Since I was already at the hospital, I didn’t have much to do to prepare for the surgery. They transferred me from the pediatric unit where I’d been staying to the transplant one a couple of floors down so they could get me prepped. The nurses told me it was going to be a few hours before the kidney would be available for transplant. They also warned me that if the kidney didn’t meet their standards once it was harvested, then the transplant would be called off. Up until that point, I hadn’t thought about the possibility that it would be my turn and I still wouldn’t get my kidney.

I spent the next few hours reading, trying with all my might not to focus on the chance that this was a false alarm. That fate would be so cruel as to finally hand me a second chance only to take it away again. The nurses checked back in with me often and when one of them walked in with a huge smile on her face, I knew the news was going to be good. The kidney was healthy and a perfect match so it wouldn’t be long before I’d have the transplant.

It had been years since I’d allowed myself to cry. Not since the day I had found my mother dead in our apartment and the rug had been pulled out from under me. I cried tears of joy for the first time in my life. There was no controlling them as they flowed from my eyes and down my cheeks as I sat alone in a hospital bed and learned my prayers had been answered.

But as happy as I was for myself, my thoughts turned to my donor and I hoped when they had passed away that they were surrounded by a family who loved them. Although nobody could hear me, I whispered my gratitude to them softly and promised to honor their sacrifice as best I could. By the time they came and took me to the operating room, I was ready to face my future—whatever might come next.

My confidence held up as we rolled down the corridor. It didn’t waver as they hooked me up to all the monitors. Or when the surgeon walked me through what he was going to do during the transplant. None of it was new information because my medical team had already walked me through all of it, insisting I be ready for the surgery when it happened...even though in my mind it had always been if and never when. But as the anesthesiologist got ready to put me under, my calmness fled in a rush of panic. I’d reached the point where I accepted my own mortality, but I wanted to live.

Desperately so.

Even though I was utterly alone in the world.

But I didn’t fully trust the miracle that had been granted to me. There was still a voice inside my head, screaming that things never went the right way. Not for me. That something was about to go horribly wrong with the surgery, and I’d never wake up again.

My distress didn’t go unnoticed by the doctors. The surgeon bent low, his gaze locked with mine. “Everything’s going to be okay, Faith. I’ve got you.” The confidence in his green eyes was the last thing I saw before the anesthesiologist pushed the drugs into my system and knocked me out.

When I woke up afterwards, I was told the transplant was successful, but that there was one complication. A month prior, I had developed an irregular heartbeat that the doctors had been treating with medication, an atrial fibrillation they’d called it. Apparently, my heart went haywire while I was under, and my blood pressure dropped dramatically. The only way to fix it was to do a procedure they had explained when my heart first started to act up. A procedure that had totally freaked me out.

While I was under, they used metal patches on my chest to pass an electric current to my heart. The current reset my heart's rhythm back to its regular pattern. In other words, they shocked my heart and stopped it to try and make it beat normally again. Luckily, I was knocked out when it happened and the procedure worked without me even knowing about it. They told me my heartbeat went back to regular again after a few minutes. I hoped like hell it stayed that way, and I never had to go through it again since just the thought of the procedure made my heart go haywire on its own.

Before I knew it, I had spent a week recovering at the hospital and they were ready to discharge me. It was hard to believe they had cut me open, put a part of someone else inside me, and were ready to kick me out so soon. To me, it seemed impossible to fathom, but to the medical team, it was just what they did every day.

I only had a few months to go before my eighteenth birthday, and I was petrified about being discharged. I had started to pester Sarah about where I was going to go a few days ago and she just kept telling me she was working on it. They couldn’t just discharge me to some random foster home since I still had a lot of recovering to do, so the hospital’s discharge planner talked to me about long-term care facilities. They’d be able to provide the around the clock help I needed for a little bit longer. Knowing what most foster homes were like, one of the facilities sounded pretty damn good to me.

