I nod with a slow, shuddering inhale. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize. I know it must have been awful to lose your dad.” Hunter lifts one hand, gently wiping at my wet cheek with his thumb. “And I know it must be terrifying to try to picture what the future holds for you. But ... what if you assumed you’re going to live a long life? What if you choose to stop living in fear—and instead choose to believe youwillget married and have babies and live to see them have their own babies?”
I frown, scooting away from him.
“Now you sound like your cousin,” I accuse.
He stiffens.
“None of you seem to get it. Ican’tlet myself hope for any of that, because the chances of me living to seventy or sixty or evenfiftyare basically zero!”
Hunter takes my arms in his hands, refusing to let me shut him out. “Liv, listen to me. I know you’re scared. I understand. I would be too.”
“No, youdon’tunderstand. No one does,” I snap. There’s a small, logical part of my brain that flashes bright and urgent, warning me that this can’t be easy for him. And yet he’s here, he’strying.
But the fears I’ve lived with for so long are insistent, angry. Andloud. As loud as the roar of my blood in my ears as I struggle to keep the anxiety from crawling up my spine and seizing control of my whole body.
“Okay, that’s fair. But I’ve been doing my research,” he says, steady and unyielding, his beautiful eyes inexorable on mine, “and there’s plenty of reason to believe that when this heart can no longer keep you alive, you’ll be able to get a second transplant. Plus,” he continues, barreling over my protest, “there’s a ton of new science and possibilities out there. There have been so many advances in the last decade we probably can’t even imagine what your options will be in ten or fifteen years when you actually need them. They’re even working on potentially using pig hearts, and there is a lot of promising signs that they will last much longer than human transplant organs!”
I wrench myself free, and he lets me. I shift back on the bench, my heart hammering against bone. The surge of my blood rushing through my veins makes me feel caged and overheated. “You think I don’t know all that? Yes, there is thepotentialthat any of those thingscouldhappen. But the onlyguaranteeI have is that sometime in the next week to ten years, my bodywillreject this heart, and I will go back into heart failure.”
“That’s not even necessarily true. One doctor I spoke with told me your heart could stay healthy for up to twenty-five years posttransplant. He’s even seen some gothirty.”
“You talked to adoctor?”
Hunter flushes, his powerful shoulders lifting and falling as if it’s totally normal to somehow track down a cardiac surgeon and actually get them to talk to you.
“I’m worried about you. I want to understand what you’re going through—what the reality of your life is, as you put it.”
I’m shocked into silence.
“I don’t want to make you more upset than you already are,” Hunter says, soft yet determined, “but he seemed much more optimistic about your outlook than you are. It made me think maybe Talia and Lou have a point. I know you’re afraid—and you haveevery reason to be—but I’d hate for you to miss out on the potential to meet ‘your person’ and be truly happy because you’re too scared of whatmighthappen to you.”
I grab my half-eaten salad, snap the lid back on, and stand up. “I want to go back to work now.”
“Liv, please. Don’t do this.” Hunter rises, too. Tall, gorgeous, and pleading. His jaw tightens, a muscle twitching like he’s barely holding it together. “I’m trying to help.”
“Help me?” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Here’s an idea: When you finally stop living in the past and forgive yourself for a mistake you clearly hate yourself for,thenyou can give me a pep talk. Then you can tell me to ‘think positive’ and ‘believe’ I’ll live a long, happy life, despite every medical statistic screaming otherwise.”
I catch the flash of pain in his eyes—but I turn away before it can soften me.
I storm to the car and stop at the passenger door, chest heaving, waiting for him to follow. But he doesn’t come right away. Instead, he drops back onto the bench heavily and shoves his hands through his hair. He holds his head for a moment, elbows on his knees.
The sight of him hunched and defeated is what finally deflates my anger, leaving me hollowed out.
He wasn’t trying to hurt me. I know that. I lashed out because he touched something raw, something I haven’t figured out how to face myself.
The sun is still warm, but it’s no longer comforting—it only highlights the cold knot of guilt coiled in my chest. I stay where I am, frozen in place. Not because I don’t want to go back ... but because I don’t know how to face him after what I said.
Hunter stands, cleans up the rest of our lunch, throwing his in the garbage can, and slowly makes his way to the car. His eyes flicker to me but quickly away again. His face is a mask.
I did that, I think, a scalding blast of shame striking me in the chest. He took a chance on me, and I threw it back in his face.
“Hunter,” I say, low and beseeching, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things. I was upset and feeling attacked, and ... I’m really sorry.”
He stills in the motion of reaching for his door handle, his gaze flickering back up to mine again. “I wasn’t trying to attack you, Liv. I wanted to show you that there’s still hope. That you don’t have to be so afraid of your future. That there’s proof that you shouldn’t be afraid to find ‘your person.’”
There’s something in his eyes—and a responding tightening within me—that silences my instinct to once again argue that he’s wrong. “I want you to be right,” I whisper instead.
