The Hearts We Sold(26)

Inoperable.

The word sounded so clinical. It was a detached way of stating the obvious.

Dying.

And all at once, Cal couldn’t draw breath. His lungs felt hollow, his throat too full, and he found himself walking quickly, that walk shifting into a jog, then a run. Worn rubber soles slapping against the linoleum floor, past nurses and rolling beds, until he saw a door leading into a stairwell. He burst through it. The air was colder here, but it was still not enough. He nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to get down the stairs.

He only slowed when he reached the parking lot. His chest heaved, every breath rasping through his throat.

Inoperable.

The word felt as if it had taken root inside of him, grown like some poisonous thing.

He gazed up at the stars, tried to comfort himself with his own insignificance. He was little more than a tiny ape, standing on the surface of a rock—one of many such rocks in this galaxy. His own grief would be a blip in time, there and gone again in a moment. Humans were helpless creatures, he thought. Good with tools and problem solving, sure, but they couldn’t even fix a heart. They couldn’t—no one could— Well, he thought, no one human could.

Cal took a moment to consider it. Only a moment. Because his mind was already racing ahead, weighing cost and gain. A limb for a life. A limb for a life.

He could do it.

He would do it.

So he pulled his phone out of his pocket, and did the only thing he could think of.

He placed an online ad.

In the ensuing hours, he received countless e-mails—most of them spam, a few rather terrifying. Cal sorted through them, deleting them one by one, until he came to one that stood out.

It was three lines long.

A heart for a heart.

A life for a life.

Yes/No?

It was a joke. It had to be a joke. But Cal clicked the reply button and typed a single word.



Yes.



When he looked up from his phone, a man stood before him. He wore a dark suit, an umbrella tucked beneath his left arm. A thread of red yarn was caught on one of his lapels.

And he was smiling.





FOURTEEN


D ee was getting dressed when Gremma pushed into the room.

“Your dealer’s here,” she said. “He’s lurking outside of the building—he’s going to get the cops called on him if the dorm monitors see him.”

Dee froze in the act of clipping on her bra. “What?” Her robe hung loose around her shoulders, and any moment now it was going to slip off, exposing her damp and chill back to the air.

It was a Saturday—and she had planned on spending her day alternating between an English essay and watching old episodes of some medical drama with Gremma.

“Your dealer,” said Gremma. “He’s out by the courtyard, asking anyone who passes by if they know a Dee.”

Dee remained frozen, her robe slipping down one shoulder.

Gremma heaved a sigh. “He’s got brown hair that really needs a cut. He probably hasn’t shaved in a day or two. Kind of looks like a hot homeless guy. Any of this ringing a bell?”

Dee’s stomach bottomed out. “James.”

A light lit behind Gremma’s eyes. “You do know him.” She said the words with an almost childlike glee, as if overjoyed to have found Dee’s deep, dark secret.

Oh, if only.

“Yes, but he is not my dealer,” said Dee.

Gremma squinted through the window. “Really? Then… I don’t know. Bookie? Secret crime lord?” She wriggled her hips in a vague motion. “Man of the night?”

“We… sort of know each other through an acquaintance.”

Gremma’s face spoke volumes. “Sure. Well, I’d recommend putting on a shirt before you go out to meet him.”




Dee was wearing a shirt when she ventured out of her dorm. She also put on her second-best cardigan, skinny jeans, and flip-flops—hoping that perhaps if she dressed normally, maybe she could trick the universe into acting normally. Her knitted heart was shoved in her cardigan’s pocket.

The courtyard was a small stretch of concrete and potted plants between the Whiteaker and Grover dorms, mostly used by the seniors to try to sneak a smoke. The flower beds smelled of old ashes.

James leaned against an overlarge flowerpot, checking his nails. When he heard her approach, he offered her a friendly grin. “Glad to see word reached you. I forgot my phone and somehow throwing pebbles at random windows seemed like a losing strategy.”

“My roommate thinks I’m running drugs,” said Dee flatly. “And that you’re my dealer.”

James blinked. “At least she thought I looked enterprising.”

“She said you looked homeless.”

James straightened the sleeves of his orange leather jacket. “It’s vintage.”

“You’re going to get arrested for loitering,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

He nodded at the dormitory. “You free to leave?”

“It’s Saturday,” she replied.

He tilted his head. “You know, that’s not really an answer.”

“This is boarding school, not prison,” she said. “It’s the weekend—I’ve got parental permission to leave.”