The Heart That Wasn’t Mine, the Life I Never Asked For Chapter 09

The Heart That Wasn’t Mine, the Life I Never Asked For Chapter 09

“Mr. Shaw, you’re compatible, yes.”

“But surely you’re not suggesting—”

“You cannot donate your own heart.”

The doctor sounded genuinely alarmed. Ethan hung up.

Over the next year, he funneled money to me through every channel he could invent.

Lottery wins. Online giveaways. Survey prizes. Rebate checks.

I came home to my mother and stayed.

We spent her last months together. After her funeral, I didn’t go back to Chicago.

I opened a small shop in our hometown and stayed there.

One year passed.

My mechanical heart was running out of time.

I’d made my peace with it. I’d paid for a complete funeral package in advance and was working through the checklist when my phone rang with a Chicago area code.

“Is this Ms. Cole?”

“We have a donor heart that matches your profile. Are you interested?”

I assumed it was a scam and ignored it.

They called again.

“Ms. Cole, we understand your hesitation.”

“But this is not a scam. We can verify everything.”

“You know Ethan Shaw?”

“He sourced this heart. The origin is completely clean. The surgical team is one of the best in the country.”

“Take a few days to think it over. If you agree, we’ll send someone to bring you here.”

The doctor hung up.

I sat there holding my phone, somewhere between confused and numb.

Leaving Chicago had been too easy, looking back.

Ethan hadn’t blocked me. Hadn’t chased me. Hadn’t appeared.

For a year, it was as if he’d simply ceased to exist in my life.

And now his name again, attached to a heart.

I thought about him the way you think about something that happened in another lifetime.

I didn’t call back. I kept preparing for the end.

Three days later, my mechanical heart stopped for the first time.

The sound it made was like a single, final knock.

Then I was on the floor and couldn’t get up.

The door was kicked open from the outside.

“Ms. Cole!”

“Ms. Cole, can you hear me?”

Several men, performing CPR with trained urgency.

Through the haze, I heard one of them call Ethan.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital room.

And I could hear Ethan’s voice through the door, low and furious.

“I told you to convince her to do the transplant.”

“Is this your idea of convincing?”

“If we’d been thirty seconds later, she’d be dead.”

“Savannah Cole is not dying. Schedule the surgery today.”

I lay there and listened to that voice.

The door opened. It wasn’t Ethan. It was the surgeon, looking strained.

“Ms. Cole. I think you heard.”

“Mr. Shaw says today. Please don’t put us in the middle of this.”