“And you don’t think he’s going through something similar right now?” she retorts. “You didn’t even give him a choice. You made the decision for him.”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“Because what if he didn’t choose me?”
The question slips out before I can stop it, and the kitchen goes quiet.
“He’s not like Landon,” Emily soothes, her eyes soft and full of understanding.
I swallow hard, instantly transported back to that hospital bed, staring at the man whose ring I wore, his expression pale and distant after my cardiologist laid out the risks and complications of my prognosis.
I don’t think I can sign up for that.
As if I was simply an insurance policy with unfavorable terms.
“You don’t know that,” I tell her.
“Maybe not. But based on everything you’ve told me, Hayden sounds like a good person.”
I stare at the light pink hue of my wine, unable to come up with anything to say in response. She’s right. Haydenisa good person. One of the best people I’ve met in a long time.
And it makes my heart ache even more.
“Did you tell him?” she presses after a beat.
I don’t need to ask what she’s talking about.
I know.
The transplant.
The fact that his wife’s heart beats inside me.
“No,” I respond softly. “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Or it could have made all the difference.”
I give her a tight smile, fighting back another wave of tears threatening to fall. “I guess we’ll never know.”
She sighs, covering my hand with hers. “Listen to me, Rowan. You are not temporary. You are not a tragedy waiting to happen. You deserve to be happy just like everyone else. Deserve love like everyone else. Deserve those happily ever afters we read about in our dirty books.”
I laugh, but it’s brittle. “Except you’re forgetting one important detail.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t get a happily ever after.”
“What makes you say that? Because you might not live to be a hundred and have tons of babies? Who the fuck cares about that? Hell, some of my favorite romances don’t end with a wedding and babies. It ends with them finding happiness in each other and themselves. Being present. Being happy in the now, to hell with ever after.”
I try to find comfort in her words, but it’s hard when I know what my future looks like.
Or my lack thereof.
“So what’s your plan?” she asks after a protracted silence, sensing I need to talk about something else.
“I have no idea. I drove for days, hoping something would feel right.”
