My Husband Took My Heart to Save His First Love. At Their Engagement Party, He Cried Over My Photo.

Title: My Husband Took My Heart to Save His First Love. At Their Engagement Party, He Cried Over My Photo. After my death, my husband personally performed the autopsy on my body. He took my faintly beating heart and gave it to his childhood sweetheart, Sophia Reed. The five-month-old baby I was carrying was removed and cremated without hesitation. It was then I realized: I was nothing more than a temporary vessel for a heart he had always intended to give Sophia. But three months later, on the day of their engagement, I saw him hiding in the dressing room, crying his eyes out over my picture. The cold blade of the scalpel sliced through my pale skin. I hovered above, watching everything unfold. As a ghost, I couldn’t feel pain anymore. Yet, when Steven Anderson opened my chest cavity, my soul trembled violently. The tiny, blood-covered baby lay curled up, lifeless. That was the child I had fought so hard to conceive after my miscarriage. Steven had wanted a child so badly. I thought he might at least feel a flicker of grief. But when he saw the baby, he turned his face away, uninterested. Instead, his trembling hands eagerly cut into my chest, extracting my warm, beating heart. His excitement was palpable—his shoulders shook as he worked, so much so that he accidentally knocked over a glass container on the surgical table. The sharp crash echoed through the room, shattering the sterile silence. A nurse assistant rushed in after hearing the sound. “Dr. Anderson, is everything okay?” she asked nervously. I lowered my gaze to the operating table, staring at my own mangled, unrecognizable face. It brought back the memory of the accident—glass shards from the shattered windshield piercing my eye socket, the deformed car crushing half of my skull. I had worked so hard to carry this child, hoping it would bring Steven and me closer. In the end, it cost the baby its life. “Prepare the heart for transport,” Steven instructed, his voice steady and emotionless. “Get it into the preservation container and take it to OR 3 immediately. Sophia Reed in Room 315 is ready for surgery.” He removed his bloodstained gloves, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses with his usual detached composure. “I’ll perform the surgery myself. Make sure every nurse and assistant is on standby—I won’t tolerate even the slightest mistake.” He was so… in love. Sophia Reed, his childhood sweetheart with congenital heart disease, had been rushed to the hospital three days earlier when her heart began to fail. And five days ago, I had been in a car accident. The engine had been tampered with. I remembered the thick black smoke pouring from the hood, far too dark to be normal. I knew it was Sophia who had orchestrated it. She hated me more than anyone else in the world. She needed my heart to survive. And she wanted Steven to be hers forever. “What about your wife’s body?” the nurse asked hesitantly, glancing at the lifeless baby still cradled in my abdomen. “There are no other family members to claim her remains,” she added. “According to protocol, the body can’t stay in the morgue for more than a week.” Steven adjusted his glasses, his expression unreadable as always. “Call Lila Harper,” he said. “She was her closest friend from the orphanage.” I didn’t understand. I didn’t know why. My lifeless body lay exposed, chest cavity wide open, utterly vulnerable. Steven didn’t even think to hold me one last time. I was always afraid of the cold. I was always afraid of pain. Now, even as a disconnected soul, I felt a searing, tearing ache when I looked down at the gaping hole where my heart used to be. The nurse sighed and shook her head, zipping up the body bag to preserve the last shred of dignity I had left. She pushed my body into the cold, dark drawer of the morgue. The darkness I had always feared swallowed me whole. Steven didn’t look back. He was already rushing to save Sophia, the love of his life, with the heart he had stolen from me. I wanted to ask him: In our three years of marriage, was there ever a moment when you loved me? If you knew Sophia had been behind the accident that killed me and our baby, would you feel even a flicker of anger? Would you shed even a single tear for me? But his right hand—the one that once wore a wedding band—no longer bore any mark of commitment. He had taken off his ring within an hour of my death. He couldn’t wait to rid himself of the burden I had become. I couldn’t find the words. I realized then that even a soul could cry. Transparent tears fell from me, vanishing into the air before they could touch the bloodied operating table. Steven Anderson never loved me. I had known that all along.