The day before I was due to be discharged to the facility, Sarah came for another visit. Our relationship had changed since I had gotten sick. We were on a first name basis, something I’d never seen another caseworker allow with any of the kids under their watch. I knew it was partially because of the guilt she felt for what had happened to me. She had placed me in the home where I had gotten sick and was devastated by the idea that it was her fault for not keeping a closer eye on my foster mother. I had gone through a stage where I had blamed her too, but eventually, I realized it was the system that had failed me and not Sarah.

“Hey, kiddo,” she greeted me. “You ready to finally get out of here?”

“That depends on where I’m going.”

“Well,” she sighed. “I’ve looked into the facilities your discharge planner recommended, and I’ve got good news. One of them accepts Medicaid, and they’re willing to take you.”

“Then get me outta here!”

“Will do,” she laughed. “But before you go, I wanted to talk to you about something else.”

My body froze, and the smile slipped from my face. I braced myself, waiting for bad news. “About what?”

“Your future.”

It wasn’t going to be long before I aged out of the system and had to figure out what to do with the rest of my life now that I actually had one to live. But I hadn’t given much thought to my future beyond recovering from the transplant—probably because it was damn scary to think about being on my own with only a high school diploma and a strict prescription regimen that I needed to follow. But if Sarah had a plan of some kind, I trusted her enough—just barely, although I’d come to believe in her more than I had any other person before—to at least listen. I offered her a weak smile. “What about it?”

“Have you given any thought to college?” My stunned disbelief must have shown on my face because she hurried to explain, “I know you have a lot on your plate right now, but time is running out if you want to apply. I’d love to wait until you’re fully recovered and back on your feet, but you only have two weeks to get everything turned in if you want to start in the Fall with the rest of the freshman class.”

“Sarah,” I paused, trying to think of a nice way to word what needed to be said. “College just isn’t—I couldn’t—no, I haven’t given any thought to college because I didn’t think I was going to be alive long enough to worry about how I’d be able to afford it if I ever managed to get accepted anywhere.”

She sat down on the chair next to the bed and leaned forward with her forearms on her thighs. “Then now’s the time to start worrying because you are going to live long enough to think about it. And you’ll get accepted—you have a solid GPA, high test scores from when you took the SAT last year, and a compelling story to tell in your admission essays.”

“But the cost—”

“You didn’t listen to a word I said about the state’s tuition waiver when I mentioned it to you earlier in the school year, did you?”

“I’m sure I listened”—she snorted, and I couldn’t blame her because I didn’t sound convincing at all—“since it kinda sorta rings a bell.” A super distant one, but a bell nonetheless.

Her hazel eyes gleamed with determination. “Listening and hearing are two completely different things, and I really need you to hear me now.”

“Okay.” I shifted on the bed, twisting so it was easier to hold her gaze. “You have my full attention.”

“You qualify for a full waiver of tuition and fees if you attend a state school.” My jaw dropped, and the good news kept coming. “And I’m almost positive I can get you additional financial support through the Postsecondary Education Services and Support program.”

“What kind of support?”

Her lips tipped up in a grin. “The kind that will cover the majority of your living expenses while you’re in college.”

“How much is a majority?”

Her grin turned into a huge smile. “Twelve hundred and fifty-six dollars a month.”

“Holy shit!” I fell back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling, tears filling my eyes and making the view hazy. Free tuition. Enough money to cover my living expenses each month if I was careful. It was more than I could have hoped for, but the pessimistic side of me just had to ask, “What’s the catch?”

“Don’t age out of the system. Stay in extended foster care until you turn twenty-one. Get continued case management services and judicial review every six months.”

I turned my head and blinked at her. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Would I be able to keep you as my caseworker?” She nodded, and I swiped at my cheeks as my heart started to fill with hope. “Then that’s a downside I could live with.” In my situation, it sounded more like a godsend because I was nowhere ready to stand on my own two feet...even if it meant I’d have to go to another foster home.

