“Then change!” For a second she was sure he'd say yes. Then he would kiss her and take her to bed and she would have her reward for all the bad things that had happened in her life.

“I don't want to change,” he said. “I like working at what I love, and it'll always come first to me. Before anyone or anything else. And I don't want to feel guilty about it.”

“Then how can you say you don't want to hurt me? If you know you do?”

He turned away from her, searching for words. “You said you could handle it. I thought you were different from other girls He finally came out with it. “We can't do this anymore.”

And in a sickening flash Rose realized what she'd just done. For months she had bitten her tongue and kept her temper and smiled. And it had worked. She'd been so close to winning him. And then in a few short seconds…

I'll die if I lose him.

She swallowed her tears. “I am different, Bobby! I swear I am! This whole thing was a mistake. I made one tiny little mistake. It'll never happen again.”

“It wasn't a mistake, it was you. It was what you want. And you have a right…” But he sounded as if he was having trouble getting the words out, so maybe she hadn't lost everything after all.

“Give me another chance, Bobby!”

He was still turned away from her and she couldn't see his face.

“Look at me, Bobby. Please!”

He turned to her. But something was terribly wrong. His mouth was twisted in pain, he was whiter than she'd ever seen him, and the sweat was pouring down his face. Then everything seemed to go in slow motion for a few seconds. He hunched over and he cried out, and in one terrifying movement, he collapsed.

Later, Rose would remember what happened next as if it were a dream. She called the operator for an ambulance, and then her mother for the number of their family doctor, who told her he would meet them at the hospital. She took Bobby's pulse, opened the one horrid little window so he would have more air, loosened his collar, and propped him up the way the doctor had told her so it would be easier for him to breathe. She got into the ambulance with him and went to the hospital. And all the time, none of it was real.