I hadn’t realized quite how close I’d moved to her until our gazes met and her green eyes, so pale they almost looked blue, were right there. A hitch in my breathing made me clench my teeth. Why did I keep noticing things about her, like how soft her cheeks looked, or how pretty her eyes were? I never noticed things about other girls. Cora was my it, everything I wanted and more. I didn’t like how my blood went hot every time I simply looked at her roommate.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, hastily grabbing a plate and shoving it at her before I backed off and returned to the safety of Cora’s side, where my core temperature thankfully once again lowered to normal.

I accidentally met Ten’s gaze as I slid into my seat. He lifted his eyebrows with a knowing smirk. I scowled back but quickly wiped it off my face when Zoey offered him the plate I’d handed her.

Ten winked at her as he took it. “Thanks, Blondie.”

She blushed and played with a piece of her hair. “Oh, it’s Zoey, actually.”

“Yeah.” Ten didn’t seem concerned as he promptly filled his plate, piling on a good half a dozen pancakes. “But I probably won’t remember that.”

As soon as Cora kissed Quinn goodbye, telling him to have fun at football practice, she turned to me, suddenly serious. “So, my next dialysis treatment starts in forty-five minutes. It takes half an hour to get there. You want to come with me or not?”

The emotionless, matter-of-fact way she asked flabbergasted me at first. When I finally got my bearings straight, I nodded my head vigorously. “Y-yes, of course, I want to come.”

“Then hurry up. We leave in ten.” She strode past me and down the hall toward her room. “Don’t worry about dressing up. It’s not exactly glamorous there.”

I was ready in five, yanking on the first shirt and jean shorts I came across. After tugging my hair into a ponytail, I hurried to the front room, worried Cora might leave without me. She just seemed so stoic and unresponsive about the entire thing.

Heart pounding because I had no idea how the procedure went, or what I was supposed to do while she was...doing whatever she did, I sat on the floor by the front door and slid on my shoes.

Cora exited her room just as I was getting back to my feet. She had her hair up as well, with the shortened front strands smoothed back with a headband. And she wore no makeup, which made the sleep lines under her eyes stand out. “Ready?”

I nodded.

Not sure what I could ask without annoying her, but curious about everything, I silently followed her to her car.

The woman drove like a maniac. What took her half an hour to reach the treatment center, probably would’ve taken a normal person forty-five minutes. She talked on her phone to friend after friend the entire way, telling each one of them she was taking me shopping.

I bit my lip, wondering why she felt the need to lie. When she had to hang up to find a place to park at the center, I couldn’t help but say, “It must get exhausting to always come up with things to tell people. Do you ever run out of reasons why you’re gone so much?”

She glanced at me, and I couldn’t tell what her eyes looked like through the large, dark shades she wore. But then a smirk creased her lips. “People will think I attend classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and on Saturdays...” She shrugged. “I keep active enough, no one questions it.”

I nodded but still felt confused.

The technicians were startled to see me stroll in with Cora.

“Finally got yourself a support system going, huh?” one woman asked with an approving nod.

Cora blew her off as she slid off her shades and put them away in her purse before pulling out some lip gloss and freshening her mouth. “Can we get started already?”

I quickly learned that where my best friend was shy on details, everyone else at the center was overflowing with them. I’d done some online research about all this, but what I learned in that first ten minutes left me reeling.

I learned that Cora had bypassed the home hemodialysis option, where she could’ve taken a machine back to her apartment and learned how to treat herself multiple times daily. Instead, she’d opted for the in-center hemodialysis where a trained professional administered the treatment and she only had to go in three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at midday.

Each treatment lasted three to five hours. I had no idea how she managed to hide four hours a day three days a week from all her friends—Quinn especially—but she seemed determined to make sure no one else found out about it.

“We’re going to send your dietitian in to talk to you while they’ll clean yo

ur access,” Petey, the first guy to meet with her, announced before he left to check on another patient who was already hooked up and halfway through his treatment.

As I watched him check the monitors on the machine, I leaned in toward Cora where she was sitting up on a gurney. “Access to what?”

Cora glanced at me, her expression bland. She looked so calm and collected, while my heart wouldn’t slow down. I was worried about everything they were going to do to her.

“Access to my fistula,” she finally said.

“Oh.” I nodded. Five seconds passed. And then I couldn’t contain my curiosity a second longer. I leaned in again. “What’s a fistula?”

Tags: Linda Kage Forbidden Men Romance
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