me with cigarettes. Zach loved kissing those marks and said that they were like blossoming flowers. They were marks God gave me. But when he saw those familiar marks, he was only taken aback for a second before he threw me into a pool of sulphuric acid without even blinking. How strange. I knew that I was dead, but when my torso touched the sulphuric acid, I still felt excruciating pain. And when I saw Zach’s cool, unfeeling gaze, I could not help but think, ‘Zach, do you know this torso is mine? Or have you always wanted to do this?’ “Whose family does she belong to? How could they dismember her when she was pregnant?” Gale lamented behind Zach. Zach stilled for a moment before he laughed uncaringly. “If she’s sold to the black market, it means that no one will miss or care about her.” No one would miss me or care about me, huh? Those words were an apt description of the life I had no control over. And Zach, those words fully described how you felt about me too, right? Chapter 3 When he got back, Zach massaged the center of his brows because he was feeling tired. He had accomplished a major task, but for some reason, he felt uneasy. Then, as if he thought of something, he tapped on WhatsApp. His finger hovered over our chat. It still contained records of our argument. One month ago, Zach suddenly said that he was willing to marry me. Honestly, once I became an adult, we started sleeping together. Over the years, Zach never admitted that I was his girlfriend. He only ever told the others that I was his sister, much less talked about marrying me. But suddenly, he said that he was willing to marry me. In retrospect, that was one of the few moments of happiness that I had ever had, but in the next second, he said something that completely destroyed that happiness. “But on one condition: You have to donate a kidney to Catherine.” Catherine Queen was the girl whom he loved for years. I did not even know what I signed to Zach at that time, but when I was finally aware of what was going on around me, I found that I had already rejected his proposal. Zach flew into a rage, and we got into a major argument. “Stella Riverra, how could you be so selfish?! “You’re the only match for Catherine, so just trust me! I’m the best nephrologist, I won’t let anything happen to you two.” I signed to Zach that I did not want to donate my kidney. But he shoved me away in disappointment. “Stella, I’m disappointed in you. To you, you’re losing a kidney, but Catherine will be losing her life! “You’re just as disgusting as your monster of a father! You should just die!” Then, he turned away and left. No matter what I signed behind him, he never turned around to look, so he did not see what I signed. [I’m sorry, Zach. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I only have one kidney left.] Even though I felt utterly dejected because of what he had said, I still wanted to stay by his side while living and breathing until the day I died. But as I thought about it at this moment, it would not have mattered even if Zach had known about it back then. He might not even have cared. Right from the start, he hated me. Because I had a hand in his mother’s death. Chapter 4 Zach and I were neighbors, and we grew up together. I lost my mother when I was really young and lived with my alcoholic father. Meanwhile, Zach’s parents divorced, and he lived next door to me with his gentle mother. Zach’s mother loved me and would occasionally ask me whether I would become Zach’s wife. Whenever she did that, Zach would be highly against it. “Who’d want to marry a mute?!” Even so, Zach always protected me. When other people threw stones at me, ordered their dogs to bite me, or stole my stuff, he always ran over and fought against my bullies. Even if he was battered and bruised all over, he still stood in front of me as my protector. He said that he did not like me because I was mute, but he would always protect me because I was his star. Then, one year, my father got into major debt and wanted to sell me because I was useless, but Zach’s mother discovered his plot. She saved me, but my drunk father stabbed her thirteen times, and she never woke up again. I would forever remember how Zach looked at me when I woke up in the hospital. His eyes were full of despair and endless hatred. “Why didn’t you die?! I hate you! I’ll forever hate you, Stella!” In his rage, Zach slapped me. He struck me so hard that I was dizzy from the blow, and I lost my hearing in my left ear because of it. But it was also because of this slap that Zach stayed by my side. Chapter 5 Zach hated me, but he also felt guilty toward me. Both of us lost our parents that night. Since I was mute and deaf and since Zach’s mother said that I was the treasure she protected, Zach did not leave my side. Instead, he took upon himself the responsibility of being my brother and brought me up, but I knew that he still hated me. Over the years, whenever it was his mother’s death anniversary, he would get himself drunk and go alone to visit his mother. I went with him once, but in his drunken state, he kicked me away. He then grabbed my neck, and with a fearsome expression, said, “Stella, you’re not worthy of visiting my mother!” But after he became sober, he hugged me and touched the bruises on my neck while apologizing to me. “I’m sorry, Stella. I just feel… really conflicted.” I knew that. He would even cover my face when he slept with me. Honestly, I felt conflicted too. I wanted to treat him as my brother and stay by his side forever, but things did not go my way. After twenty years of being together, I still fell hopelessly in love with him, even though I knew that he would never love me. Even when he said that he would marry me, it was on the condition that I would donate my kidney to the woman he truly loved. Chapter 6 Gale started talking up a storm once they got into the car. “Are you missing your little mute lady?” Zach threw his phone away and said coldly, “No. Why would I?” “If you don’t like her, say it clearly to her. She’s mute and is really pitiful, you know?” “She’s pitiful?” Zach yanked his tie off and felt really frustrated. “What about her is pitiful? I brought her up and gave her a good life, and what did she do? She ended up becoming a selfish, ungrateful brat. I just nagged her a little, and she gave me the cold shoulder. She must think she’s a big shot now.” “No matter what, you grew up together. Even if she doesn’t love you romantically, she’ll still treat you as family. Why don’t you call her and mend things with her?” “No need.” Zach cast his phone a glance and spoke even more coldly, “I’m not putting up with her horrible temper!” Even so, after a while, Zach still picked up his phone and sent me a simple message. [I’m coming back home for dinner tomorrow night.] Look. Even when he was trying to mend things, he did it in such a self-righteous fashion. He never cared about my feelings. But he still did not know that he would never need to care about my feelings anymore. I could no longer feel any emotion from how he treated me. The sound of a message notification popped up somewhere in the car. Zach’s eyes flew wide open, as if he was weirded out by the sound. “Gale, did you hear a message notification in the car?” “Nope. We’re the only ones here, and there’s no way we’d get any message notifications at this hour. You’ve been exhausted over the past few days, and you’re probably just hearing things.”