This is Not the End

by Chandler Baker

  Dr. Belkin forces a chuckle that doesn’t reach his eyes, which are cold and calculating, as always. “Maybe a little. But at least you’ll be walking and talking.” The man makes a good point.

  “And what if you put it in wrong?” I ask. This time my mom doesn’t interrupt me.

  “We won’t put it in wrong.”

  “But my body could reject it. The heart, I mean?”

  Dr. Belkin frowns. “We’re going to do our best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  There are more questions on the tip of my tongue, but I let them sit there unasked. Instead, I chance a look at my mother, whose expression is unreadable, and take a deep breath, thinking again about how there are fifteen dead people in the history of the world for every living one and wondering which end of the chart I’ll wind up on.

  On the nightstand next to me, there’s a vase full of daisies from our neighbors and a big pink teddy bear sent by my teachers. Dozens of cards line the windowsill, some from my best friends, some from people I’ve never met.

  My ears start ringing now, and I’m getting a tingly sensation in my toes, and I’m watching the room and my mother and Dr. Belkin, and suddenly it feels like there’s a piece of glass between me and the rest of the world. I swallow hard: the glass evaporates, but the ringing is still there.

  The moment hangs there a second too long before Dr. Belkin asks me again if I’m ready and pats my knee under the thin hospital blanket. He’s awkward when he tries to have a good bedside manner, but I don’t mind, because I can barely feel the spot where he touched me. It’s as if this body is somebody else’s. “Three o’clock,” he says, glancing at the clock on the wall and then back at his clipboard. “We better get going.”

  “Ready.” I lie.

  Dad strolls in, holding the hand of a teetering Elsie, who toddles over the threshold and into my room looking frustratingly adorable, as usual. Big pink bow, soft brown curls, and chubby cherub fingers you can’t help but get the urge to lick icing off of.

  Dad scoops her up and places her on the side of my bed. “Tell your sister we’ll see her soon,” he coos. He’s all scruffy beard and smiles and his calming presence spreads over me like a warm bath. When Mom’s watching Elsie he winks at me, and I know it’s a secret meant for just us two to share.

  Elsie pats my arm and laughs. A lump grows inside my throat as I look at my baby sister. She was brought into this world a short ten months after I found out I’d probably be making an early exit. As if I was a replaceable doll that happened to be back-ordered by a few years. I wonder if she’ll grow up to look like me, with stick-straight black hair and green eyes that are too wide, or whether her hair will stay brown and curly, like Dad’s, her skin the same tan color. I wish someone could promise to send me a postcard in the afterlife just in case I die.

  “Are you nervous, sweetie?” Big fat tears line my mother’s eyelashes as she slides off the bed and studies me with her head tilted.

  I shake my head and force a smile. “This body ain’t big enough for the both of us,” I tease, donning a thick Western accent. My parents like when I joke around about my condition. That sort of humor is sick-kid gold. It makes adults think we’re resilient, when really, my limbs have that shaky feeling I get just after I throw up.

  What I really want to tell her is that I’m terrified. Terrified I’ll miss high school and my friends and a normal life. Terrified that Elsie will take my place in the family and I’ll be forgotten. Terrified that I’ll never have a real boyfriend.

  Dad ruffles my hair with the hand that’s not clinging to Elsie. “That’s the spirit, kiddo.” The creases lining the corners of his eyes are damp.

  For a brief moment, my heart physically aches and I think maybe there’s some good left in it after all, but I catch myself right away, since now isn’t the time to get tricked all over again. There’s only one punishment for treason and it’s death. And if I have to wrestle my stupid, defective heart all the way into the depths of the underworld, then that’s what I’ll do, and I swear to God, if only one of us can survive, it’s sure as hell going to be me.

  I slide my iPhone out from underneath the back of my hospital gown. I’ve been clinging to it—my only connection to the outside world—but now I’ll have to give it up. My hands shake as my thumb slides across the screen. The nurses are unhooking me from machines. My family is staring at me. Orderlies are busy clearing a path. And yet I’ve never been so alone. My bed is a planet around which everyone else orbits. It must be this realization that plants inside me the sudden desire to tell one person in the world how I feel. It’s a need that takes hold like roots in soil.