She reached out and squeezed my hand. “Since it’d only be short-term until you moved into the dorms, I might even be able to get you back into the last foster home you were in before you needed to be admitted to the hospital.”

It was like she’d read my mind and already found a solution that more than worked for me. “That would be amazing.”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best,” she swore. “And if it doesn’t work out, I swear to you that I’ll find you a good placement. Somewhere you’ll be safe.”

“Hey,” I whispered, reaching out to squeeze her hand like she’d just done with mine. “What happened to me wasn’t your fault.”

“Sometimes it feels like it is,” she admitted softly.

“You came when I called, no questions asked.”

“But—”

“And you made sure the rest of the kids were moved to better homes. Right away,” I reminded her.

“I just—”

“Nope.” I shook my head and leaned back against my pillows. “No more looking back and thinking ‘what if?’ because it won’t do either of us any good. What happened is already done, and I’ve been given a second chance. Let’s focus on making the most of it.”

She heaved a deep sigh before nodding. “The best way to do that is to get you enrolled in college.”

“Is two weeks enough time? What all do I need to do to apply?” I’d sat through the usual presentations and talks in high school about college, but I’d never paid much attention because I didn’t think it was even a remote possibility for me.

She grabbed the laptop the hospital had been letting me use off the rolling, over-the-bed table and handed it to me. “Figure out which state schools you’d like to attend, go to their websites, and fill out the online applications. I’ve talked to your guidance counselor who assured me she’d have your transcript ready to send out as soon as you let her know where you’re applying.”

She bent down, pulled an envelope out of her bag, and held it out to me. “And I wrote a letter of recommendation in case you need one.”

Reading it in front of her would have been way too awkward, but I was dying to know what she’d written about me. “What does it say?”

“I told them about your childhood and how you rose above circumstances which would crush some adults. How you’ve become an amazing young woman despite odds that were stacked against you. And that they would be lucky to have you as a student there because I have no doubt you will find a way to accomplish anything you set your mind to doing.”

“You left out the part where I can leap tall buildings in a single bound?” I joked, feeling a little uncomfortable with being the recipient of so many compliments.

She reached out and pretended she was going to take the letter back from me. “I can always add it in if you think it’d improve your odds.”

I clutched the envelope to my chest. “Nah! Maybe we’d better leave that part out.”

“Since you accepted that so well, I might as well give you this now too,” she mumbled, leaning down again to pull another envelope out of her bag and holding it out to me. “This should cover the application fees.”

Taking it from her, I peered inside and found a prepaid debit card. “You shouldn’t have done that. Can’t you get in trouble or something since you’re my caseworker?”

“It’s not from me.” She jerked her chin towards the closed door. “You have a lot of people around here who are rooting for you.”

Accepting money from Sarah would have been bad enough, but taking it from the people who’d saved my life? No way. “I couldn’t—”

“You can, and you will,” she insisted. “I might have been able to get the application fees waived, but with the super tight timeline I’m not sure we have enough time to make it happen. All it took was one brief mention of that concern to your doctor when I asked him if you’d be healthy enough to enroll for the Fall term a few days ago, and one of the nurses handed me that debit card when I got here today. With a huge smile on her face, too.”

“Crap,” I mumbled. “I’m going to have to accept it, aren’t I?”

“That depends on two things.” She sat back, crossed her arms over her chest, and stretched her legs out. “Would it bother you to disappoint everyone who threw in to give you that card? And how badly do you want to go to college?”

The answer to the second question was easy. “Now that I’ve got a new kidney, a college degree is at the top of the list of things I want.” The first question was a little trickier. I’d grown accustomed to not letting other people’s feelings matter much to me because mine didn’t seem to factor into anyone’s decisions but my own. But the nurses and doctors had taken good care of me while I’d been in the hospital. They’d done everything they could to save my life. And they’d been kind to me—even before they’d pulled the money together for me to be able to apply to college. Throwing their generosity back into their faces felt wrong, and I’d made myself a promise a week ago to not let my second chance go to waste. Part of that was doing the right thing whenever possible. “And no, I don’t want to disappoint them.”