My husband never loved me.Our three-year marriage was something I shamelessly begged for. In a way, I have Sophia Reed to thank for that. Her congenital heart disease meant she could never bear children for the Anderson family, giving me the perfect opportunity to swoop in. I still remember the first time I met Steven Anderson. It was at a shopping mall. I had been so busy with work that I skipped meals, and the low blood sugar hit me hard. Just as I was about to collapse at the edge of an escalator, a pair of hands pulled me back in time. He was wearing a crisp white shirt, the faint scent of rubbing alcohol lingering on his sleeves. Even his hair was neatly combed. “I’m a doctor. Let me help you,” he said, his deep eyes framed by gold-rimmed glasses. Later, I ran into him again at a late-night diner. He was drinking heavily while picking at a bowl of ramen. The owner looked worried—it was almost closing time, but Steven’s table was crowded with empty sake bottles. His neck was flushed from the alcohol, his glasses lying forgotten on the table. His lashes trembled under the dim, flickering light. “I know him,” I lied to the owner. “I’ll make sure he gets home.” In truth, I didn’t even know where Steven lived. I ended up dragging his drunken body into a cab and taking him back to my apartment. That night, one thing led to another. When I woke up the next morning, Steven was gone. The sheets were neatly made, as if nothing had happened. Only the marks on my skin served as evidence of what had taken place. Later, I found $5,000 transferred to my bank account with a note: “Sorry. Consider this compensation. If this feels inappropriate, I’m open to discussing further reparations.” I didn’t touch the money, nor did I reach out to him. But soon after, I found out I was pregnant. When I told Steven, his face turned ice-cold. Without a word, he furrowed his brow and prepared to take me to the clinic to terminate the pregnancy. But his father, Mr. Anderson, intervened. Their argument erupted in the hospital office. “This is the bloodline of the Anderson family. It must be kept, no matter what!” Mr. Anderson shouted. “If your mother were still alive, she’d want to see you settle down and start a family. I’m getting old—I can’t wait until I’m seventy to hold a grandchild!” “But Sophia has a heart condition,” Steven argued. “No matter how much I care about her, she can’t give us children. It’s better to hold onto this… temporary solution.” “And what about the woman?” Steven retorted, his voice rising. “How can I ask an innocent person to bear all of this for our family?” “You think I don’t know you don’t love her?” Mr. Anderson snapped. “But what is a marriage without love compared to the continuation of our family name?” Steven had already told me he didn’t love me. But in the end, he gave in to his father’s demands. I suppose my willingness to overlook everything also played a part in this hasty, transactional marriage. But the child didn’t survive. The second argument I overheard—outside Steven’s study—sealed my fate. He told his father that after I gave birth, he would give me a large sum of money and send me away from the Anderson family. Shaken, I lost my footing on the carpet and fell. That fall killed my first child. Looking back, I wonder if that was the moment I should have left. If I had walked away then, I might still be alive. I might have lost love, but at least I would’ve kept my life. But I didn’t take the hint. Steven fed me a spoonful of rice porridge after the miscarriage, and all my heartbreak evaporated in that single moment. I was stupid enough to think I could try again—to bear him another child. “The surgery went well,” Steven said, turning around. His surgical mask was splattered with blood. On the operating table lay Sophia Reed, her eyes closed, her breathing steady. The heart transplant had taken five long hours. In those five hours, I’d relived every humiliating moment of my life as if it were a tragic comedy. As the lights in the operating room dimmed, Steven walked toward his office. But before he could get far, Lila Harper stepped out of the shadows. Without a word, she punched him square in the face. “What the hell did you do to Ginger?” she shouted. “What’s with the stitches on her body? Where is the baby she was carrying?”

