Page 1 of What the Heart Wants (Desires of the Heart 1)

Prologue

Kyla

“It’s okay…” I say with my voice cracking as I am struggling to take a breath.

I feel my mother’s hand hold onto mine tighter. I smile weakly at her. I turn my head to look at my best friend Holly. She has tears running down her cheeks, and I can tell that she’s trying hard to hold in sobs. “Don’t worry, Holly. I’ll always be with you,” I tell her through the lump in my throat.

She shakes her head back and forth in denial. “You can’t say things like that, Kyla! You’re my best friend! What am I going to do without you? We have so much we still need to do together.”

“You will find someone else,” I say to reassure her, even if it pains me a little bit to think of someone else going through life with her and experiencing everything I’ll miss out on. We have always been attached at the hip since we were kids. She has been my rock.

I look up. My dad is sitting on the windowsill looking at me with the most heartbreaking expression I have ever seen on his face. If I could cry any more tears, I would. Seeing this strong man with tears streaming down his face would resort anyone to tears.

I hear a noise in the hallway. It sounds like a bunch of people running around. I take a breath. I know what’s coming. I can feel my body giving up.

I barely have any energy to care what’s going on. I can feel my time coming. I was born with a heart defect. Over the years, it became clear that I would need a transplant. I was able to make it to my twenty-first birthday. Sure, I wasn’t able to party and let loose like most people would want to on their birthday. I had spent the day with my family and friends in this hospital room, but that was more than I could have hoped for. I feel my body getting weaker by the day.

I lay there lost in my thoughts when the door to my room bursts open.

“Congratulations! We found you a heart!” the doctor exclaims while bursting through the door with three nurses behind him. There’s a huge rush of commotion while they get me ready. I had to have heard him wrong. There is no way he said what I think he did.

My parents and best friend stare at him with their mouths wide open.

“What?” my mom says before throwing a hand over her mouth. Her eyes fill with a hope that I haven’t seen in months.

I’m busy staring at my parents when I realise that I’m getting ready to be wheeled out of the room.

“We have a donor. It’s time to take Kyla into surgery. We can’t waste any more time,” the doctor says.

It clicks with my parents what’s happening. They both give me a hug and kiss. Holly then steps up and whispers in my ear, “you come back to me, you hear? We have our whole life a head of us. Don’t you dare give up on me.”

I smile weakly at her before I get pulled away. I look at my parents and best friend one more time before I head out to have a life changing surgery. I swallow the nerves inside and put on a brave face.

Please let me make it through this.

I have so much life left to live.

Chapter One

Kyla

Five years later.

I open the door to the office where I work. I had gotten this job a few weeks ago. I am now a secretary. It might not be the most glamorous job in the world, but I am so happy and excited for the experience. I never thought I would ever have a job, or a life, beyond twenty-one.

This was my first job. I spent most of my teenage years sick and not thinking I was going to live another day, so I didn’t have the energy in me to work. My parents didn’t want me to work either. We were pretty well off, so I didn’t have to. My father was a doctor himself, but he was a brain surgeon. He told me that, once I was born with a heart defect, he wished he had become a heart surgeon instead. I always told him that his passion lies with the intricacies of the brain, and that it is important that he is there for those people who need that kind of help.

My mother spent her time taking care of me. She was a nurse back in the day which is how they met but, when I was born, she decided to devote her time to me. I loved her for that. I had been sick most of my life.

Five years after my surgery, I was finally ready to try out the working world. I spent the last five years recovering from the surgery, and trying everything and anything that I was afraid to do before because of my illness. My parents supported me travelling; they had even come with my best friend Holly and me to most places until I was more comfortable to be away from them. I never could be far away from them.

I lived with them still. I wasn’t ready to find a place yet. I wasn’t sure what I felt about living alone, but I was ready to try working and making my own money.

The company I work for was owned by four people. They all have an equal share and, from what I had heard, they were rich best friends who invested together, and it seemed to work well for them. I haven’t met them myself, but it was rare for newbies to meet the owners. They were also currently out of the country.

I smiled and said “hi” to people I came across. I worked with Jenny, who was a personal assistant for the owners, every day. She needed an extra hand with some of the work, so she was able to hire me on to help. She was also very pregnant and needed to personally train someone for the position. I have no idea why she hired me, but she said that she loved my enthusiasm.

I was never very passionate about much but, since my life-saving surgery, I made a deal to live life to the fullest. I thank the person that saved my life every day. It was their heart that gave me a chance at life. I lived both for me, and for them.

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