After Jennie's girlfriend,Jisoo, dies in an accident during their junior year, she reaches out to the recipients of the donated organs in hopes of picking up the fragments of her now-unrecognizable life. But whoever received Jisoo's heart has chosen...
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"Of all heart stories, tales of grief are most deeply etched into patients' psyches. But these losses are often buried—wounds that patients are unwilling to [fully] reveal."
— Dr. Mimi Guarneri, The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing.
I'm disoriented when I pull into my driveway because I don't remember the drive home. I reach back in my mind for some concrete proof that I actually just drove back, but the only things I can think of are Rosé's face when she bent down to the passenger window and said goodbye one last time, and the way she looked in the rearview mirror, standing in the middle of the empty street, watching my car go, one hand half raised in the air. I must've replayed an endless loop of the day all the way home—her walking into the café, her eyes and the way she looked at me. The way she'd sounded when she said goodbye, like she couldn't quite believe it.
The dull ache of my lip is the only thing that keeps me from feeling like the entire day was a dream. And now I'm back. Back where I belong, and where I know my mom will be waiting, anxious and worried about where I've been. Angry when she finds out what happened. I turn off the car and sit listening to the engine settle in the otherwise still night until I'm ready to face her.
"Where have you been?" my mom says, rounding the corner into the entryway as soon as I walk in. "Do you know how many times I called you today?"
I don't. I've gotten out of the habit of checking my phone, or even turning it on.
I close the door softly behind me and set my purse on the entry table. "I know; I'm sorry."
Her eyes zero in on my swollen lip and the stitches, and she crosses the space between us in two steps, and she's right there, her hands on my cheeks, tilting my head back to see better, just like the nurse did. It only takes a second for her voice to go from angry to concerned. "My god, Jennie, what happened?"
I tear up instantly in response to the worry in her voice. "Nothing, I..." I take a deep breath, try to keep my voice steady, but the way she's looking at me does me in. I crumble completely, tears and all. "I ran into a car, and my face hit the steering wheel, and—"
"You were in an accident?" She pulls me back by my shoulders, eyes scanning the rest of me for damage. "Why on earth didn't you call me? Was anyone else hurt?"
"No, nobody else got hurt. It was a parked car, and nobody was there, so I left a note, and—"
"Where did this happen?"
I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to have to explain why I was in Shelter Cove. But there's no way around the truth on this, not between the bus I hit and the trip to the hospital. "Shelter Cove," I say. I shrug. Teary. Pathetic.
My mom's brows crash together, creasing her forehead. "What were you doing there? Why didn't you at least leave me a note? Or answer your phone when I called? Jennie, you can't just disappear like that."
