He stares at it but doesn’t unfold it. As if by refusing to do so, it would somehow make it not real.
“Hayden, I…” I trail off.
There’s so much I want to tell him.
I wish I had more time.
You make me want impossible things.
I love you, too.
But it won’t change the future.
Instead, I whisper, “I’m sorry.”
Then I walk away.
And I don’t look back.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
HAYDEN
It’s been three days.
Three days since Rowan stood in my kitchen and shattered everything.
Three days since I learned she’s on borrowed time.
Three days since she walked away.
And I didn’t stop her.
I didn’t want to believe her. Wanted to tell her medicine has advanced. That transplant survival rates are improving every year. That she can be the exception to the rule.
But I’m a doctor. I know the statistics.
With a healthy donor heart, median survival is somewhere around fifteen to twenty years. After that, the risks compound. Rejection. Infection. The body growing tired of fighting.
And second transplants?
The odds shrink.
Those numbers have looped in my head every minute of every day since she left.
I’ve used them like armor, convinced myself I did the smart thing.
Because when she told me, when her fingers drifted to that scar and her voice trembled, I didn’t see Rowan standing in front of me.
I saw Cora.
Pale against white sheets. Machines breathing for her. The flat, sterile smell of antiseptic and impending loss. The way my colleagues wouldn’t quite meet my eyes when they wheeled her down the hall for the last time.
And when Rowan told me the truth, all I could think was that I cannot bury another woman I love.
That it would be easier if I let her go before I fell even harder.
After all, I’ve only known her a few months. Better to cut my losses now.
