A Donna Unclaimed chapter 02

A Donna Unclaimed chapter 02

When I couldn’t endure chemotherapy anymore, I kept going only because I was gripping the photo of Griffin and me so tightly that my fingers went numb.

I went through dozens of surgeries, large and small. Several times, I was sent to the emergency room and couldn’t wake up. It was my mother who stood by my bedside and screamed at me, her voice breaking.

“Rosa, don’t you remember? You said you would live. You said you would survive and go to Spain yourself to clear up the misunderstanding with Griffin.”

“You said once you got better, I would take you to Spain to bring Griffin back. If you die now, you’ll never see him again.”

It was her repeated reminders that kept dragging me back from the edge of death again and again.

But in the end, I still failed to beat cancer.

And Griffin had already moved on with his life. A fiancée. A wedding soon.

Still, I thought… even a short moment with him in these final days would be enough.

That was why, after learning Griffin had returned to Chicago, and hearing the doctor say that leaving the hospital meant dying, I still forced myself to check out.

But I never expected that after sending away Griffin’s mother and falling into an exhausted sleep, I would wake up to hear his voice outside the door.

Hearing him again surprised me.

Because six years ago, Griffin had hated me.

He once stood outside my door for two days and two nights, just to grab my throat and demand why I betrayed him.

When I cried and told him I didn’t love him anymore, he punched through the glass in the door.

That day, he didn’t hit me—but his disgust for me was unmistakable.

After that, whenever he saw me on the street, he would turn around and walk the other way. Even passing by my house, he would frown in disgust.

He stopped going to the ice cream shop we used to visit. He even became so repulsed that whenever someone mentioned my name, he would coldly snap, “Why bring up Rosa? I find it disgusting.”

But once, he had held me in his arms and said gently, “Rosa, your name is even in my last name. Isn’t that fate?”

The day he left for the airport to study abroad, I ran through the rain just to see him one last time.

When he saw me, he smashed the couple ring we once wore and the phone filled with all our photos at my feet, laughing coldly before walking away without a second glance.

And yet, six years later, he had come to my home on his own.

Through the slightly open door, I quickly understood what was going on.

Griffin was holding his fiancée tightly—Vivian.

“Sue, are you still upset about what happened six years ago? Is that why you don’t want Rosa to come help us pick wedding dresses and rings?”

“I stopped liking Rosa a long time ago. I’ve moved on. We grew up together—if we can’t be lovers, we can still be friends.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the girl beside him also spoke up.

“Yes, Griffin already told me everything about him and Rosa. Even though Rosa cheated six years ago… we were all young back then. It’s in the past.”

“And honestly, I should thank Rosa. If she hadn’t given up on Griffin, I would never have met such a good man.”

“So Sue, there’s really no need to hold onto what happened six years ago. It was my idea to invite Rosa to help us pick dresses and rings anyway. Griffin and I haven’t been back to Chicago in six years—we’re not familiar with anything here.”

Six years ago, when I was first diagnosed with cancer, my biggest wish was for Griffin to forget me and move on.

But now, hearing him speak so calmly about six years ago… about me… even explaining everything so openly to his fiancée, a sharp, dense pain spread through my chest.

And my mother, listening to Vivian’s words twisted with accusation and implication, immediately went red-eyed with rage.

Her lips trembled for a long time before she finally shouted at Griffin:

“You and your mother are both shameless.”