I Took My Heart Back From the Man Who Never Loved Me

The night before my blood-bound union, my mother walked in on the man I was promised to with his hands all over the girl I called my closest friend. The shock tore through her like a blade. Her heart gave out, and only a transplant could save her.

It was a small mercy that she and I had been matched long before, blood and tissue both. I made my choice without flinching. I would give her my heart and carry on with a machine ticking in my own chest.

When I begged the man I was to marry to cover the surgeon's fee, he told me he hadn't the cash on hand.