“Amazing and helpful?” I ventured.
She snorted. “I was gonna say annoying but sweet. And all that only made me feel worse, because I knew I should feel grateful, and all I felt was pissed off. I didn’twantpeople making sacrifices for me. I just… I wanted my life back. The life I thought I was supposed to have.” She knotted her fingers together in her lap. “I know now, after being here for a while and getting some therapy, that I was grieving. But at the time? I just got more and more resentful. Which was why I started researching alternative therapies online. Remember, Rafe? I told you about some of them.”
Rafe nodded slowly, cautiously.
Aimee darted another look at Dr. Babe, who watched her with an expression of loving encouragement that was… Okay, it was kinda sweet.
It also kinda made me wish I could hold Rafe’s hand, too. I mean, this wasn’t exactlypublic, right? I felt pretty confident he’d let me… if I tried.
“Through my research, I found this clinic here,” Aimee continued. “Dave and his brother, Justin, run the heart center at St. Vincent’s, and they’re doing amazing research into conditions like mine.”
“We lost our cousin Trace when we were teenagers because of a congenital issue pretty similar to Aimee’s.” Dr. Babe—Dave—rubbed his thumb over the back of Aimee’s fingers. “You might say pioneering new therapies has been our mission since medical school. But it’s not like we’re rolling in funds, you know? So we set up here in Wyoming. It’s a nice place, and the overhead is low.”
“I talked to them, sent them copies of my medical records, and they offered me a chance at acure,” Aimee said fervently, leaning toward me and Rafe like she was willing us to understand. “A surgery, not medicine. Not just a way to stay alive, but a way to have the life Iwanted. But the insurance company wouldn’t pay.”
“And I blew you off,” Rafe said ruefully. “I said it was too dangerous.”
She nodded. “But I contacted them again anyway—”
“She means she stalked me,” Dave said with a grin. “Phone calls, emails, sliding into my Instagram DMs. I’ve never been so popular. But it turned out she only wanted me for my experimental heart treatments. Story of my life.”
“Yeah, yeah. I fell in love with you after I’d already been enrolled, buddy.So there.”
Dave lifted her hand to press a kiss to her knuckle, and Aimee rolled her eyes, clearly pleased.
“Anyway. Dave told me that if I could get to Wyoming, they’d enroll me in a trial that involved a whole batteryof tests over a twelve-month period. EKGs, stress tests, the works. They’d monitor me the whole time. And they’d give me a job working in the outpatient clinic in exchange for room and board, too. I just… needed a way out of Florida and a place to stay for a month or so until the trial started.”
“And that’s why you neededme,” I said. “To get you to Wyoming.”
I felt like an idiot.
“Yeah.” She bit her lip. “I know I’m theworst. I should never have let you pay for that apartment for me when I knew I’d only be there a couple weeks—”
“It’s not about the money, Aim. I have plenty ofmoney.Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well.” Aimee licked her lips. “For one thing, I never dreamed you’d show up in Denver and find out that way. But for another… I knew you’d worry. And I wanted to save you from that. And I wanted to savemefrom that, too.”
“Save yourself frommeworrying? What’s that even mean?”
“It means… I didn’t want you staring at me, thinking this might be the end. I didn’t want to see you all upset. I didn’t want to deal with your guilt or helplessness or overprotectiveness. I just… I didn’t want to have to process your emotions at all. Which I guess is selfish, but…” She shrugged. “It’s honest. And also, I didn’t want you to try to talk me out of it. I didn’t want anyone to judge me if it didn’t work. I just… I wanted to handlemymedical decisionsmyself. I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. I didn’t want to be anyone else’s responsibility.”
Rafe flinched, then sighed.
Aimee stared down at her hands, knitting and unknitting her fingers once more. “I should have come forward about all of this a long time ago. I know that, too. But… once I started lying, I didn’t know how to come clean. I didn’t know how to speak up. I… I know you probably can’t understand that—”
I thought of Debbie, who’d left me another two messages last night, probably begging me to go onDateline LAorGood Morning USAor wherever people were supposed to air their private business these days. I hadn’t returned her calls because I had no idea what I should say. I didn’t even know what Iwantedto say anymore.
“That part’s more understandable than you think,” I said softly.
“I kept telling myself that after the surgery, I’d come find you, Jay. Wherever you were in the world. And we’d talk it out. I’d explain everything about me and Rafe.” Aimee sniffed. “I mean, Big Rafe made me promise I would, eventually. But then you guys found out while I was still in recovery… and here we are.”
“Wait, wait. My dad made you promise?” Rafe said, startled. “What? How’d he know anything about this?”
“I told him. He, ah… found me crying one day on the beach in the secret cove on the Key. You know the one I mean?”
Both Rafe and I nodded. We’d spent many hours there stargazing.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to come to Wyoming, but I didn’t know if I could take the risk. He talked me through it. He’s a great listener.”
