Chapter 14: Bill Me

I woke up with a greyhound on my feet and a surgeon's arm across my ribs.

The clock on his nightstand said ten past seven.

I lay still and listened to him breathe, because I wanted to know what I thought before he woke up and told me.

I thought, I'm not sorry.

I thought, I'm still not forgiving him.

Both of those were true at once, and neither one made the other smaller.

My phone lay face down on the floor with Dillon's text on it, and I let it stay there.

He woke the way he did everything, quietly and all at once.

"Good morning," he said.

"Who else can do it?"

He didn't pretend not to understand.

"There's a surgeon at the university hospital, two hours north," he said. "She's better than I am at this repair. I'd send you to her tomorrow."

"When could she operate?"

"Five weeks. Maybe six."

"I have eight days."

"Yes."

"And if I wait five weeks?"

"Then your valve decides for us," he said. "I won't lie to you about it."

I sat up and pulled the blanket to my chin.

"Thank you for not lying about it."

"I won't lie to you again."

"Then you should know I'm going to ask for something."

"Anything."

"Don't say anything. You don't get to say anything yet."

He closed his mouth.

Moss lifted his head, looked at us both, and put it down again.

At eight-thirty we walked into the hospital together, and I made him hold my coat instead of my hand.

The surgical coordinator was a tired woman with a lanyard full of pins, and she looked up from her screen when I stopped at her desk.

"Ms. Merrow. Dr. Hartigan. Is everything all right?"

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