“Thank you for being here with me.”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
The following day, everything comes in fragments: food neither of us really eats, another round of tests, and finally, the cardiologist. She’s a short, efficient woman with kind eyes, her scrubs embellished with an assortment of hearts.
“The echo was clean,” she says, flipping through the chart. “Your heart muscle looks strong. No signs of HCM.”
Cami exhales, slow and careful, like she’s been holding her breath since early this morning.
“I’ve scheduled your tilt table test for this afternoon,” the cardiologist adds. “It’ll help us confirm what we’re seeing.”
Cami nods slowly, eyes glossing over like she’s still absorbing every syllable.
Without a word, I slide my hand into hers again.
Her grip tightens in mine, and mine does, too, a quiet way to reassure her I’m not going anywhere.
CHAPTER 23
Cami
Nothing says sexy like a hospital bracelet, a pulse oximeter, and a blood pressure cuff that hisses every fifteen minutes.
Pretty sure this is every girl’s fantasy.
At least I survived yesterday’s tilt table test.
Knox wasn’t allowed in the room. Only me, a heart rate monitor, and a windowless chamber that gave DMV vibes. By minute eight, the monitor turned into a full-blown villain.
It started off simple: me lying there while they adjusted the table angle and tracked my heart rate. And somewhere around the eight-minute mark, my chest got tight, my vision tunneled, and the whole room took a nosedive.
Apparently, I passed out mid-test. Which explains why my head pounds like it went three rounds with a drumline and why I finally have an official diagnosis.
POTS.
That’s what has been messing with me all summer, and probably for years. Maybe I should’ve known. The world tilting after too many beach walks. My heart suddenly sprinting while I was doing nothing but pouring coffee. The weird flutters that made me google “heart attack symptoms” at 3 a.m. on more than one occasion while away at Oxford.
Before now, I always blamed all that on Olympic-level anxiety. But really, it was my heart throwing up flares.
Good news is I don’t have what took my mom away. Still, this diagnosis will live with me forever.
Blinking at the ceiling, I wince against the too-white lights, trying to ignore the dull ache behind my eyes and the scratch in my throat. The hospital sheets are stiff, my arm is tethered to an IV as though I might bolt, and I’m wearing a pair of socks with little rubber heart prints on the bottom.
I shift slightly. Then freeze.
The chair beside my bed is empty.
Panic zips through me so fast, it makes the room tilt again. But then I hear a throat clear, soft and sleepy, from somewhere near the window.
Beautiful Knox.
He’s curled in a chairbed that looks like it was designed to punish anyone over six feet, blanket sliding off one shoulder, one foot planted on the floor, the other hanging off the edge, gravity clearly winning.
He stayed.
Of course he did.
And now I can’t decide whether to cry, climb on top of him, or make a run for it in these grippy socks.