  I’ve been avoiding Henry, but with trembling fingers I type one sentence: I’m scared. The words appear one letter at a time until I’m left staring at them all spelled out in front of me. If nothing else, I think, they’re true, and there are worse ways to end things. So I hit send and try to imagine I’ve mailed the fear along with it.

  Mom pulls my head to her lips and pushes my hair back, so the scrub nurse can put a shower cap over it. Mom takes my phone and the jewelry that I’m wearing, along with the stuffed puppy I keep for good luck.

  Before I know it, they’re starting to roll me away. Panic wells up inside me and I just barely get out, “See you soon,” even though I’m already facing backward as Dr. Belkin and the nurse push me out of room G216. Of course, Elsie’s crying again.

  The double doors rush at me, swinging open at the last second. I stare up at the ceiling tiles instead and watch them whiz past one by one. We’re in a new room now, with a giant light overhead and a crowd of masked clinicians. From somewhere behind me, an anesthesiologist is telling me to count, so I do it, and I’m counting out loud: “Ten, nine, eight…”

  I see myself holding Elsie, right after she was born. Seven…Covered in blood, she’s sticky and screaming, but brand-new and strangely beautiful. She stretches her fingers up, clasping at nothing. Her tiny mouth sucks the air.

  Six…

  I watch as black water closes over the top of her head, submerging tiny wisps of baby hair. My eyelids flutter. Or at least they try to. Bubbles break the surface.

  Five…

  Only I’m not sure if I’m counting anymore. There’s a boy. His eyes are shaded. His face is a flash and then it’s gone, replaced by a body. I can’t see whose. The face is turned, hair splayed out like it’s floating in the ocean. I should tell someone. I should.

  But I can’t because four. The word is announced as if over a loudspeaker.

  On cue, the room goes dark, or at least it’s dark for me. There’s a tight squeeze against my lungs and then—

  Spoiler alert: I’m not dead.

  I know there are people at school wondering, wanting to ask one of my (very few) close friends, but not sure how. They’ve probably tried checking my Facebook page for signs of life—or death. They can’t. It’s locked unless I let you in.

  The truth is, I’m superstitious. In the weeks after surgery, every day was a waiting game, breath held, an anybody’s-guess version of Russian roulette—will my body accept the new organ or not? Staying at the hospital was a routine step in the surgery, but it felt like purgatory.

  Days turned into weeks and still my clock kept ticking. My parents are still the last holdouts, even more hesitant than I was to make the big Stella’s okay broadcast. Nobody wants to show our hand, to publicize that we cheated death. The weaker hand has won. Only you can’t live that way forever. Can you?

  I snap shut the lid of a yellow marker and admire my handiwork. On the wall of my bedroom hangs a calendar. Between this year and the year before there are a total of 237 red x’s, one for each day of school I missed. The five weeks are a solid block of angry crosses. I slashed each over the date, often pushing so hard the ink bled onto the page beneath.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Mom leans in the doorway, warming her fingers with a steaming mug of coffee. “Dr. Belkin said—”

  “Dr. B
elkin said it was fine.” The red marker lies in the garbage can beside my nightstand. With the yellow, I’ve colored a bright sun on today’s date to mark my return. At last, I think, unable to suppress a smile. My skin practically crawls with longing to get out of this house. Four weeks ago I’d have said I had cabin fever. By now it’s escalated to full-on cooped-up pneumonia.

  “Fine.” She stirs her coffee with a miniature spoon and concentrates on the cream swirling into milky brown. “But that doesn’t mean advisable.”

  “I was ready to go back weeks ago.” I tie a ribbon around the base of my ponytail and admire my reflection in the mirror. On my last visit to Dr. Belkin, I’d petitioned for a clean bill of health, but he’d sentenced me to another seven days. I would have invoked the rules of the Geneva Convention if I’d thought it’d convince anyone that I deserved an early release. But I waited. Patiently. So that no one would question my judgment the moment I was cut loose.

