With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men 4)

Oh God.

“What the hell for?” Cora cut in.

“There are many psychological impacts that affect donors. He’ll need to establish her motivation and—”

“Motivation?” Cora shook her head. “She’s my best friend. She loves me. What else do you need to know?”

The doctor nodded with her as if he agreed that it was silly, but he said, “It’s policy.” Glancing at me, he softly added, “There should only be a few of those sessions.”

I nodded, but inside I was ice-frozen scared. What if they uncovered how envious I sometimes felt of Cora? What if they decided I was a whack job and unfit to give her anything? She needed this kidney; I didn’t want to do anything wrong to keep it from her.

Fingers cramping as they wrapped around the arm of my chair, I kept listening to the doctor list all the things they’d have to test me for. “There will be a number of blood tests to make sure you’re not carrying any diseases: hepatitis, HIV, any infection that could be passed on. We’ll need to see how well your blood clots. We’ll have to monitor your blood pressure routinely. We’ll have to check how well both your kidneys are functioning as well as your liver and some other organs. There will be numerous urine tests, and scans like ultrasounds and MRIs. Then you’ll need to take an EKG, X-rays, Pap smear...”

Wow, they really were going to check me from top to bottom, inside and out. No wonder it took so long to get to the actual transplant part.

“After you pass all the tests, we can set you up with a consultation with the surgeon, who’ll go over the operation with you, get you a date for operation and have you sign the consent form.”

He smiled kindly, but Cora didn’t smile back. “And it really takes three to six months to get all that done?”

Lips pinching thin, the doctor answered, “Sometimes longer if any abnormalities in her test delay things.”

“Oh, mother,” Cora muttered, glancing acerbically at me. “We’re screwed.”

I just stared at her, unable to believe she’d just basically called me abnormal.

By Friday, I felt more than abnormal. I felt stupid and deluded.

Six months ago, I’d been expecting to live my entire life under the strong thumb of my father. I’d pre-enrolled at the college he wanted me to attend and even set my degree as teaching, when the thought of getting up in front of a class scared the bejesus out of me. But Ernest Blakeland honestly scared me more. I’d always, always done what he’d wanted me to. I’d never broken one of his rules, snuck out of the house when he wasn’t looking, or cheated on the amount of soap he wanted me to use when I washed the dishes. I’d followed each and every one of his rules like the good, obedient girl I had hoped to be.

It wasn’t until Cora had called me with her dilemma that I’d even considered trying to break free from him. Because breaking free meant severing all ties completely. He never would’ve allowed me any kind of freedom. He liked total control. So if I was going to help my friend, I had to do it without his knowledge and without his permission.

The scariest decision of my life, and I’d made it so effortlessly without an ounce of regret. Yet now that I was here, risking the wrath of a man I knew would take pains to hurt me for retribution, I started to reevaluate the source of my reasons for coming.

Cora wasn’t at all as I remembered her. I wasn’t sure if I’d just built her up to be so amazing in my head because she’d been there in my life when I’d needed her the most or what. She’d been the one person who was nice to me when I’d felt alone. Maybe I’d blinded myself to her flaws.

Or maybe she’d just changed that much.

She’d been sitting on a bench outside the office the first day I attended public school as if waiting for me to come out with my class schedule and locker assignment.

“Hey, you’re that new girl. Zoey, right?”

Startled to hear my name, I paused and sent her a nod. “Yeah.”

With a smile, she scooted down and patted the open spot of bench beside her. “I’m Cora.”

When I sat gingerly, she studied me for the longest time. No one had ever paid that kind of attention to me before, except my father when he was upset with something I’d done. It made me blush and duck my face.

Then she asked me a couple questions, to which I think I gave mumbled, one-word answers. After that, she told me about herself. She liked to talk about herself, and I liked having someone talk to me, so it seemed to work for both of us. We never shared any classes, so I didn’t get to see her much during school, only those few minutes every day before the first bell rang on that very bench where we met.

After a couple months, she invited me over to her house for dinner. My father only agreed when he realized who her parents were. Mr. Wilder had apparently founded the country club with him where they were both members. In fact, before I’d been born, back when my mother had still been alive, Mr. Wilder and his wife had been close friends with my parents...which reminded my father of another reason he hated me. After I’d killed my mother in childbirth, my father had fallen out of touch with one of his closest friends.

But he’d reluctantly allowed me to occasionally visit Cora.

Her mother was so charming and nice. It boggled my mind when Cora would get irritated with her for asking too many questions about her day. I would’ve loved to have a mother who wanted to know what was happening in my life.

Mr. Wilder had acted shocked the first time he’d met me. I guess Cora never brought friends home with her, or something. I don’t know. But he quickly got over it and when I told him who my parents were, he remembered them, telling me I looked like my mother. I loved hearing that because my father had gotten rid of most of her pictures.

I envied Cora for her parents, wishing they could’ve been mine, even though they’d been as strict with her as mine had been with me. Many times I’d called over to talk to her, her mom had told me Cora wasn’t home. When Cora told me the next day that she’d really been home but she hadn’t been allowed phone privileges, I’d wondered briefly if her father was just as abusive as mine.