She beamed a smile my way. “Well, then I guess you have some work to do before they come to transport you to the rehab facility.”

“I guess I do.”

She got up and walked to the door, turning towards me before she opened it. “If you run into any problems, give me a call. I’ve helped my fair share of kids fill those things out, so I’m a bit of an expert.”

“Will do.”

It wasn’t long before I discovered that filling out college applications was a major pain in the ass. I took Sarah up on her offer and called a few times over the next two weeks. She helped, just like she’d said she would. And she also got me back into the same foster home when I was discharged from the rehab facility. Things were good there, and then they got even better.

My conversation with Sarah that day changed my life—to the point that I almost couldn’t believe it was the one I was living. All that studying I had done when I thought I was going to die really paid off when I got accepted into two different state schools. One was in my hometown; the other about three hundred miles away. Since Sarah and the transplant center were in town, I opted to go to the school closer to home.

Sarah was able to line up the tuition waiver and stipend for me, and the days flew by as I marked item after item off my list of things to do. Before I knew it, I was walking across campus for my first day of classes and the excitement was almost overwhelming. I never thought in a million years that I would be able to go to college. Not back when my mom was alive, or when I was living in foster care, and certainly not when I was in the hospital. Yet there I was, a college freshman. Not only had I been given a second chance at life, I’d been handed an amazing opportunity. One that I would do my best to honor.

Luckily, I was used to living with a bunch of strangers, so I was expecting the transition to dorm life to be easier for me than most of the other students. I even sort of had a small support system since there were nine other kids from the foster system enrolled as incoming freshmen. Sarah had even talked the school into pairing me up with one of the other girls as my roommate. As I watched groups of girls giggle and hug while I trudged to the dorm with the textbooks I’d just grabbed at the campus bookstore, I was doubly glad to be matched with someone closer to my own background because I knew I wouldn’t ever be able to be as carefree as they were. I just needed to remember that I was happier now than I ever had been before in my life.

My gaze drifted away from the nearest group of girls while I was giving myself a pep talk and landed on a bunch of boys playing football in the quad, the grassy area surrounded by dorms on all sides. I wished I didn’t have to walk across it to get to the academic side of campus, but it was what it was I guessed. The guys had divided into two teams, half of them kept their shirts on and the others had gone without. I faltered a bit in my step as my eyes landed on a guy I really wished had been picked to go shirtless.

He ran across the grass to join his team in a huddle. My gaze trailed up his body to take in the dark brown hair which needed a trim, laughing brown eyes, and dimple showing in his cheek. If I had to guess, I’d say he hadn’t shaved in a couple days, and the look really worked for him. When he leaned into the huddle, my eyes landed on his ass and I almost groaned out loud. He really was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome.

Even though I wasn’t in the market for a boyfriend, I was tempted to stop and watch them play. Then I heard the group of girls I’d noticed earlier as they whispered about the boys, and I realized it wouldn’t matter anyway. My long, dark hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and I didn’t even have any mascara on the lashes of my brown eyes. Glancing down at my tattered jeans, flip-flops, and T-shirt, I knew I didn’t compare favorably to the rest of the girls who were dressed in short skirts or shorts and tight shirts that showed off a lot of tanned skin and toned muscle. There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be caught dead in anything that showed my legs right now because I still needed to gain back a lot of the weight I’d lost, and I needed to stay out of the sun so there was no tanning for me.

I regretfully tore my gaze away from the football hottie and continued on my way to my dorm, redirecting my focus to what was truly important for me right now—school. I didn’t want to worry about the things I didn’t have. Instead, I wanted to focus on what I could do with this chance. There was a family out there who suffered a terrible loss from which I benefited. I refused to let them down—not for anything or anyone.