The Heart That Wasn’t Mine, the Life I Never Asked For Chapter 10

The Heart That Wasn’t Mine, the Life I Never Asked For Chapter 10

“Is it a real transplant?”

My voice came out rougher than I intended. I watched the surgeon’s face.

“Yes. A real, full transplant. I promise you.”

He handed me the surgical consent form. I read every line. Then I signed.

Who doesn’t want more time?

Whatever Ethan’s reasons were, guilt, obligation, something else, it didn’t matter.

Alive was alive.

I handed back the form and looked toward the door.

A pair of black dress shoes. Just the toe, visible past the frame.

I knew they were his.

He didn’t come in. That suited me fine.

***

The third surgery went smoothly.

When I woke up, the heartbeat in my chest was strong.

I spent a week recovering. The doctor came every day. Ethan didn’t appear.

On the day I was cleared to go outside, I stepped into the hallway for air.

The doctor hurried past me with several staff in tow, heading for the elevator.

I followed them to the eighteenth floor.

They moved fast down the hall and into one of the premium suites at the end.

“Mr. Shaw, please try to stay calm—”

“A mechanical heart needs time to calibrate. Your emotions are overloading the system—”

The doctor sounded genuinely frightened.

I stepped into the doorway.

Ethan was sitting up in bed, face drained of color. The lines around his mouth were tight.

“So this is what a mechanical heart feels like,” he said slowly. “Savannah must have been in so much pain.”

He paused.

Then:

“How is she doing? Is my heart taking? Any rejection signs?”

His voice. In my ears. Those words.

I put my hand over my chest, his heart hammering against my ribs, and went still.

I pushed the door open all the way and walked in.

“Ethan Shaw. You think sneaking your heart into me behind my back is how you make up for what you did?”

“You think that’s enough for me to forgive you?”

“It’s not. It will never be.”

I looked at him and kept going, one sentence at a time.

“You think a heart transplant cancels out three years of what you put me through?”

“You think it cancels out the day you sent me down a mountain on a bike with no brakes into the path of a semi?”

“Ethan, I am sorry for what happened to Vivienne.”

“But for you, all I have left is contempt.”

I walked out.

Behind me, something slammed.

Then his voice, fractured, quieter than I’d ever heard it.

“I know.”

“I know I hurt you. I’m not asking for forgiveness.”

“I just wanted to give you what I could.”

“This heart. I know it’s a lot to ask. I’m asking anyway.”

“Give me a chance to make it right.”

I kept walking. I didn’t turn around.

***

The next morning, the doctor found me first.

He sighed before he said anything.

“Ms. Cole, don’t even think about another extraction. Your body cannot survive a fourth surgery.”

“Use the heart. It’s yours now.”

He held out a small box.

“Mr. Shaw left this for you before he was discharged.”

It was a beautiful box, the kind that doesn’t come from a department store.

Inside: photographs.

Every one of them was me, dancing.

The most recent one was from the day of the Lakeshore Pileup.

Vivienne and I had been out shopping. I’d tried on a white chiffon skirt and she’d made me twirl. I was laughing with my whole face, eyes lit up.

On the back of that photograph, in handwriting I recognized:

[Savannah. I have always loved you.]

The ink was faded. The words had been written a long time ago.

I ran my thumb across the letters slowly.

The heart in my chest surged once, hard, and then went quiet.

Because a love that takes three years of cruelty to find its way home is no longer a love worth keeping.

It ends where it began: in a heartbeat.