The Heart That Wasn’t Mine, the Life I Never Asked For Chapter 08

The Heart That Wasn’t Mine, the Life I Never Asked For Chapter 08

“Savannah?!”

Before the panic in his eyes could settle, he heard a stranger nearby.

“That woman is the luckiest person alive. How is she not dead?”

“Word is she bailed off the bike right before it hit the truck.”

“Yeah, I saw them loading her into the ambulance. Just some scrapes, they said.”

Something in Ethan’s chest unlocked.

He got the name of the hospital, turned around, and drove there without a word to anyone.

He pulled into the parking lot, killed the engine, and sat.

And couldn’t move.

He didn’t know how to face me anymore.

Before, he’d had the heart as a reason, a justification he could hold between himself and whatever it was he actually felt.

But now I’d given it back.

He had nothing.

Ethan sat in that parking lot and smoked through half a pack, until he looked up and saw me walk out of the hospital entrance.

He opened his door on instinct and started toward me.

Then I glanced in his direction.

He retreated behind a pillar and held still, listening.

I was on the phone.

“Mom. Good news. I quit. I’m coming home.”

“The doctor said you don’t need to do another round of chemo. I’m coming to take you home.”

“We have a whole year. Wherever you want to go, we’ll go.”

“Mom, I’m not crying. It’s just been so long. I missed you so much—”

My voice cracked at the end.

Ethan stood behind that pillar and went very still.

He remembered something. Me, on my knees in front of him, sobbing.

“Ethan, please. My mother has stage-four cancer. She doesn’t have long. Please just let me go to her—”

He’d thought I was performing. He’d said no.

Now, listening to me on that phone call, everything came back at once.

He turned away from the entrance, already pulling out his own phone.

“Get me information on Savannah Cole’s mother. Her diagnosis, her current status.”

He sat in the car and waited an hour.

Then his phone rang.

“Mr. Shaw. Ms. Cole’s mother has stage-four cancer. Treatment options are exhausted. It’s palliative from here.”

The secretary kept talking. Ethan stopped hearing it.

The ringing in his ears was too loud.

And then, without warning, he remembered the first time he ever saw me.

Vivienne and I had just finished dance practice. We were flushed and laughing, still in our warm-up gear, and Vivienne had tugged me over to introduce us.

I’d called him big brother and smiled at him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

That was the first time Ethan Shaw had ever heard his own heart respond to another person.

And then three years of this.

He tipped his head back, and, for the first time, let himself cry.

Then he made a decision.

“Get Savannah Cole home safely. And find the right moment to transfer a substantial amount to her account.”

He sat there after hanging up, looking toward the hospital, and didn’t leave.

He didn’t leave that night.

For the next two weeks, he came back every day and sat in that lot.
Just watching.

The day I was discharged, he followed from a distance all the way to Union Station.

At the entrance, he pulled four men aside.

“Your only job is keeping Savannah Cole safe.”

“I don’t want her hurt. Not even a little. You call me the moment anything happens, no matter the time.”

“Do you understand me?”

He watched me go.

Then he turned and called the hospital.

“Is my blood type compatible with Savannah Cole’s?”