“The baby ?” Steven Anderson wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, his expression cold as ever. “Medical waste,” he said, his lips curving into a faint, mocking smile. “Of course, it was sent to the incinerator for disposal.” My child… burned to ashes? After the miscarriage, my health had never recovered. I could feel Steven growing more distant by the day. During that time, Sophia Reed had several health scares. Every time, Steven would leave in the middle of the night after getting a call, returning hours later, utterly exhausted. He didn’t even have the energy to offer me an explanation. I’d met Sophia twice. The first time was at the hospital. She had just survived yet another brush with death, her pale face twisted into a triumphant sneer as she looked at me. “Ginger, you’re just Steven’s consolation prize, the substitute he settled for because he couldn’t have me,” she said with a cruel smile. “Now that you’ve lost the child, what else do you have to keep him?” The second time was at Mr. Anderson’s birthday banquet. The thoughtful gift I had spent weeks picking out was set aside, forgotten. Sophia took the stage and sang a song. It left the old man beaming with joy, and, for the first time, I saw Steven smile. So, he could smile. “I’m just not a man who smiles much,” Steven had told me once, in a tone I would never forget. “Don’t waste your time trying to make me happy.” It wasn’t that he couldn’t smile. He just didn’t want to smile for me. That was when I finally understood—his heart had never been mine. But I needed another child. If I wanted to have any place in the Anderson family, I had to make myself useful. I endured injections and medication, working to heal my body. In the end, all I achieved was becoming a lifeless corpse alongside that unborn child. Lila Harper stormed forward, grabbing Steven by the collar. “She risked her life to carry that child for you!” Lila shouted, her voice shaking with rage. “Do you even know how much Ginger suffered? She went through so many treatments that her muscles were wasting away!” Steven shoved her off with ease, his expression indifferent. “I didn’t know,” he said flatly. “And I don’t care to know.” “Give Ginger her heart back!” Lila snarled, her voice breaking. “Give her a whole body to bury! What you’ve done is illegal!” Steven tossed a donor card onto the table. My signature stood out in bold letters. The heart transplant had been authorized by me—three months ago. So it had all been planned. That day at the mall, when a volunteer had approached me about signing up for organ donation, Steven had stood beside me, coaxing me with words about “selfless love” and “helping others.” It hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment decision. He had already decided back then that my heart would belong to Sophia. How ridiculous. And yet, I couldn’t help but wonder—had he also been involved in the car accident? The commotion drew the attention of hospital security. They restrained Lila, pinning her to the ground as she fought and screamed. Her hair was disheveled, the dark circles under her eyes making her look like a ghost. She slumped to the floor, whispering in a daze: “Why? Why? Ginger was afraid of pain, afraid of the dark, afraid of blood. She suffered so much growing up in that orphanage.” “She thought meeting you was the start of a brighter future.” “But instead, you dragged her into an even darker hell.” “She had no one in this world but you.” Steven smoothed out his rumpled collar, ignoring Lila’s accusations as if they didn’t exist. But I heard every word, and my heart ached. It was true. I had spent eighteen years in the orphanage and five years struggling to survive in the world. I thought I had seen every kind of darkness. When Steven appeared, I thought he was my light—a miracle I had traded all my luck for. But I was wrong. The security guard asked Steven if he wanted to press charges against Lila for assault. Steven shook his head. “Let her go. She can take care of Ginger’s burial arrangements. I have more important things to do.” “That’s your wife, Steven Anderson!” Lila screamed, her voice raw. Steven turned his head slightly, his tone as calm as ever. “Correction: she won’t be for much longer.” “And three months from now, at my engagement party with Sophia, you’re welcome to join for a drink—if you can behave yourself.”

I never thought i’d attend my husband’s engagement party—with another woman.He was marrying the very person who caused my death. At the engagement party, Sophia Reed wore a stunning white mermaid gown adorned with pearls, her skin glowing with a rosy hue that radiated health. My heart was beating in her chest, and she was clearly satisfied with it. So was Steven Anderson. He stood tall in his impeccably tailored suit, nearly identical to the one he wore at our modest wedding three years ago. The only difference now was the smile on his face—a wide, unrestrained joy that he didn’t even try to hide. They danced together in the center of the room, hand in hand, stealing the attention of every guest. It was a moment of adoration I had never dared to dream of for myself. In the center of the stage stood a three-tiered cake, the one Sophia had personally picked out, paid for by Steven. I remembered the moment vividly—I had been there, floating unseen, when I overheard their exchange. “Get whatever size you want,” Steven had said with indulgent affection. “Don’t worry about whether the guests can finish it. I’ll help you eat it.” But I knew for a fact that Steven didn’t eat sweets. How could I forget? On our third wedding anniversary, I had surprised him with a cream cake. His expression had been awkward, almost uncomfortable, as he took a small bite. “I don’t eat sweets,” he said flatly. “Don’t waste your time making these again.” I stood there, frozen, the frosting still smudged on my face. “I’m heading back to the hospital,” he added, handing me the untouched plate. “Just throw it out, and don’t bother with this next time.” I had convinced myself that it was my fault for not learning his preferences sooner. But now, it was clear: his preferences depended entirely on the person. Everything I had tried so hard to attain, Sophia had achieved effortlessly. She took my heart, my husband’s love, and perhaps even secured her family’s financial support for the hospital. After the engagement party, her parents announced they would significantly increase their investment in the hospital’s research programs. Steven was the happiest man in the room. He drank so much that he had to excuse himself to the dressing room to change and sober up. The door closed behind him, and I felt my soul being pulled along, following him inside. I watched as he staggered to the couch, slumping down heavily. He loosened his tie with a sharp tug, his earlier smile suddenly replaced by a frozen stillness. Then, he pulled out his phone, unlocking a private photo album with facial recognition. Inside, there was only one picture. It was an image of him posing with a patient who had just been discharged from the hospital. There were no photos of us—no memories of the life we had shared. But when he zoomed in on the corner of the photo, the blurred face of a passerby came into focus. It was me. I had been caught in the background, an accidental fragment of the moment. “Ginger… Ginger…” He murmured my name under his breath, and his broad shoulders began to tremble. When he looked up again, his eyes were bloodshot, tears pooling and spilling over. What was this? I was already dead. He had never cared for me when I was alive, never once said he loved me. So who was this display for now? Or… could it be that some part of him truly did feel sorrow for me? “Ginger, I’ll avenge you,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “For our child, I’ll make the one responsible pay in blood.” I froze, stunned, wondering if I had misheard. But before I could process his words, the dressing room door suddenly swung open.

