I’d been feeling it for days, a disturbance that flamed and lapped on the fringes of my consciousness. No doubt, part of it was the guilt over just walking out of their lives without giving a reason or explanation.
The guilt that I’d left them thinking it might somehow be their fault when I knew I had to protect them from this. But there was something else. Something just out of my reach.
A light knocking tapped at my door, and my nurse popped her head inside. “I have those reports you were asking for. There is a reprint from two weeks ago that showed it’d been sent from the lab, but I didn’t see it come across my desk.”
“Who is it from?” I asked, looking at her from over my computer.
“The nuclear radiologist.”
“Okay, thank you,” I said, reaching out and accepting the small stack of faxes that had been forwarded from the lab and would need to be added to Evan’s EHR.
“Anything else you need tonight before I head out for the evening?” she asked.
“No, I’m good. I’m just going to stick around and catch up on some charts.”
She paused for a moment like she wanted to say something else. Clearly, she was worried about my state.
But there was absolutely nothing she could do for me to make this better.
I’d brought it all on myself.
She gave a slight nod. “Okay, then. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She clicked the door shut, and I turned my attention to the printouts, scanning the numbers and tests, trying not to break down in tears like a goddamned pussy.
But fuck.
I missed him.
I missed them both so goddamned much I felt like I was being torn limb from limb. Stretched so thin there was no chance there would be anything left.
I forced myself to move forward. I scanned one page and then another, moving onto the third.
My heart tripped the second my eyes started to move over the numbers.
It was the report from the nuclear medicine radiologist. The results of Evan’s cardiac stress test. The numbers that we should have received two weeks ago.
The walls of my small office started to close in.
While I stared at the numbers on the paper.
They were the only thing I could see.
Only interrupted by flashes of Evan’s trusting, sweet face.
The episode of severe shortness of breath at the park. The redness on his neck and cheeks that day at Rex and Rynna’s. The way I’d asked him if he felt okay, and he’d said he was just tired.
Tired.
Tired because his transplanted heart was not pumping properly.
His records from earlier in the year had shown the very early signs of coronary artery disease, which was to be expected.
But this?
This was accelerated. Progressing at an alarming, dangerous rate.
Panic shot me to my feet, my chair tipping over and crashing to the floor as I clamored to grab my cell.
Frantically, I dialed the number I’d promised myself I’d never dial again.
In the same second, I flew out the door.
You’re my favorite.
That promise roared in my ears.
Deafening.
My favorite. My favorite. My favorite.
Fuck.
This couldn’t happen.
I wouldn’t let it.
Not to him.
“Answer the phone, Hope,” I begged under my breath, agitation lighting a path through me as I listened to Hope’s phone ring and ring. On the fourth, it clicked over to voice mail.
That sweet voice hit my ear like a song. Mine was grating and hard when it finally beeped.
“Hope, I need you to call me the second you get this. I know you have to be pissed and confused, but this isn’t about us. It’s about Evan.”
Ending the call, I raced down the hall and out the side door toward my car, feet pounding on the pavement.
Adrenaline surged.
A thunder through my veins.
My car blipped and unlocked as I approached, and I already had the engine turned over by the time I had the door closed. I threw the gear in reverse and whipped out of the parking spot.
The second my wheels hit the road, I floored the accelerator.
I weaved in and out of cars, trying to keep it together.
I told myself we’d caught it.
He’d be okay.
But it was that sense I’d been feeling all week—the one that warned something was terribly wrong—that reared its ugly head.
This dark foreboding that crawled beneath the surface of my skin.
Ominous and grim.
Shouting at me to hurry. That this was bigger than I could see.
I flew by the coffee shop. All the lights were off. It was late enough she’d already be gone for the night, so I took a sharp left turn, tires squealing as I skidded around the corner and headed in the direction of her house.
I floored the gas when I approached a yellow light, barreling through, unwilling to stop or slow, zigzagging between cars, pushing it harder and harder.
I careened around a corner and allowed myself a breath of relief when I made the last right onto their street.