Chapter 11
Jayden’s heart nearly exploded out of his chest.
He shot out of bed like a rocket, practically falling down the stairs as he ran across the street. His fist hammered against the door so hard he thought he might break it.
“ARIANNA!” he yelled, his voice cracking with desperate hope. “Arianna, is that you in there?”
The door swung open, and instead of the face he’d been praying to see, some random guy in pajamas stood there looking seriously pissed off.
“Dude, what the hell? It’s like three in the morning! I just moved in here yesterday!”
The hope died so fast Jayden thought he might throw up. A renter. Just some fucking renter.
“Wait,” he said, pulling out his phone with shaking hands. “How much is your rent?”
“What?”
“Your monthly rent. Whatever it is, I’ll pay you ten times that to leave right now.”
The guy’s eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
Twenty minutes later, Jayden was standing alone on the porch holding the keys to Arianna’s house, watching the guy load his stuff into a U–Haul like he’d won the lottery.
Jayden stared at the front door for what felt like hours. Part of him wanted to go inside–to see her room, to touch things she’d touched, to breathe the same air she’d breathed. But he couldn’t do it. Not yet.
If she was still alive somewhere, if this was all just some horrible mistake, he didn’t want her coming home to find him going through her stuff like some kind of creep.
Back in his own house, Jayden managed maybe two hours of sleep before dawn broke and he was back in his car, driving to Vermont General like his life depended on it.
The hospital was a nightmare–flu season had everyone and their mother in the ER. It took him half the day just to track down Dr. Martinez, Arianna’s cardiologist.
The second Jayden mentioned her name, the doctor’s whole face changed.
“Arianna Carter,” Dr. Martinez said softly, settling back in his chair. “I haven’t heard that name in a long
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Chapter 11
time. That little girl… I practically watched her grow up in this place.”
“Can you tell me what happened to her?” Jayden’s voice came out barely above a whisper.
Dr. Martinez studied him for a moment, like he was trying to figure out how much to share. Finally, he
sighed.
“She was one hell of a fighter, I’ll give her that. Stubborn as anything. I remember her last
admission–she’d just come out of a massive cardiac event. We lost her for almost four minutes on the table before we got her back.”
Jayden felt the blood drain from his face.
“And you know what she did the very next day? Checked herself out against medical advice. Said she had some court thing to get to, that people were counting on her. Her poor mother was in tears, begging her to stay another week, but there was no talking her out of it.”
The room started spinning.
The trial. His father’s fucking trial.
ead. How had he
Jayden closed his eyes and suddenly he could see it perfectly–Arianna standing at that witness stand, pale as a ghost, her voice steady even though she’d literally just come back from
not seen it? How had he been so blind?
And afterward, when they’d talked outside the courthouse… she’d never said a word. Never mentioned
that she’d almost died for him.
“She loved someone very much,” Dr. Martinez said quietly, reading Jayden’s expression. “Even at the end,
she was more worried about everyone else than herself.”
When Jayden finally stumbled out of the doctor’s office, he felt like he was drowning. Everything sounded muffled and far away.
He found himself wandering the cardiac wing, looking for her old room. When he found 247, he just
stood there in the doorway staring at the empty bed.
It was just a regular hospital room now–clean white sheets, boring artwork, that antiseptic smell that all hospitals had. But if he squinted, he could almost see her there. Small and breakable, hooked up to a
dozen machines, fighting for every breath.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the empty room, his voice cracking. “God, Arianna, I’m so fucking sorry. You deserved everything good in this world, and I gave you nothing but pain.”
He must have dozed off in the visitor’s chair because next thing he knew, a security guard was shaking
him awake, asking if he was okay.
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Chapter 11
Outside, the city was buzzing with Friday night energy. People were heading out for drinks, couples walking hand in hand, groups of friends laughing about stupid shit. Everyone just living their normal, happy lives.
Jayden felt like a ghost moving through it all.
He stopped in front of a bakery, staring at the fancy cakes in the window. Arianna had always been
obsessed with sweets–she’d beg him to split those overpriced cupcakes from the place downtown, the ones with like five different kinds of frosting piled on top.
Her doctors eventually had to ban sugar completely because of her heart, but she’d still sneak candy
sometimes and make him swear not to tell her mom.
“You’re gonna get me in so much trouble,” he’d always complained.
“Totally worth it,” she’d say with that grin that made his chest feel too small.
How could someone that alive just… not exist anymore?
He was turning to leave when something in the bakery window’s reflection caught his eye.
Across the street, walking away from him through the crowd, was a small figure
long dark hair.
His heart stopped.
“ARIANNA!”
He didn’t think. Didn’t look. Just ran straight into traffic, dodging cars and ignoring the angry honks, and grabbed her by the hand.
Dana Hiding as Your Backun Plaything I’