The one who entered was sophia reed.She had come looking for Steven Anderson, who had been absent from the party for too long. But she didn’t see the photo on his phone, nor did she notice the tears he had quickly wiped away. By the time Sophia arrived, Steven had already returned to his usual calm and composed self, offering her a mechanical smile. “Steven, what’s taking so long to change? The guests are waiting for us. Let’s go back out!” She reached out to pull him up, but he subtly dodged her touch. Using the haze of alcohol as a shield, Steven pressed his hand to his temple, squinting slightly. He managed to stand briefly, only to collapse back onto the sofa. “I’m still too drunk,” he said, his voice low. “I’ll need another couple of cups of sobering tea. You go ahead, I’ll join you in a moment.” The phone tightly clutched in his hand caught Sophia’s attention. Curious, she picked it up and began flipping through it. She scrolled through his folders, even opening his private album, but found nothing—no trace of me. “What’s wrong?” Steven asked, feigning indifference. “Nothing,” Sophia replied, handing the phone back. “I thought maybe you were still holding onto thoughts of that dead woman, Ginger.” Steven let out a bitter laugh. “How could I possibly still think about her? She was nothing more than the donor I found to give you a healthy heart.” What was he doing? The same man who had just shed tears over my photo was now speaking such heartless words. Which version of him was the truth? “Good,” Sophia said with a satisfied smile, her lips curling upward. She pressed her hand to her chest. “Thanks to her heart, I can stand here by your side today. And soon, I’ll officially be your wife.” Sophia left the room, her heels clicking against the floor, completely unaware of the change in Steven’s demeanor behind her. The smile faded from his face, replaced by an expression of cold, dangerous intensity. His trembling hand, which had just been hiding behind his back, deleted the photo from his phone. His fingers shook as he pressed the button, the redness in his eyes returning as if it had never left. His clenched fist turned white at the knuckles, and though I was nothing more than a soul, I could hear the low, guttural sob that escaped his chest. “Ginger,” he whispered, broken and raw, “this is my fault. If I had just loved you a little more, maybe we wouldn’t be separated like this—between life and death.” I couldn’t understand him anymore. I wanted to reach out and hold him, to comfort him, but my hand passed right through his body. I grasped at nothing. The only thing I touched was the fabric of his collar, the way I used to straighten it for him every morning before he left for work. Steven froze for a moment, his eyes widening. He turned his head slightly and, for a brief second, his gaze seemed to meet mine. There was confusion in his eyes. And sadness. “Ginger…” he murmured my name, almost like a prayer. “I’m here,” I wanted to scream. “I’m here. I’ve always been here.” But he couldn’t hear me. The only response was the flickering light in the dressing room and the muffled buzz of celebration outside. The joy from the engagement party stood in sharp contrast to the desolation in Steven’s chest. He let out a bitter laugh, wiping his tears away with the back of his sleeve. Then he drained the glass of sobering tea in one gulp. Straightening his tie and squaring his shoulders, he walked out of the dressing room with purpose, heading back to the battlefield that awaited him. Once again, I had been wrong. My husband… it seemed he did love me. He loved me deeply.

