Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
HAYDEN
It’s been three days.
Three days since Rowan stood in my kitchen and shattered everything.
Three days since I learned she’s on borrowed time.
Three days since she walked away.
And I didn’t stop her.
I didn’t want to believe her. Wanted to tell her medicine has advanced. That transplant survival rates are improving every year. That she can be the exception to the rule.
But I’m a doctor. I know the statistics.
With a healthy donor heart, median survival is somewhere around fifteen to twenty years. After that, the risks compound. Rejection. Infection. The body growing tired of fighting.
And second transplants?
The odds shrink.
Those numbers have looped in my head every minute of every day since she left.
I’ve used them like armor, convinced myself I did the smart thing.
Because when she told me, when her fingers drifted to that scar and her voice trembled, I didn’t see Rowan standing in front of me.
I saw Cora.
Pale against white sheets. Machines breathing for her. The flat, sterile smell of antiseptic and impending loss. The way my colleagues wouldn’t quite meet my eyes when they wheeled her down the hall for the last time.
And when Rowan told me the truth, all I could think was that I cannot bury another woman I love.
That it would be easier if I let her go before I fell even harder.
After all, I’ve only known her a few months. Better to cut my losses now.
So I let her walk away.
Because it felt safer.
But the house doesn’t feel safe.
It feels empty.
Presley barely looks at me at dinner. She pushes food around her plate and retreats to her room early. Jemmy asks for Rowan at least a dozen times a day. I’ll eventually have to tell them the truth, but it’s still too raw.
“Earth to Hayden.”
I snap out of my thoughts and dart my eyes to my brother.
Jude sits across from me at the kitchen table, one eyebrow raised. “Did you hear a single word I just said?”
“Sorry.” I take a slow sip of the beer he brought over, a fresh brew of something new he’s been working on. “What did you say?”
The last thing I wanted tonight was company. But Jude showed up after the kids went to bed with a six-pack of beer and a bottle of scotch.
“I was just saying how I drew the short straw.”
“Short straw?” I furrow my brows. “For what?”
“To come and talk to you.” He leans closer, his concerned gaze meeting me. “What’s going on? What happened with Rowan? Why did she leave?”
I stare at my bottle and push out a long sigh. “Because she’s dying.”
The words feel dramatic and wrong, but they’re true. She is dying. And there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it from happening.
There’s nothing I can do to stop it from happening.
“What makes you say that?”
I take another large swallow of my beer. “Because she is.”
He shakes his head, furrowing his brow. “Explain.”
“She had a heart transplant. She’s stable now, but a transplant is more like a twenty-year bandage than a permanent fix.”
“And that’s why she left?”
“She didn’t want the kids to lose someone else.” My jaw tightens. “Didn’t want me to go through that again.”
Jude studies me. “And what did you say?”
I hesitate, searching for an answer to his question that doesn’t make me look like a complete asshole. But there isn’t one.
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean?” Jude presses.
“Exactly that. I said fucking nothing, Jude. I just stood there as she walked away, and I didn’t fight for her. I did nothing.”
“Why? Why didn’t you stop her? It’s obvious you didn’t want her to leave.”
I shoot to my feet and storm toward the counter, grabbing the scotch and drinking straight from the bottle, hoping to dull the ache in my chest.
“Of course I didn’t. But when she told me the truth…” I shake my head and turn to face him. “I saw Cora. Saw the machines. Heard the monitors. And being the selfish bastard I am, the only thing I thought was how I can’t do that again. I can’t watch someone I love fade away.”
Jude stands and moves toward the island, leaning against it. “So you let her go instead.”
“It felt like the right thing to do.”
He brings his bottle up to his lips. “For who?”
“For my kids.”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t use them as an excuse. You’re better than that.”
“I’m not using my kids as an excuse.” I take another long swig of scotch.
“Yes, you are!” His voice thunders in the kitchen, seeming to echo around us before falling silent, the only sound that of the ticking clock.
He draws in a deep breath, then says, “Do you remember the nursery?”
“Of course.”
I may not have lived here at the time, but I remember how distraught Jude was after losing his newborn daughter when she was only hours old. I didn’t think he’d ever smile again.
“I kept it the same for years,” he explains. “Didn’t step foot in it. Wouldn’t let Krista touch it. Wouldn’t let her pack up anything. I told myself it was about honoring her. Keeping her memory alive.”
He meets my eyes.
“But in reality I was afraid if we took it down, she’d be gone for good. So I froze. Lived in a house with a ghost. And I lost Krista because of it, too. Because she couldn’t stand being in that house with a ghost.”
I swallow hard, his words hitting me harder than I expected.
“You may have moved here, but you brought Cora’s ghost with you.”
I part my lips, struggling to come up with an argument in my defense.
“You don’t need to forget her.” He pushes off the island and steps toward me, touching a hand to my shoulder. “And you don’t need to stop loving her. But I think it’s time you finally let her go.”
“I have,” I protest weakly.
“Have you?” His voice sharpens, and he releases his hold on me.
“Because from where I’m standing, you’re still making decisions based on how to avoid losing her all over again.
It wasn’t Rowan that scared you. It was what loving her would cost. When you learned she might only have another twenty years, you didn’t see all those hours and minutes you’d be able to make memories.
” He holds my gaze steady, not allowing me to avoid the truth in his words. “You saw the end.”
I exhale a long breath and close my eyes.
I can’t even argue. Because the second I learned the truth, all I saw was another hospital bed.
Another funeral.
Another set of small hands gripping mine while I explain why another person we love isn’t coming home.
“Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for any of us,” Jude says quietly. “Abbey could get hit by a car. I could drop dead of an aneurysm. That hasn’t stopped us from living our lives to the fullest. From loving each other to the fullest.”
“I was just trying to protect my kids.”
“Or were you protecting yourself?”
That lands.
Because beneath all the rationalizations, beneath the statistics and worst-case projections, there’s a simpler truth.
I was scared.
Not of her illness.
Of loving her enough that losing her would destroy me.
“Rowan isn’t the problem,” he finishes. “You are. You were just looking for a reason to push her away.”
The kitchen is quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the echo of my own breathing.
I think of Rowan laughing in this kitchen. Of her dancing with Presley as they cooked together. Of her singing and making silly faces with Jemmy.
Twenty years.
I would have given anything for twenty more years with Cora.
And I threw away the chance at twenty with Rowan because it might end someday.
“Grief doesn’t get to dictate your life anymore,” Jude says, placing his hand on my shoulder once more. “Only you get to do that. You just need to decide if you want twenty years of happiness, or twenty years of being an absolute bear.” He flashes me a smirk. “I know which one I’m voting for.”