big pockets and a lot of influential people shoved into them.”
“She doesn’t know where I am, right?”
He shakes his head. I can’t get over how young he is. He does not look like a doctor. He’s not even dressed like a doctor.
He’s wearing jeans and a faded Superman T-shirt.
“It’s casual Friday,” he says, noticing me taking in his attire.
“And the shirt kind of makes a statement, don’t you think?”
He jumps from the chair and puts both hands on his waist, his chin lifted. “No?” He looks at me out the corners of his eyes while he holds the pose. “Fair enough. I guess if I were really Superman, I could get a girlfriend. But even though I’m tall and devastatingly average in the looks department—no girlfriend. I bet there’s nothing you would love more than to hear all about my lack of social interactions with the opposite sex. Or not.”
He sits on the edge of my bed.
“Kyle McAdams, in the flesh.” He shakes his head, and I 3 0 9
Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
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think I can detect a few of the scars left over from one of those bouts of acne he was talking about. “God, I am so stoked that you’re here!”
“You said you can save me.”
He pinches his lips between his teeth. “I did say that, didn’t I? Of course, you were bleeding and feverish. Maybe you misunderstood? Not that I can’t save you; it’s just that it’s not, like, a hundred percent guarantee that I can save you. It’s more like sixty-forty. The sixty in your favor, so that’s good.”
“What do you mean?”
He runs his hands through the jagged layers of his hair and stands, then starts pacing. “Did I mention that I have ADD? A lot of brilliant people do, or at least, they get diagnosed with it because their brains are always going, always racing from one thing to another, and so they drive their teachers crazy and end up medicated, which really sucks because it dumbs them down. We’d probably have a cure for cancer by now if we’d just let the neurons fire away in our brains instead of saying, ‘Here, kid, take this because we’d rather deal with passive zombies in the classroom than miniature hyper Einsteins.’”
I stare at him, and he stares back, almost like we’re having a contest to see who will blink first.
“Can I save you?” he finally says. “Here’s the deal.” He hops back on the chair and rolls it forward until his legs hit against the bed. “You need a new heart. Your entire DNA has a sequence plugged into it that basically tells your heart to turn off, just like flipping a light switch. Your heart has that same DNA in it, but if you had a different heart, one that had DNA 3 1 0
Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
without that sequence, it wouldn’t be able to communicate when the rest of your body tried to turn it off. It’s like telling a Spanish person to do something, but you tell them in French.
No comprende. He can’t do it because he doesn’t know what the hell you’re saying.
“Problem is getting you a heart. It’s not like we can go through the usual channels. For one, all the tests would show that your heart is perfectly healthy, so no way they’d put you on a list for a donor heart. Plus, people wait months for hearts and never get them. We could kill someone. God knows there are plenty of cold homeless veterans on the streets. I could offer one a cheeseburger laced with a really big dose of sedative.
Whisk him back here. Take out his heart, and bam!” He grins, then immediately frowns. “But murder isn’t exactly my style.
Doesn’t go with the shirt.” He points to the Superman logo.
“However, what does go with it is my bazillion IQ.” He grins again. “I have already started growing you a heart.”
“Growing?”
“Yep. Claudia’s been growing kidneys and bladders for some time. And since I hate her, and since it’s the right thing to do for the sake of humanity”—he rolls his eyes—“I’ve been working on growing hearts. Specifically, one for you.”
The long, narrow young face, with dark eyes framed by equally dark, dramatic brows, stares at me with such intensity, I want to look away, but I can’t.
“Ever since I found out about you, I’ve wanted to do something to save you.” he says. “You are .