Steven Anderson drank until he was completely unconscious. As the party wound down, Sophia Reed helped Steven into the car, intending to take him home. But before they could drive off, Steven suddenly grabbed her wrist with surprising force. “Sophia, you’ve had a long day. Go home and get some rest,” he said, his voice hoarse but steady. “But I… I want to take care of you,” Sophia stammered, her cheeks flushing red. Her lips parted with a soft whimper. “I’ve been out of the hospital for so long, but you’ve barely spent any time with me.” Her slender fingers trailed up his chest, her face leaning in close to his. Steven’s stomach churned violently. The next moment, he turned his head and vomited, the foul mix of bile and alcohol splattering all over Sophia’s face. The stench soaked into her hair and dress. “I’m sorry,” Steven muttered, furrowing his brows in pain. “You should go home and clean up. Don’t worry about me.” Embarrassed and frustrated, Sophia clenched her fists. After hesitating for a moment, she opened the car door and left, not forgetting to remind Steven’s father to ensure Steven got home safely. But there was something she didn’t know: Steven could hold his liquor remarkably well. Even an entire table of sake hadn’t been enough to completely knock him out. And his father didn’t know either. Mr. Anderson helped Steven to bed, wiping the vomit from his face with a damp towel while muttering softly to himself. “I know you’re happy, but you didn’t need to drink like your life depended on it!” “With today’s engagement, the hospital’s funding from the Reeds is locked in for at least the next decade. All my efforts to win them over have paid off.” “I’m getting old, son. My health’s deteriorating. I don’t have many years left to look after you. Seeing you settle down and build your future… your mother would finally be at peace.” Steven’s eyes snapped open. “Don’t mention my mother!” he roared, his voice sharp and filled with venom. “You have no right to talk about her!” He sat up abruptly, his movements swift and purposeful—nothing like a drunk man. Mr. Anderson froze in shock, stumbling back onto the chair beside the bed. “What a joke,” Steven said, his laughter cold and bitter. “You love bringing her up, don’t you? The woman who died because of you?” “You knew she had a heart condition, but you insisted she get pregnant. And when it came down to the final moments, you chose to save the baby instead of her.” “I wouldn’t have been born motherless if it weren’t for you!” Mr. Anderson’s face turned ashen, his trembling lips unable to form a coherent response. “How… how did you find out?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Were you afraid I’d learn the truth?” Steven sneered. “You schemed to let my mother die so you could take her inheritance and dowry for yourself. Every move you make is for your own benefit, but you dress it up as noble sacrifice. Doesn’t it make you sick?” Steven didn’t wait for an answer. “You’ve been using me to cozy up to the Reeds. When you found out Sophia needed a heart transplant, you started looking for a match. You knew exactly who Ginger was from the start.” Steven reached over and unlocked the drawer by the bed, pulling out a stack of papers. He tossed them onto his father’s lap. They were my bloodwork results, taken after I fainted and was admitted to the hospital for low blood sugar. The report confirmed I shared the same rare blood type as Sophia. “My mother died waiting for a heart donor,” Steven said, his voice sharp. “You were so sure I’d support organ donation because of what happened to her. And you were equally sure Ginger loved me enough to agree. So, in the three minutes I stepped away, you sent in a prearranged hospital volunteer to trick her into signing the donor card.” It all came flooding back to me. That day, the volunteer had told me: “As the daughter-in-law of the hospital director and the wife of Dr. Anderson, it’s only fitting for you to support medical advancements.” I had thought it was Steven’s idea. But it wasn’t. He hadn’t known. In fact, he was the one standing up for me now, demanding justice. Beside the bloodwork was another report—a DNA test. “You knew,” Steven said, his tone icy. “You knew Ginger was the youngest daughter the Reed family abandoned. They left her at an orphanage because she was born deaf in one ear.” I instinctively touched the hearing aid I wore. It had long since become a useless decoration. I had forgotten so much, confused my memories. I thought Steven was the one who made me sign the donor card. I didn’t remember how he spent sleepless nights finding the perfect hearing aid for me. I only remembered his cold words, not the quiet love hidden beneath them. “Eat less greasy food—it’s bad for your heart.” “Don’t ride roller coasters or do anything too intense.” He always said these things with a stern face. I thought he was just annoyed with me. But now I understood. Steven had been worried I might have the same heart condition as Sophia—or worse, that I might die suddenly like his mother. He told me that if I gave birth to the child, he’d give me a large sum of money. I thought it was to send me away, but it wasn’t. It was compensation—a way to protect me from his father’s schemes and the Reeds’ ambitions. Steven must have seen through his father’s plans long ago. He wanted to get me out of that abyss. But he hadn’t expected Sophia to strike first. For the first time, Mr. Anderson’s expression cracked, his usual arrogance replaced by fear. Steven let out a hollow laugh. “The Reeds abandoned their own daughter. You killed her to gain their favor. But I was her husband—I won’t abandon her.” “So tell me… what do you think I’m going to do?” Steven’s laughter grew wild, unhinged. I felt a pang of worry and rushed toward him.

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