  My recovery hasn’t exactly been a straight line. There’ve been side effects. Painful ones. In the mirror the remnants of dark, bruise-like circles peek through the concealer underneath my eyes. Bones protrude from my thin wrists. I keep these things hidden from my mom. They’re only distractions. I’m lucky she can’t see the worst of it. My chest has been feeding me a raw, incessant ache ever since I returned home from the hospital. Sometimes I peek underneath my shirt, certain that I’ll find pus oozing out of the wound. I never do. That’s the thing about pain: it’s invisible.

  “What are the rules?” she asks.

  I sigh, retucking my shirt. “Wash my hands frequently. Maintain a bland diet. Don’t elevate my heart rate unless I want to malfunction. Happy?” I say, grabbing my bag off my bed.

  “I’d prefer not to think about my daughter malfunctioning.” She trails me down the hall toward the entryway.

  “I figured it sounded nicer than the real word—dead.” I stop at the front door and turn to face her. The corners of her eyes crinkle like tissue paper under her wire-frame glasses. “Mom.” I try to sound firm, adult. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  My mom’s cheeks cave as she purses her lips. “Another week at home wouldn’t kill you.”

  I push open the door, letting in a burst of fresh air, which isn’t steeped in sun like I’d imagined, but slick and soggy. I breathe in a heaping mouthful and smile. “No, Mom. It would.”

  Seven o’clock. I push the lock button one more time on the keys to my black Jetta before looking up at the school I never thought I’d see again. It’s already been in session for six weeks. The late September air’s filled with a million crystallized droplets so minuscule they seem to hang suspended rather than fall. They clog up my pores and pull at the strands in the hair-sprayed ponytail I spent fifteen minutes combing this morning.

  Everything’s deadly quiet here. The gravel parking lot’s empty and the sky is still gray, making outlines fuzzy and out of focus. The oak trees, portables, and the American flag that droops limply from the pole all loom in the murky air like abandoned carnival rides. It’s my favorite time, these stolen minutes in a place normally teeming with people.

  I take a sip of coffee from a silver travel mug, and as if in response, my heart performs a kick. I rub at the spot on the outside of my chest where it feels as if my new heart may have left a bruised rib. I push on one of the bones to feel it. The muted pain spreads up my breast and I knead it with my fingertips.

  Relax, I tell it. First-day jitters. I trudge through the parking lot to the mist-soaked grass alongside the library’s edge. Through the fog I see someone cut across my path. His figure is obscured by the gray dripping from the sky, but sharpens as our trajectories converge. He’s tall, with hands shoved into his pockets as he walks briskly in the opposite direction.

  “’Morning,” I mutter when we’re only a few feet apart. His head tilts and he nods before brushing by without a sound.

  I take another swig from my coffee mug and resist the urge to glance back. Our school is two redbrick buildings with cement trim framing a grassy quadrangle that’s dotted with picnic tables and black-and-white checkered benches. An arched covered walkway connects them, and portables lie on the outskirts like shantytowns for student body overflow. The school itself backs up against a thick stand of pine trees that Duwamish High students call simply The Woods. Where lazy prep school boys in wrinkled polos cut out to smoke cigarettes between classes and sneak their hands up the plaid skirt of any girl who’s willing.

  It’s early still. Too early to head to class. The main entrance will be locked while the teachers try to enjoy their last few minutes of peace and quiet. But the janitor always props open the back door of the west-side building, the one closest to the woods and, conveniently, nearest to my locker. That’s where I head.

  Inside, the hallway smells as damp and musky as the outdoors. My shoes squeal against the linoleum. My locker’s close enough to the open door that the early fall breeze plays with my hair.

  The halls are silent except for the faint trickle of music from a teacher’s radio. In front of my locker, I slide off my book bag and plop down cross-legged on the ground. I’ve packed a copy of The Awakening, a book I was supposed to have finished the last week I was in the hospital. I almost did, but my life got pretty busy what with twice-daily naps and finishing up that last season of The Bachelor. It’s funny how the more time you have, the more nothingness there is to swallow it up.

