Before My Body Is Cold

She is gone, but the world moves on without her knowledge. In fact, her body isn't even cold yet, but her boyfriend has already welcomed his old flame back into their shared home. Now existing only as a floating spirit, she is forced to watch them from the sidelines. She witnesses their intimate moments, their candlelit dinners, and watches the pampered man who never lifted a finger cook breakfast for another woman. She is completely invisible, trapped in a silent purgatory where no one realizes she has died.

Chapters

Chapter 2

: I Died

I died of cardiac arrest, right in the apartment I had only recently started renting.

Simon Sutton and I had been fighting frequently these past few days.

The cause was Linnet Ashwood, the one person who made me feel most insecure about our love.

I had been in love with Simon Sutton for six years.

Likewise, Simon Sutton had secretly loved Linnet Ashwood for six years.

She was his old flame, and I...

...was perhaps just a pathetic clown in their eyes.

After graduating, Linnet Ashwood quickly found and married a rich, divorced, middle-aged man.

The two of them moved abroad to live, but this year, her husband suddenly fell ill and passed away.

Linnet Ashwood didn't even have time to have a single child.

All the assets were divided up among the man's children, and Linnet Ashwood didn't get a single penny.

When she came back, the first person she ran to was Simon Sutton.

"You should know full well what Linnet Ashwood is really after."

"I refuse to let you bring her home to live with us."

This led to a huge fight with Simon Sutton. "I've explained it a million times," he said. "I don't have feelings for her anymore."

"An old classmate has fallen on hard times. Can you really just stand by and not help?"

The argument ended with me slamming the door and storming out.

It was the first time Simon Sutton and I had ever fought in all the time we'd been together.

After Linnet Ashwood left to get married, Simon Sutton had been depressed for two months.

It must have been my meticulous care for him during those two months that finally won him over.

Perhaps to Simon Sutton, I was just the most suitable woman to marry.

Since he had already lost his greatest love, it no longer mattered who he married.

That night, after I left, Simon Sutton—a man who never lifted a finger around the house—actually went to heat up milk for Linnet Ashwood.

I watched him burn himself, a blister immediately swelling on his skin.

My first instinct was to go get the first-aid kit.

But when I saw Linnet Ashwood blush and take Simon Sutton's finger into her mouth, I suddenly laughed.

Right.

I'm dead.

The stumbling block keeping them from being a perfect couple was gone.

No one could even hear a single word of my heart-wrenching accusations that Linnet Ashwood was a homewrecker.

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