“That wristband wasn’t hers!” Noah cried, his eyes filling with tears. “It was mine!” Noah grabbed the zipper of his jacket and pulled it down, unbuttoning his shirt with shaking fingers. He pulled the fabric back to reveal his bare chest. Running vertically down the center of his sternum was a long, thick, purple surgical scar, the unmistakable mark of a major cardiac operation.
“I was in the ICU at Oakridge General eighteen months ago,” Noah said, his voice breaking. “I was twenty-two years old, dying of end-stage viral myocarditis. My heart was failing. They gave me forty-eight hours to live.” Noah pressed his hand flat over the center of the scar. “Two days after your daughter’s accident… I received a donor heart. A perfect match.”