Chapter 2

The memory of my last call to him burned, even now.

I was on an operating table, the lights blinding.

Not for surgery to save me, but to take from me.

My organs.

Some still good, the doctors at the university clinic had said.

Rapidly progressing autoimmune disease, they called it. Multi-organ failure.

Terminal.

I had clutched the cheap burner phone, my hand shaking.

"Michael," I'd whispered, my voice weak.

"I need to talk to you."

His voice came back, sharp, impatient.

"What is it now, Sarah? I'm swamped."

"It's important, Michael. Please."

A sigh, heavy with annoyance.

"If you're not dead, stop bothering me!"

The line clicked.

He hung up.

Those were his last words to me.

Now, here I was, dead.

And he was in an adjacent OR, wasn't he?

Overseeing Chloe's lung transplant.

My lungs.

I'd made sure of it.

Registered as an organ donor the day the clinic confirmed how little time I had left.

Specified my lungs for Chloe.

If she lived because of me, maybe then.

Maybe then he'd forgive me.

It was the only thing I could think of.

My only way to make amends.

My only way to earn back a tiny piece of him.

Hours later, I felt a shift.

The tether to my body loosened, then snapped.

A junior nurse, her face pale, found what was left of me.

Unattended.

Post-procurement.

In a chilled recovery room, alone.

The cold didn't bother me anymore.

Nothing did.

Except watching him.

Watching him not know.

Not care.

His devotion to Chloe was a wall I could never scale, not even in death.

He was so focused on her, so anxious.

My sacrifice, my final, desperate plea, was just an anonymous gift to him.

A gift that saved his chosen sister.

He would never know it came from me.

The sister he wished was dead.

And now, I was.