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“You have more testing today while I take my dialysis,” she announced.

I groaned and rolled onto my back. “I remember,” I muttered, wishing I could go anywhere but back to the renal center with her.Advertisement

Quinn had a big game today. If he won this one, they were set for the playoffs for divisional champs. I’d wanted to be there so bad. Pulling up my phone, I texted him, letting him know I couldn’t make his game, but I wanted to see him as soon as possible.

Finally—finally—he texted back, saying, That’s fine. We can meet up afterward. Love you.

I stared at the last two words, my chest swelling with shock. He’d never said that to me before. I couldn’t believe—

“Are you ready to go or not? I’ve got a kidney to flush out over here.”

“Sorry.” I shook my head, stuffed my phone into my purse and followed her from the room.

Her eyes sharpened with an evil glint, but I was getting used to those looks. It was best just to believe she had an ulterior motive behind everything she did.

She was quiet on the ride, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel as she flipped through stations and annoying the heck out of me when she’d change a channel just as I’d start to get into a song.

Once we arrived, I went through my regular tests, getting used to some of the routine of them taking my blood pressure, urine sample, and blood test. A lull came as I had to wait for Cora to finish, so I studied some homework until she was done. She was just concluding her treatment when the doctor who’d given me my exam approached me with a wince.

“We hit a snag on one of your tests.”

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Both Cora and I lifted our faces. “What do you mean a snag?” Cora demanded, arching him a glare.

The doctor fiddled nervously for a second before he glanced back and forth between us. “It seems you’re beginning to develop a small urinary tract infection. We’re going to have to put you on antibiotics so it doesn’t move into your kidneys. If the kidneys get damaged, we’ll have to delay, possibly even cancel the entire transplant.”

“The fuck you say,” Cora exploded. When she glanced at me, her eyes narrowed with hate, so much hatred I actually shied away from her.

I clutched my chest, wondering how this could have happened. “I…I don’t understand. I’ve been following all my directions, drinking plenty of water, cranberry juices, keeping to the recommended diet, cleaning regularly.”

The doctor shook his head, puzzled. “Your records don’t show you have a history of getting them frequently, either.”

“No,” I agreed. “I’ve never had one before.”

“Have you become sexually active recently?” he asked, scowling to himself, obviously perplexed, as he shuffled through his paperwork to recheck my results.

“What?” I uttered. My face drained and I glanced hastily toward Cora.

Her face turned a purplish red as her jaw hardened. “Yes,” she growled to the doctor as she glared at me. “Yes, she has. Why?”

Oh God.

Panic gripped me. But she knew.

How did she know?

“Oh.” The doctor looked up in surprise. “Well, that explains it then. I swear, the sexual education teachers these days really need to explain how important it is to you young girls to clean up directly after having relations.”

Protectively wrapping my arms over my chest and wanting to die of mortification, I stood there and listened to him lecture me about how I needed to urinate after every “relation,” or at least wipe the “area” so stuff from my partner didn’t get up into my urethra and cause bacteria to grow.

Next to me, a stiff Cora nodded the entire time, agreeing with everything the doctor had to say. But as soon as he finished his lecture and sent me on my way with prescription for my UTI, the glance she sent me told me just how much she was seething under the surface.

We left the treatment center together, side by side. I didn’t speak until we were outside. “How long have you known?” I finally asked.

She cracked off a low, hard laugh before searing me with a hateful glance. “How long have I known what? That you’re the little slut who screwed my boyfriend’s brains out the night he tried to ask me to marry him?”

Her voice was quiet and controlled but filled with enough fury to fuel a rocket. “I figured it out at the bar when sweet, innocent, peaceful Zoey Blakeland sent Oren Tenning after me to defend Quinn.”

Shock reverberated through my system. I couldn’t believe she’d known that long, and done nothing. I opened my mouth to ask why she’d said nothing. pqdm.com