My Heart Was Never His

Summary

The diagnosis felt like a quiet death sentence: stage-four stomach cancer. Three months, maybe less.

When I told my boyfriend, he didn’t cry. He didn’t even reach out to hold my hand. Instead, he sat in a heavy, suffocating silence that seemed to stretch on forever.

Then, his voice cracking slightly, he asked, "Since you’re... since you don't have much time left, is there any way you could donate your heart to my sister?"

His younger sister, Maisie, had been born with a severe congenital heart defect.