He Loved Me After I Died

I spent seven years trying to save the brooding villain of a novel. Because I failed to make him love me, the System killed me.

Then it bound my ghost to his side and forced me to watch another girl win, in three months, every ounce of tenderness I could not earn in seven years.

She was warm, bright, and painfully beautiful. She took him bungee jumping. She poured hot water over his numb legs out of curiosity.

She even snuck him out to a friedfood truck near campus. She never treated him as if his disability defined him. Everett Hale had always kept me at arm's length.

If I touched him, he scrubbed the spot with rubbing alcohol. But the first time she touched him, the tips of his ears turned red.

For the first time, I heard the System shriek with delight. [His affection score just jumped from 0 to 30!] It sounded nothing like the furious voice that had spent seven years yelling at me. [One point in a whole month?

Are you an idiot?] That was when I understood. Everett was not cold all the way through. He could bloom for someone. Just never for me.

Chapter 1 On the day I learned I had failed my mission and was going to die, I told Everett nothing.

I quietly made his favorite barbecue ribs, laid out the clothes he usually wore, and put his antidepressants on the nightstand where he could reach them easily.

He watched me with a frown and that familiar cold stare. I crouched in front of his wheelchair until our eyes were level, then smiled. “Everett, I have a family emergency back home.

I may be gone for a while.” His face stayed blank. He rolled his chair past me. “What does that have to do with me?” Nothing. He was right.

All he needed was someone else who could handle his dark moods and his temper. Someone who could look after him once I was gone.

Even after seven years together, I was no different from a stranger who had just arrived to care for him. Mrs. Keane looked at me, torn and heartsick.

I gave her a small shake of my head. It was fine. I had survived every cutting word Everett could throw at me. The insults too. Mrs.

Keane had my notes on all his habits and preferences. She would learn them by heart after I left. Besides, Everett had never cared about me.

My disappearance would not change much for him. Someone new would simply have to learn his temper. The System's mocking voice broke the silence. [Seven years.

You gave him all your energy and even your life. Was he worth it?] Everett sat in the garden beneath the flame tree I had planted for him.

His sharp brow, pressed lips, and cool eyes made him look as distant as ever. He raised one eyelid when I draped a thin lap blanket over his legs, but he let me do it.

I sat beside him without speaking. Red blossoms burned above us while the setting sun broke into patches through the leaves. Sleepy, Everett rested his head on my shoulder.

I kept my eyes on the distance. Was he worth it? I asked myself the same question. In my old world, both my parents had died in a car crash.

I lay in a hospital in a vegetative state while my relatives treated me like a burden they could not wait to lose.

That was why I understood Everett, the trapped and desperate villain in a novel, so deeply.

Saving him from his ending, from dying in a fire, had felt like reaching back through time to save the helpless person I had once been.

No one lived an entire life with perfect sense. And love had never needed a reason. Loving Everett was my choice. I would never blame him for it. I did not regret it.

He was worth it. [Ten. Nine. Eight…] The System began counting down to my death. My fingers turned transparent. The ribs were cooked. His clothes were ready.

His medication sat within reach. Even then, my last thought was whether I had left Everett everything he might need.

I looked one final time at the man to whom I had given everything. Chapter 2 Everett slept against my shoulder.

His breaths were light, and his long lashes trembled over skin so pale that blue veins showed beneath it. He looked as if a touch might break him. [Five.

Four…] Carefully, I eased his head away from my shoulder and supported it on the other side. Then I brushed a little dust from his forehead.

At the very end, I turned toward him with a soft smile. “Everett… take care of yourself. Keep living well.” [One.] A soft crack split the air.

My body scattered into flecks of light. The wind carried them past him until nothing remained. When I opened my eyes again, Everett was there.

A girl stood beside him, talking without pause. She was sweet and pretty. More important, she was close enough to touch him. Everett did not pull away. He was even smiling.

The System still lived inside my head. It spoke as if it had settled in with popcorn for a good show. [The Mission Bureau sent another agent. Look at her.

Three months, and she already has Everett's affection score at 98.] [I wondered what he would do after you died with your score unfinished.] [Turns out, he looked for you for two days, threw one fit, burned everything you owned, and moved on to someone else.

Seven years of onesided devotion, and it meant jack shit.] Ninetyeight. One more step, and she would complete the mission. Two years had passed.

I had no idea what had happened to Everett during that blank stretch, but he seemed better off than he had ever been with me.

After a moment, I asked the only question that mattered. “Why am I still conscious?” [You stay bound to Everett until the next mission agent succeeds.

Only then will you die for good.] One more punishment for failure. “Wheels!

Are you zoning out again?” Piper Quinn planted her hands on her hips. “You lost the bet, so you're wearing a dress for me today. Hurry up and taste what I made.

I burned my hands making it.” She slid a plate of fried rice toward him with a bright grin, then held up her marked hands for sympathy.

That black mess qualified as fried rice only if we were being generous. My right eyelid twitched as I studied Everett's face. He was a brutal food critic.

If one bite displeased him, he swept the plate to the floor and sent the dishes flying at whoever had cooked it.

I had completed a professional culinary program just to coax him into eating more. He also hated anyone who used a favor to demand gratitude.

And his legs had always been the deepest wound of all. Anyone who mocked them could expect his security team to drag them over and beat them half to death while Everett watched.

This time, he did not lose his temper. He did not knock anything away. Under Piper's eager gaze, Everett lowered his head and took a large bite.

