POV Bella
Ajax's apartment still smells like him. I stand frozen in the hallway where I'd slapped him twice, where he'd dropped to his knees begging forgiveness, where everything between us changed forever.
The memory brings tears but also an unexpected laugh that echoes through the empty space. Even our reconciliation had been explosive and dramatic, so perfectly us it hurts to remember.
His bedroom undoes me completely.
The sheets remain rumpled, his clothes scattered across the floor with typical Ajax carelessness. A motorcycle magazine lies open on his nightstand next to an empty water glass, as if he just stepped out and will return any moment.
I collapse onto his bed, burying my face in pillows that still carry his scent, sobbing until my chest aches around my new heart. Two months have passed since his death, but it feels like yesterday and a lifetime simultaneously—a cruel dream I can't wake from.
"You bastard," I whisper into his pillow. "You promised to always come back."
Eventually, I force myself to move, to touch his belongings. Not searching for anything specific, just needing the connection, the proof that he existed, that we existed together in this space.
His dresser holds the usual chaos—charging cables twisted around concert ticket stubs, sketches of motorcycle designs scattered between old racing photos.
Then my fingers find something that makes my heart stutter: an envelope with my name written in his unmistakable handwriting.
I sink onto his bed, hands shaking as I tear it open. Inside are two items—a letter and an official-looking document. I set the document aside, focusing on his words first:
Bella,
If you're reading this, then I was stupid enough to die on that bike. Don't be too angry—we both knew I was living on borrowed time, we just didn't know it would run out before yours.
Here's the thing though, starlight: my heart is yours now. Literally.
The words blur as tears stream down my face. I force myself to keep reading.
I got tested after you had a cold because of me. Perfect match—what are the odds? The doctors said they'd never seen compatibility markers align so perfectly. It's like we were made for each other, right down to our DNA.
I registered as a donor and signed the directive with your name on it so that if anything ever happened, you’d live. If you’re reading this, you’re alive with my heart beating inside you. It’s exactly where it always belonged anyway.
My hand flies to my chest, feeling the steady rhythm beneath my ribs—his rhythm, his heart, beating for me even after death claimed everything else.
Live for both of us, Bella. See Paris like you always dreamed. Swim with sharks in Australia. Eat street food in Bangkok and get food poisoning like an idiot tourist. Fall in love again (though I'm jealous of that hypothetical bastard already).
Just LIVE. Completely, recklessly, beautifully. Do all the things your condition never let you do. Take that healthy heart I'm giving you and use it for everything—adventures, heartbreak, joy, pain, all of it.
Do you promise me that?
Forever yours (literally now), Ajax
P.S. - Tell my family I finally found something worth dying for. Tell them I was happy.
The letter falls from my numb fingers as I reach for the document with shaking hands. It's official. Medical compatibility tests showing impossible odds, donor designation forms specifically naming me as recipient.
He'd known. He'd known the risks of every race after learning he could save me, and he'd chosen to keep racing anyway.
I grab my phone, calling my father with desperate urgency.
"Bella? What's wrong?"
"I need you to investigate something," I gasp between tears. "My heart donor. I need to know who they were."
"Sweetheart, that information is confidential—"
"Use your connections. Use your money. Use whatever it takes. I need to know."
An hour passes like eternity before he calls back.
"You won't believe this," his voice carries shock and something like awe. "The donor was Ajax Spencer. The compatibility markers were... they're calling it a medical miracle."
I thank him and hang up, sitting in stunned silence on the bed where we'd made love just days before his death. His heart beats in my chest—literally, impossibly, perfectly.
After he learned we were compatible, every race became a coin toss with my life at stake. He sealed the choice with a single signature and never looked back.
"You magnificent, self-destructive bastard," I whisper to the empty room.
I press my palm against my chest, feeling his heart—our heart—beating strong and steady. The boy who started with a cruel bet to break me ended by giving me everything, including the organ that had loved me most.
The irony is devastating and beautiful: I'm alive because he died, healthy because he took the ultimate risk. He saved me by destroying himself, gave me a future by ending his own.
"I promise," I say aloud to his ghost, to his heart beating inside me, to the love that death can't diminish. "I promise to live for both of us."
I'll see Paris and swim with sharks and eat questionable street food in Bangkok. I'll fall in love again someday, though no one will ever compare to the reckless boy who gave me his heart in every possible way.
I'll live completely, recklessly, beautifully—exactly as he demanded.
Standing in his bedroom for the last time, I realize the truth that will carry me through whatever comes next: I'm the happiest and saddest person alive, carrying my greatest love and greatest loss in the same heartbeat. Every adventure I'll have, every breath I'll take, every moment of joy or pain—all of it powered by his final gift.
Every beat is his "I love you."
Every breath is his promise kept.
Every day is our victory over the forces that tried to destroy us both.
I touch the scar on my chest one final time, then walk out of his apartment and into the future he died to give me—alone but never really alone, broken but somehow whole, carrying the heart of the boy who taught me that love is the only bet worth making.
Even when you lose, you win.
THE END