Chapter 2

"I'm sorry."

I lowered my head. My voice was raw. "I made a mess. I'll go."

As I turned to leave, my hand instinctively closed around my right wrist. Hidden beneath the faded cuff of my sleeve was a tarnished silver bracelet, worn smooth from years of wear.

Nicole had bought it for me ten years ago with her very first scholarship check.

I dragged myself toward the exit, one heavy step at a time. Through the crowd, I caught a glimpse of Stuart Langford sitting in the corner of the VIP section.

He was the one who performed the surgery ten years ago, the one who transplanted my left kidney into Nicole.

Dr. Langford sat there with reddened eyes. He stood up quickly and came to me, steadying me by the arm and walking me out of the banquet hall.

The moment we stepped through the doors, the cold night air hit me like a wall.

I could not hold on anymore. My body gave out against the frigid stone wall, and I slid to the ground.

I pressed a hand over my mouth and started coughing violently. A body missing a kidney had no business doing ten years of manual labor, and mine had long since given out on me.

I did not remember how I made it back to my basement apartment.

I pushed open the rusted iron door, and the sharp smell of mold hit me in the face. I did not even have the strength to flip the light switch. I felt my way along the wall in the dark and collapsed onto the bare wooden bed.

Cold sweat had soaked through my thin shirt and clung to my back. My hands were shaking as I fumbled through the beaten-up cardboard box on the nightstand and found two cheap painkillers.

The kettle was empty.

I tipped my head back and forced the pills down dry.

The rough tablets scraped down my throat and triggered a wave of violent gagging. I curled into a ball and bit down hard on the corner of the yellowed blanket, clenching until the taste of blood filled my mouth.

When the pain finally eased, my fingers found the silver bracelet on my wrist.

Engraved on the inside were ‘Q & N’, our initials.

The cold metal dragged me back to that desperate afternoon ten years ago.

Nicole had been lying in the ICU with end-stage kidney failure. The doctor sat me down and told me she had a month left at best.

I could not sleep. I went from hospital to hospital to get tested. The doctors told me I was the only match. However, I knew her too well.

She was proud to her core and stubborn beyond reason. If she found out I traded my kidney for her life, she would have ripped the tubes out and waited to die before she ever let the doctors wheel her into that operating room.

The only way to make her fight to live was to become the villain.

I had the divorce papers drawn up that same night and brought them to her bedside.

"Nicole, let's end this."

I dug my nails into my own palm and forced my expression neutral, refusing to look at the shock in her eyes.

"Your treatment is a bottomless pit. I'm still young. I don't want to spend the rest of my life tied to someone who's about to die. Stop dragging me down."

I would never forget the way she looked at me. It was like glass cracking piece by piece, filled with nothing but despair and disbelief.

She cried the whole time, her hand trembling as she signed the papers. Then she pointed at the door and told me to get out.

The second I turned around, my tears hit the floor.

I took those signed papers and walked straight into the operating room at the end of the hall.

The post-surgery infection gave me a fever so high I nearly did not make it.

After she was discharged, I kept my distance and watched from the sidelines as she got a little stronger every day.

I told myself that as long as I stayed far enough away, everything would fade into the past on its own. As long as she was alive, no amount of suffering on my end was too much.

The late summer sun was brutal and blinding.

A community health fair was in full swing, the air thick and stagnant without a trace of wind. I wore an oversized red volunteer vest and gritted my teeth as I hauled the 15th crate of specialty medication. Each one weighed close to forty-five pounds.