The System sneered. [You think she is you?] My throat closed. I had nothing to say. Of course she was not me.

I used to spend an entire day crossing the city for pork dumplings from his favorite shop. Everett would toss them straight into the trash and call the trip pointless.

His affection score never moved. Everett chewed a few times. He frowned and lowered his eyes. Then he paused. Piper leaned in at once. “What?

Is it bad?” His fingers whitened around the spoon. “It's good,” he said, his voice rough. The food was so awful that his knuckles had gone white. Still, he swallowed it.

The same man could separate tenderness from cruelty with perfect care. Chapter 3 So this was what Everett looked like when he loved someone. He could compromise.

He could endure anything. Then Piper noticed something was wrong. She snatched the blackened rice from his hand, tasted it, and spat twice.

After dumping it out, she tapped him on the forehead. “Everett, are you stupid? Why would you eat something that bad?” He did not get angry.

He only looked at her with a gentle smile. A dull ache spread through my chest and kept digging deeper. So this was the punishment the System had promised.

Over the next few days, shock became routine. Whenever Everett's trauma response flared, Piper brought male models to the mansion and fawned over them in front of him.

Somehow, it always pulled him back to himself in the end. He would shake all over and beg her again and again not to leave him.

Piper poured scalding water over his numb legs as a joke and watched for a reaction. Everett only lowered his eyes and let her do it.

His private physician rushed in, stopped her, and checked him over and over for burns.

Another time, Piper secretly lifted Everett onto a motorcycle and took him on a highspeed ride. Everett had feared extreme sports since childhood.

On the back seat, he squeezed his eyes shut. His face went white, and his nails cut blood from his palms, but he never made a sound.

The terror cramped his stomach so badly that he vomited until he could barely breathe. Even then, he forced out the words.

He said he liked it. “Everett is sensitive, and his health is already poor,” I told the System.

I drew a breath and tried again. “Maybe he likes her, but she can't use that as an excuse to torment him. She could at least be gentler.” It was hard enough for him to love anyone.

He did not deserve to be treated this way for it. The System gave a short, ugly laugh. [You were careful. You cared. You thought of everything.] [Seven years.

And what did that get you?] One sentence hit like ice water. A ghost had no nerves, no warm blood, no skin. Yet cold sank straight through me.

Everett was still gasping, his brow pulled tight. His eyes darted around as if he were searching for something he had lost.

Then his wet, reddened gaze fixed on the exact place where I stood. For one impossible second, it felt as if our eyes met. Piper bent down to check on him.

Everett looked up at her and forced a reassuring smile. Whatever strength I had left drained away. I could not even defend him anymore. Everett liked her. He liked her.

What right did I have to tell him it was wrong? Piper bounced over to him as cheerful as ever. Lately, Everett spent longer and longer watching her.

His thumb rubbed hard against his index finger where his hand rested on the wheelchair. This time, he took Piper to the place where he and I had once lived.

The rundown studio apartment where surviving one more day had been our only goal. Back then, Everett was still an unacknowledged son. His unstable mother had just broken his legs.

She locked him inside a cramped, dark closet and beat him with a thorny switch. She called him a curse. She told him he had driven his father away.

By the time I entered the story world, his legs could not be saved. He sat in the dark, holding the body of the mother who had died by suicide.

When he raised his head, there was nothing in his eyes but shadow. I had guarded that wound for seven years. He had never opened it for anyone else.

Now he had brought Piper inside it with his own hands. Chapter 4 Everett was willing to tear open his own scars and show Piper the blood beneath them.

Piper scanned the apartment with a dark expression.

Then she stopped in the middle of the room. “I hate this place.” Before beginning her mission, she must have studied every file the Bureau had on Everett.

That included the previous agent who had failed and spent years caring for him here. Everett stared at an old cabinet and gave a cold laugh. “I hated it too.

Someone had a delusional, onesided obsession with me. She was stupid as hell.” Piper froze. Her hand clenched, and humiliation flooded her face. “Wheels, all of that is over.

I'll face those hopeless, awful memories with you. You don't need anyone else in them.” For the first time, her usual boldness softened.

She crouched before Everett, tipped her face up, and asked, “Okay?” Who could refuse a beautiful little ray of sunshine once she finally showed weakness?

But Everett's face went blank. He stared down at Piper for so long that her eyes widened.

Only then did he lean close. “Then promise you'll stay,” he said. “Promise you'll never abandon me.” His face was inches from hers.

Piper could only stare and nod. [His affection score just rose to 99!] The System cried out in delight, then rushed to gloat. [So Everett only brought up the old agent to make Piper jealous.

The villain knows how to flirt. He made her ache for him on purpose.] [Brooding villain? Please. He's just a poor, lovestarved man.] [See?

This is how you win someone over.] I stood by the front door, staring at an old photo of Everett as a child. Years of dust covered it. A ghost could not wipe the glass clean.

I had been just as helpless with the dust inside his heart. Seven clumsy years, and I had never managed to clear it away. The System expected jealousy. It expected pain.

Neither came. Seeing Everett happy made me happy too. Happier than anyone else could have been for him.

In my heart, he had always been living the life my helpless body back home never could.

I looked at the child beneath the dust and whispered, “Everett, for all the years ahead, may every year be kind to you and the person you love.” I did not turn around.

So I did not see Everett jerk his face away. I did not see his fingers curl tight. And I did not see the fresh scars packed across his wrists beneath his cuffs.

After that, Everett moved Piper into the mansion