It might be coldblooded of him, but those other worthy candidates were not his patients. Isabella was his patient, and writing her off was not an option for him. She’d fought her way back from sepsis. “Isabella is worthy of a heart.”

“But is she the most worthy?” Audrey challenged.

“Worthy enough for status one,” he said.

Tension stretched through the room as they considered Isabella’s numbers, her history, her options.

Dr. Nelson resettled his glasses. “I’m inclined to move her to status one. If a heart becomes available and we have any reason to think, at that point in time, that a transplant with Isabella will not be successful, we’ll defer the heart to another candidate.”

“I worry about the damage we’ve already done to Isabella’s parents over the past three months by giving them false hope,” Audrey said. “What will this do?”

“We’ve given her parents hope,” Sebastian said evenly. “But not false hope.”

“Can you try to get a heart for her?” Dr. Nelson asked Audrey.

“I have reservations.”

“But can you try?”

Everyone in the room zeroed in on Audrey.

“I can try,” she eventually said.

Sebastian took the elevator up to his balcony. He stood at the rail and watched the small people and small cars, all of them preoccupied with achieving the next thing on their to-do list. I’ve got to visit my brother. I’ve got to get lunch. I’ve got to get to my appointment on time.

He’d gotten what he wanted just now—Isabella upgraded to status one. He wasn’t experiencing any happiness over that outcome, however. Partially because that outcome had been, for him, the only and necessary outcome. Partially because Isabella was lying unconscious several floors below with a catastrophically deformed heart, so this wasn’t the time to celebrate. Partially because, since his argument with Leah, the space suit had returned that prevented him from feeling much of anything—

No. That wasn’t true.

He did feel a few things very sharply and clearly.

He felt miserable. And he felt frustrated.

He’d been waiting for Leah to come to her senses and call him. But she hadn’t.

How long was he supposed to wait?

He’d already waited a day and a half, which was a day and a half longer than he’d been willing to wait. He didn’t like being far away from her at the best of times. He hated being far away from her with angry silence between them.

Old traumas—his mother’s death, the earthquake—kept ambushing him in quiet moments.

The day his mom had died, he’d packed his clothing in suitcases while people he didn’t know rolled his mother out of the old lady’s apartment on a stretcher.