“She has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Her heart has thickened to the point that she has an obstruction and struggles to pump her blood. We were lucky with Paisley, and we’ve been able to monitor it, but we only caught it because we lost Peyton. Her heart failed without warning one morning after PT. Sudden cardiac death.”
The SCD triggered a memory. “Sergei Zholtok.”
“I’m sorry?” Carter asked, taking the seat across from me and stretching out his legs.
“A hockey player who died from HCM during a game. It caused sudden cardiac death in the locker room.” Shit. Everything we’d been doing the last few months raced through my mind—the bungee jumping, the ATVs, the sex. Every spike of adrenaline, every time her heart rate must have skyrocketed, caused more damage than she could afford. My stomach turned another degree sour. I could have killed her. Maybe I had. “God. I did this. She wanted to go bungee jumping today, so I took her. I never would have done half of the things…” My throat closed.
“I know.” General Donovan placed his hand on my shoulder, but it didn’t feel as awkward as it could have. “This isn’t your fault. Bungee jumping was probably the stupidest thing you could have done—”
“Try the actual stupidest thing.” Carter growled, finally loosening his tie. Mine hadn’t made it out of the car.
“—but you had no reason to suspect what was going on with her.” He glared at Carter and stood slowly, his eyes tracking his wife as she paced, but she waved him off.
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” The knot that had permanently wedged itself in my throat tightened again.
“She didn’t want you to know,” Carter answered. “She wants to feel normal, and you give that to her…gave that to her.”
I ignored his assumption. “But you knew?”
“Of course.”
“And you didn’t think I should?” I leaned forward on my knees, embracing the rush of heat that inched its way through me, replacing the numbness.
“I told her to tell you; you needed to know. There was no way you could take care of her without knowing. I’m still not sure you’re capable.”
General Donovan cleared his throat, his weight shifting side to side. “Boys, Paisley made a choice, and it’s not like arguing that point is going to get us anywhere at the moment. Bateman, the only answers you’re going to get will have to come from her. We’ve all been trying to get in her head for months, and she won’t let us in.”
“It’s not like she really let me in, did she?”
“You’re one to talk, because she looked pretty damn shocked to meet your father.” My jaw flexed. “This is just one thing,” Carter added. “You know everything else but this one tiny part of her.”
Everyone else had known. Her parents. Carter. Morgan. Morgan. Shit. Someone needed to call her. I reached over to the chair next to me and picked up Paisley’s purse. A quick look, and I had her cell phone in hand.
“I’ve already called Morgan, if that’s what you’re thinking. She had to wait for her mother, but she’s on her way,” Carter said.
“Of course you already did,” I replied. I slipped her phone into her purse, and it fell off the seat, scattering the contents on the foot-worn linoleum floor. She didn’t carry much, just her phone, a tube of lip gloss, a small wallet, and a folded piece of paper that landed between my feet. I put everything back in and picked up the paper last, carefully unfolding its worn edges.
Short, tight handwriting lined the page, accompanying small boxes on the left-hand side. Some were checked off in green, and others in orange. Some were still open and blank. This was Paisley’s list. I ran my fingers over some of the entries, remembering how we’d done some of it together, and wondered when she’d found time to do the others.
“What is that?” Carter asked.
“It’s her crazy little bucket list,” I answered. “Everything she wanted to get done before graduating college.” Carter raised his eyebrows in a look I’d seen many times since we started flight school, the figure-it-out look. “Oh, shit. It’s because of her heart.”
He nodded as a doctor was paged overhead.
My chest tightened, the paper wrinkling under my grip. “It’s stupid. Everything on this list can get her killed.”
“Hence why I told her no every time she asked me to do something.” My eyes narrowed at him. “Hence why she chose you. She wouldn’t even let me see the damn list.”
I thumbed over some of the orange boxes—they were the ones I’d done with her—and let those words sink in. Paisley chose me for a reason, and she’d chosen not to tell me for the same reasons I’d chosen not to tell her about my father. We’d been happy in our bubble, as she called it.
The doors swung open, and my breath caught, but it was only Morgan and her mom, followed closely by Masters. I shoved the list into my pocket before reading the rest of the boxes. General Donovan met the women and directed them to his wife. Grayson crossed the room, dropped a black backpack at my feet, and consumed the seat on my left, taking my coffee and handing me a bottle of ginger ale without so much as looking at Will. “It’ll help with the nausea.”
“How did you—”
“Just drink it.”
I unscrewed the lid and took a swig, the bubbles washing the dryness from my mouth. “How did you know I was here?”