Chapter 6: Why She Said No

I did not answer her.

I did not trust my voice.

Jocelyn poured two cups of coffee and pushed one across the counter.

Her hands were steady, but she looked at them.

"Calvin and I dated for four months," she said. "Everybody said we were perfect."

"I can see why."

"Can you?" She snorted. "He's funny, and kind, and he remembers your mother's name. For about three months, I thought I'd hit the jackpot."

I nodded, because I knew exactly what that felt like.

"The fourth month, he took me to dinner at a quiet Italian place," she said. "Candles. A corner booth. He'd put on the blue shirt."

"The one with the pearl buttons."

She frowned. "How do you know that?"

"Lucky guess."

"Right."

She took a sip.

"He told me over dessert that he has a bad heart."

My own heart did something strange.

"Dilated cardiomyopathy," Jocelyn said, carefully, as though the words were hot.

"They found it when he was twenty-two. His doctor says it gets worse slowly and then fast."

"He might need a transplant by forty. Maybe sooner."

"Did he say how long?"

"He said he'd likely die before he was fifty."

I stared into my coffee.

The surface trembled, because my hands did.

"He cried," she said. "Right there in the booth."

"It was the first time I ever saw him do it. I held his hand and told him we'd figure it out."

"That sounds like love."

"I thought so too." Her mouth thinned. "Then he asked me for a promise."

Keep reading free with an account. Start His Final Wish Said He Settled for Me, So Reborn, I Left from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.