  I turn to the dog-eared page near the back of the book. I’m not sure what to make of this Edna character. She’s very whiney for someone who’s had three lovers in the past two hundred pages.

  I lick my finger and flip the page, trying to see Edna’s life the way she sees it. I’m about to finish the chapter when a strong gust blows in and ruffles the pages. I rub my hands together and blow into them, cold. The wind howls as it sweeps through the long hall. I trace the direction it traveled with my eyes.

  The tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Reluctantly, I cast my eyes around, twisting my neck without moving. A creepy sensation inches its way up my spine. My fingernail finds the fleshy part of my forearm and I scratch into the smooth surface. Not enough to leave a scab, but the line stings like a mouthful of Listerine.

  The feeling that I’m not alone makes me want to bolt. I peer down the hallway to the point where I can’t see around the corner. Someone’s watching me. Maybe I should leave.

  No, I’m being silly. I force myself to settle down by rubbing my fingertip against the skinned patch on my arm. I push down. The stinging flares. Eventually, though, it calms me and I take a deep breath and return my attention to the book.

  I pick back up with Edna, who can’t understand why Robert doesn’t love her. As far as I can tell, it’d be a lot easier if Edna just asked him. People in old books don’t communicate well.

  But then there it is again. The watched feeling.

  This time goose pimples spring up on my forearms. There’s a squeak—the sound of sneakers on a basketball court.

  I tuck my heels in and slowly rise to my feet, new heart thumping. I tiptoe to the end of the row of lockers and peer around. Nothing.

  A loud thump comes from behind me and my heart leaps clear into my mouth. I whirl around, hand clawing at my chest.

  “Holy shit.” The words rush out in one long whoosh of air. A mangy Siamese cat peeps its head out of a trash can and stares at me with blank eyes as colorless as melted snow. I let my head droop, trying to catch my breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say out loud. “How the hell did you get in here?”

  The cat hooks a bony limb over the top of the trash can and pulls itself onto the rim, balancing. Its cream-colored fur is both greasy and matted. The cat tosses its head and a puff of fleas—or maybe dander—flies from the ridges of its back, its skin pulled taut over a scrawny skeleton. Usually I love animals, but this one smells foul and looks diseased. It blinks at me once, slowly, before pouncing and slinking out the door to the woods. I breathe a deep sigh of reli
ef but am compelled to check my pulse just like Dr. Belkin instructed. It’s fast. Faster than it should be, but not so fast as to tax my new heart in a serious way.

  Brushing dust off the back of my pants, I stuff The Awakening back in my bag and swing it over one shoulder when I hear—

  “So?” The voice is low but chipper. “How do you feel?” I jump at the sound of his voice and spin around.

  Henry’s head is tilted slightly to the side. He’s wearing his stained Washington Huskies hat with the ripped brim and his curly brown hair pokes out underneath. He’s not laughing hysterically at me, so he must have missed the whole cat incident. Small blessings, as Mom would say.

  I tuck my hair behind one ear and swallow hard, trying to steady myself. “Well, I feel like I’ve got about a zillion weeks of class to catch up on and an AP Euro exam next week that’s going to kick my ass.”

  “I’m sorry, I thought you were Stella, but you must be the Grinch, here to steal all of the first-day-back cheer.” Henry leans a skinny shoulder against my locker. There’s an awkwardness that lingers between us. I know since he didn’t hug me right away. I haven’t given him an answer, not since my surgery. Not since there became a future to speak of, one that I could actually plan. Back then I couldn’t talk future anything. I couldn’t even think about what Henry and I could be when he asked. But now everything’s changed. I just need to catch up.

  “Sorry, this is the first time in almost a month I’ve had to wake up pre-ten a.m. Be warned. Plus I barely made it out of the house without my mom forcing a surgical mask on me. Honestly, you’d have thought I was marching off into a nuclear war zone.”

  Henry’s cheek dimples when he smiles. “I’ve always thought that’s what our uniforms were missing—surgical masks.” Without thinking, I touch the collar of my white polo, conscious again of the angry scar that runs up the entire length of my torso. It’s the first time in almost ten years I’ve been thankful to go to a school where uniforms are required.