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I don’t have an answer for that one. Yes, I made sure Layla skipped the line for an A positive heart, and maybe she’ll get to write another letter to her boy now, one that sets up a time and a place to meet. But the most important thing to me in this whole string of texts is the mention of the Oxy.

I hear raised voices outside my door, Josephine arguing with Angela. I get out of bed and go over to it, ear pressed against the crack.

“I just want to talk to her,” Jo says.

“Nope,” Angela argues. “Karen says she doesn’t come out, and nobody goes in.”

“This is a cardiac ward, not a prison,” Jo says, and I crack a smile.

My phone vibrates in my hand.

Cops have to go, say roads r a mess, Another accident

OMG Karen just threw the pencil cup holder

Jo knocks on my door. “Sasha, can I come in?”

“I told you—”

“And I’m going to tell the cops in the atrium to check your purse if you don’t let me talk to Sasha.”

There’s a moment of dead silence, followed by the click of a handle turning. I step back from the door and sit on the bed.

“Hey,” Jo says, shutting the door behind her.

“Hey,” I answer as she takes the desk chair.

“So, what the hell?”

“Layla wasn’t going to last much longer,” I tell her.

Jo hooks her feet around the chair, considering my answer while she swivels back and forth for a minute. “So you flooded my friend with possibly infectious pathogens so that yours got the heart instead?”

“Exactly.” I also ensured that I’d have my own source of pain pills to slip Angela when I need them. If Layla gets a new heart she’ll come back here for recovery, along with a whole new list of prescriptions, painkillers among them. If Layla dies, the Oxy goes out the door with her stretcher.

“Wow. Just, wow.” Jo stares me down like I might flinch. I don’t.

“Karen thinks you’re crazy.”

A gust of wind hits my windows, a total whiteout of snow coming with it.

“That sounds like an opinion, not a fact.”

And that’s exactly what it is, the opinion of an RN against the complete psychological evaluation I lied my way through to even get onto the donor wait list. So I’ll hedge my bets waiting to see what happens first—an official diagnosis or the death of someone with an O neg heart. Someone who could be out there driving right now, in this snowstorm. Or shitstorm. Or perfect storm. In my lap, I cross my fingers.

Your mom just called in. K left her like 20 messages

Uh-oh K just called u the b word

To ur mom

TODAY AT THE CARDIAC CENTER—crafty Karen cusses!

Jo sighs and swivels in her chair some more. “I don’t even know what to say to you.”

“Then don’t say anything.”

Her hands clench on the seat of the chair, and I see her pulse racing in her throat, strong and hot. Jo gets up to leave.