Chapter 6
August 26th, 2015. SAT test day.
Arianna woke up that morning with more energy than she’d had in weeks. It was like her body was giving her one last gift–one final chance to feel human before everything ended.
She begged everyone–her mom, Dr. Martinez, the nurses–to let her go to the test center. Not to take the exam, obviously. Her hands shook too much to hold a pencil steady. But just to see it. To feel like she belonged to something bigger than this hospital room that had become her entire world.
“Please,” she whispered, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks. “I just want to pretend I’m normal for
one last time. I need to see what I’m missing.”
Her mom’s face crumpled, but she couldn’t say no to her dying daughter. “Ten minutes. We stay in the
back and then come straight home.”
“I promise!” Arianna’s smile was radiant despite everything–or maybe because of everything.
That morning, her mom wheeled her to the edge of the crowd outside Riversid up one after another, releasing waves of nervous, chattering seniors clutching
lifelines to their futures.
- h. Yellow buses pulled
admission tickets like
Arianna’s heart nearly stopped when she spotted him.
Jayden looked incredible–white button–down shirt, dark jeans, that leather messenger bag she’d given him for his birthday sophomore year. He was laughing at something his friend said, completely at ease,
like the world was his for the taking.
He was everything she’d never be: healthy, whole, alive with possibility.
Watching him stride toward the building with such confidence, Arianna felt her chest crack open with a pain that had nothing to do with her failing heart.
“Good luck, Jayden,” she whispered, her voice lost in the morning air. “I hope you become everything you’ve dreamed of. I hope you save everyone you couldn’t save before,”
He never turned around. Never saw her there, less than fifty yards away, memorizing every detail of his
face.
Never saw her collapse forward in her wheelchair as her heart seized up in her chest.
For the next five hours, while Jayden battled through critical reading passages and algebraic equations, Arianna fought her own war in the cardiac unit.
14:49
Done Hiding as Your Backup Plaything I’m Shining Golden as a Queen
Chapter 6
At exactly 3:47 PM–fifteen minutes before Jayden would bubble in his last answer–the machines around Arianna’s bed began their final, devastating symphony.
The long, flat tone that meant game over.
Outside Riverside High, Jayden walked out of the building feeling like he’d been hit by a truck. Not because of the test–that had gone fine, better than fine–but because of the sudden, inexplicable agony that had torn through his chest during the last section.
He’d actually doubled over at his desk, gasping like he was drowning. The proctor had asked if he needed medical attention, but what was he supposed to say? I feel like someone just ripped my heart out, but I
have no idea why?
“Dude, you look like death warmed over,” said Jake Morrison, his best friend since middle school. “You feeling okay?”
Jayden pressed a hand to his chest where the pain was finally fading to a dull ache. “Yeah, just… tired, I
guess.”
But as he scanned the crowd of celebrating families, that sick feeling in his stom Something was wrong. Something was missing.
ly got worse.
“Have any of you guys seen Arianna around lately?” The question slipped out before he could stop it.
Jake and Tyler Williams exchanged a look. “Bro, she dropped out weeks ago. You know that.”
Right. Of course. But for some reason, the knot/in his chest only tightened.
Jayden threw himself into the rest of the summer–working overtime at Peterson’s Auto Shop, taking care of his mom, getting ready for college. He was too busy to worry about missing neighbors or phantom chest pains or why the Carter house had been dark for over a month.
When his NYU acceptance letter arrived in late March, it came with an unexpected package.
The return address made him freeze: E. Carter, General Delivery, Millbrook, VT.
Arianna’s mom. From some tiny town he’d never heard of upstate.
Jayden stared at that package for hours, turning it over in his hands. He’d made his choice: he and his mom were starting fresh in New York. No more Vermont, no more painful memories, no more ghosts.
He shoved the unopened package into his desk drawer and tried to forget it existed.
Three days later, he loaded his mom into their Honda and drove away from Vermont forever.
Caldan no Onoon
44.84
Chapter 6
Ten years later. August 2025, Burlington, Vermont.
Dr. Jayden Hiddleston was back in his hometown for the first time since graduation, attending a cardiac surgery conference at UVM. He’d made it–everything he’d dreamed of becoming and more. Chief of Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai. The youngest doctor in the hospital’s history to hold that
position.
He saved kids‘ hearts for a living. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
His phone buzzed with a text from Jake Morrison: Holy shit dude, heard you’re in town! High school reunion tonight at the Marriott downtown. You HAVE to come. Everyone wants to see the big shot doctor.
Jayden almost declined. But something–curiosity, masochism, maybe both–made him type back: One
drink. That’s it.
The hotel ballroom was a time capsule of bad decisions: cheesy class of 2015 banners, a playlist that hadn’t been updated since Obama was president, and forty people desperately trying to prove their lives
had meaning.
Jayden found himself the center of attention, fielding questions about his pract penthouse. Every time the door opened, his eyes darted toward it with barely co
He told himself he wasn’t looking for anyone specific..
After his third whiskey, the conversation inevitably turned to senior year drama.
1 his Manhattan
led anxiety.
“God, that whole last semester was insane,” said Emma Richardson, now sporting a massive diamond and what looked like recent plastic surgery. “All that stuff with the trial and everything.”
“I still feel sick about how we treated her,” muttered Ryan Parker, who’d apparently found Jesus sometime in the last decade. His face was red with shame and alcohol. “Arianna didn’t deserve any of that bullshit we put her through.”
“She was the smartest person in our class,” added someone else. “Probably would’ve been valedictorian if she hadn’t dropped out.”
The table went quiet, everyone suddenly hyperaware of Jayden’s presence.
He kept his expression neutral, professional. The mask he’d perfected over ten years of surgery. “It was a complicated time for everyone,
But Jake, oblivious as ever, laughed and said, “Speaking of Arianna–where the hell is she tonight? I tried stalking her on Facebook but couldn’t find anything. She probably got married and changed her name or whatever.”
Hans Hiding se Your Rack Plaything I’m Shining Golden as a Queen
45.0%
Chapter 6
The words hit Jayden like a physical blow. That familiar tightness seized his chest–the same sensation he’d felt walking out of his SATs all those years ago.
“She’s not here?” His voice came out rougher than intended, desperate in a way that made him hate
himself.
Every single person at the table was staring at him now with expressions of shock and something that looked dangerously close to pity.
The silence stretched until their former class president, Sarah Mitchell, finally spoke. Her voice was gentle but firm:
“Jayden… you don’t know, do you? Arianna died ten years ago. She died the same day we took our SATS.”
