Page 72 of Lessons in Heartbreak

Her fingers plucked at it after noticing where my gaze had landed. “Yes,” she said. “That’s why I like high-neck shirts.”

I cleared my throat, rocking slightly on my heels. “Makes sense.”

Silence cloaked the room. I swiped a hand over my mouth while I stared at her—unsure of what I could ask, or shouldn’t, or if she’d want to talk about it at all. When my hand dropped, I shook my head a little.

Ruby’s eyes bounced between mine, and then she groaned. “This is exactly what I was afraid of. You’re being weird. You don’t know what to say or ... or how to handle me.”

“To be fair, I’ve never known how to handle you. You’re terrifying.”

She gave me a slightly narrow-eyed look that almost had me smiling.

“You are. Most women—” The narrow eyes turned into a full-on glare, and I exhaled a quiet laugh as I held up my hand in concession. “I won’t finish that sentence, I promise.”

“Thank you.” Her eyes searched mine. “You really want to know? I thought this ... us ... was just a fun diversion for you.”

“It was,” I admitted hoarsely. “But we’re friends, right?” Fuck if that word didn’t feel wrong. But there wasn’t another easy one to replace it. If there had been—a simple switch, something with fewer complications or strings attached—I would’ve used it.

She wasn’t just my friend, not in any way I’d normally use that word, but I couldn’t say that to her without a ripple effect.

“I guess,” she answered after a brief hesitation.

“Why were you crying?” I asked.

Self-consciously, she swiped under her eyes, removing some lingering mascara. “I wasn’t.”

I gave her a look.

“Much,” she conceded with a small shrug. “I don’t know why, exactly. I haven’t had to talk about this with anyone new in so long. Just brought up a lot of feelings, and it’s always better to let that out than pretend like they don’t exist and shove them away.”

“Lauren knows?”

She nodded. “So does Kenny. My parents, obviously, but they’re gone on their trip.”

My brow furrowed. “You said they couldn’t go right after they retired.”

Her hand landed lightly on her chest and tapped. “This is why.” She swallowed hard, eyes anywhere but on mine. “The couple of years after a heart transplant are ... stressful.”

Everything inside me felt heavy, like I was carrying a weight over every inch of every bone that held me up. Like my muscles were fatigued in a way that I wasn’t used to. “I’d like to hear about it, if you want to tell me.”

She gestured to the couch. “Sit. It feels even more awkward that we’re just standing by the door, because all I keep thinking is that you’re doing it so you can plan a quick exit.”

“That might be true if I wasn’t the one who showed up unannounced.” I took a seat, finding her eyes as soon as I did. “I want to be here.”

Ruby’s face was sheepish, and her shoulders sank as she sighed. “I know you do.” Then she pinched her eyes shut briefly, prying them open again as she clasped her hands together in her lap. “You can ... you can ask me some questions, if you want.”

“Only if you’re comfortable talking about it.” I held her gaze. “I’m curious. But I don’t want you talking about anything that upsets you.”

Ruby licked her lips and sat back in her corner of the couch, pulling a throw pillow into her lap and hugging it to her chest. Bruiser must’ve sensed that it wasn’t cuddle time, because he flopped onto the floor next to the couch with a loud groan.

“I didn’t know I was sick until just after college.” She pulled at a tassel on the pillow. “We started some testing a few months before I graduated because I fainted a couple of times after I did a hard workout. I was lightheaded, had some palpitations. We didn’t think it was serious,” she said quietly.

“But it was.”

She nodded. “Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy,” Ruby said evenly. “It’s a ... thickening of the heart muscle. Eventually, it makes it hard for the heart to pump blood correctly.”

I sat quietly while she talked by rote, listing off signs and symptoms, things she dismissed as common while, unbeknownst to her and her family, her heart was growing sluggish and hard. Her voice stayed steady and her eyes dry while she talked about all the different medications and treatments they’d tried. And how when they’d failed, at the age of twenty-five, she was a candidate for a heart transplant.

Time passed strangely while I sat and listened. It felt like hours. Minutes. Seconds. Days. My mind was curiously blank while she talkedabout the young woman who died in a car accident, a perfect match for her, and it was three days before her twenty-sixth birthday that they received a call telling her to come in for surgery.

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