Open Heart by Marysol James

your credit cards from the last few times you were off doing your revisions. You’d said you always stay at the same place, so I had him look for any transactions around the times you were editing. It was easy enough to see that charges here appeared every single time.”
    She stared at him, anger rising in her now. “You – you had a friend do what? Is that even legal?”
    “No.”
    “You goddamned… why did you do this?” She shot to her feet. “You’re a crazy stalker aren’t you? You – you followed me here! Why?”
    She backed away from him towards the door. He got to his feet, his hands outstretched.
    “Annabeth, please. I promise you, I’m not some deranged fan or follower or whatever. I had a very good reason for wanting to meet you. Can you just listen?”
    “Maybe. You stay over there.”
    He sat down again. “OK.”
    “So, tell me.”
    “God, Annabeth. I never wanted you to know this. I swear.”
    “Tell me.”
    “OK. I – I had a heart transplant. I had it three years ago.”
    She stared at him. “Yeah. And?”
    “And – and I know who the donor was.”
    Annabeth shook her head. “That’s impossible. The whole process is anonymous... recipients have no way of knowing where organs come from.”
    “I had a chatty young intern prep me for the surgery. Totally unprofessional, but he did tell me a lot. I knew that the donor was a firefighter who had died in a car accident and I heard the nurses talking about the heart being flown in from Denver. It was more than enough to start putting the pieces together.”
    The light was dawning on her now, but she resisted it, fought it off. “What are you telling me?”
    He looked at her steadily. “You know what I’m saying, Annabeth. My heart? It was – it was Cam’s heart. I have Cam’s heart.”
    Her knees went out under her then and she crumpled to the floor. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath.
    “Annabeth!” He hurried over to her and knelt beside her. “Hey. Hey, just breathe, OK?”
    “Oh, my God… Cam’s heart.” With trembling fingers she reached out and touched his chest. Even through the material of his t-shirt she felt his heartbeat, strong and steady. She remembered all the times she’d laid on Cam’s chest and now Eric’s chest, listening to this heart, feeling it against her cheek.
    He said it was a good heart. He has no idea how good it really was.
    Eric watched her face as she touched him. He’d do anything right now to stop her pain. He reached for her.
    “Don’t touch me!” She pushed his hands away. “Just – just stay away from me!”
    He sat a few feet away, watching her. She wrapped her arms around her legs and lowered her head to her knees and wept. She rocked back and forth, seeking comfort and struggling to calm herself. His arms twitched with the desire to pull her to him.
    “Please, Annabeth. Let me help you.”
    “ Help me?” She raised her head; her face was wrecked with shock and grief. “How are you going to help me?”
    “Let me just… just hold you.”
    “No. Never again.” She shook her head. “This whole time – this whole fucking time! – you’ve known. And you fucked me… let me sleep in your arms. Listened to me cry and I told you about wanting to kill myself. I told you about Cam. And you – you have his heart.”
    “None of that was supposed to happen,” he said quietly. “I promise you.”
    “Oh, right. Like I’m going to believe a single fucking word you say.”
    “I just wanted to meet the wife of the man who saved my life. That’s all, I swear. I was going to meet you and go.”
    “So why didn’t you?”
    “Because – because you needed me.”
    “I what? ”
    “You said so, that night. You said you needed me to help you through the night. And I wanted to be there for you. I felt like – I had a responsibility to make sure you were OK. So, I stayed.”
    “And you fucked me.”
    “No. I made love to you.”
    “Bullshit. You used me. You lied to me. You