Neighbor Dearest

by Penelope Ward

  She must have noticed that I was crying, because she decided to check her computer.

  “Spell his last name?”

  After I obliged, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. No one by that name has checked in here. He must be at Memorial.”

  Without responding, I ran as fast as I could back to the car, punched the other address into my GPS app, and sped the entire way to Memorial.

  While tears streamed down my cheeks, my mind raced with fearful thoughts, namely that if something had happened to Damien, my very last words to him were, “I don’t want to ever see you again.”

  I would never forgive myself if something happened to him.

  I just needed to see him.

  I needed to get to him.

  He needed to be okay.

  When I finally arrived at Memorial Hospital, my heart felt like it was in my mouth as I made my way to the emergency room.

  “I need to see Damien Hennessey. He was brought here about an hour ago.”

  The receptionist punched some keys and said, “He was admitted.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Are you family?”

  “I’m not related, no.”

  “They may not be able to give you much info or let you see him. He’s on the third floor, though. Take those elevators.”

  Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion: sliding into an elevator at the last second; weaving my way through the halls of the third floor.

  Then, I saw him. Or so I thought. In my haze, I had mistaken Tyler for Damien. Tyler was pacing with his hands in his pockets.

  He stopped when he saw me and looked a bit panicked. “Chelsea?”

  A rush of adrenaline hit me. “Where is he?”

  “He’s okay. He’s okay. He’s alive.”

  Thank God.

  Thank you, God.

  “I need to see him.”

  “You can’t right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s with his doctor.”

  “I’m going in.”

  He placed his hands on my arms to stop me. “No, Chelsea.”

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Tyler just stared at me for the longest time. He walked over to the nurses’ station and grabbed a tissue before handing it to me.

  “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BROKEN HEARTED

  Tyler led me out to a grassy area just outside of the hospital doors. The late afternoon sun was starting to set, and the cool breeze dried my tears a bit.

  He was alive.

  I reminded myself that whatever Tyler was about to tell me couldn’t be that bad because Damien was alive. He was talking to his doctors, right?

  “It’s gonna be okay,” he said.

  “What’s going on, Tyler? Don’t beat around the bush anymore. I can’t handle it.”

  “Come sit.” He led me over to a bench. “This is a conversation you were supposed to have had with him. But if he had his way, it never would have happened. I don’t care if he kills me. You need to know.”

  “What? Need to know what?”

  “Damien fainted. His blood pressure dropped suddenly. He was probably under a lot of stress lately and not taking good care of himself. That’s what brought him here today.”

  “Okay…that’s not that bad.”

  “It’s happened before. Over the past few years, he’s been getting more symptoms—symptoms that didn’t exist until recently.”

  “Symptoms of what?”

  “Damien has a heart condition, Chelsea. It’s called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.”

  “What?”

  “A long name, I know. It’s inherited. It’s the same condition that killed our father.”

  My heart sank, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What does it mean?”

  “It means a part of his heart muscle is thickened. Sometimes, there are no symptoms and people, like my dad, don’t even know they have it. They just go into sudden cardiac arrest. Many of them die. In Damien’s case, we found out through genetic testing that he has it. More recently, he’s been experiencing some mild symptoms.”

  “How long has he known?”

  “For about five years. My mother wanted us both to get tested for it, because it took my father so young. There was a fifty percent chance that either of us had it. I tested negative. When Damien realized he has the same condition that killed Dad, he became convinced that the same thing would happen to him. That’s partly why he bought that building. He decided he didn’t want to spend precious time working the daily grind. He preferred to spend his days doing what he loved, making art.”

  “Is everyone with this disease destined to die young?”

  “No, that’s the thing. Many live completely normal lives. There is just no way to know.”

  “But Damien is convinced he’ll die young?”

  “Yes. And that’s why he refuses to get involved with you, because he doesn’t want what happened to my mother, to happen to you.”

  “Why couldn’t he tell me?”

  “Because he knew you would say it didn’t matter. He didn’t want you to know. He wanted you to move on, find someone else, so that you never had to get hurt. It kills him to push you away, because he’s crazy about you.”

  I had to stop to compose myself. It was an overwhelming a-ha moment. It was like he’d just handed me a gigantic missing puzzle piece. Everything finally made sense.

  Damien’s words from our conversation on the beach in Santa Cruz rang out in my mind.

  “My heart is broken.”

  It finally made sense!

  “He’s crazy.”

  Ty chuckled. “I tell him that all the time.”

  “What are the doctors discussing with him right now?”

  “When Damien’s doctor from Stanford found out he was here, he made a special trip to come down here and see him.” Ty scratched his chin. “Okay, so there’s another part to this story. For some time now, Damien’s cardiologists have been trying to convince him to have open-heart surgery.”

  “Oh, my God.” My heart was pounding uncontrollably.

  “Yeah. He’s scared. He thinks the surgery alone might kill him. It absolutely terrifies him, but more and more, it’s seeming like something he should consider.”

  “What will the surgery do to help?”

  “They would basically remove part of the overgrown muscle to help blood flow. They think it would improve his quality of life as time goes on and might lengthen his life expectancy. But there are serious risks with that type of surgery. Remember our trip to Los Angeles…when you watched the dogs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’d gone to speak to a specialist at Cedar Sinai. He has doctors there and at Stanford.”

  “Wow.”

  “That trip to L.A. was when I realized Damien was really falling for you. He wouldn’t stop talking about you.”

  “I love him,” I said without hesitation. It was the first time I’d said it out loud, but far from the first time I’d said it.

  “I know. I can tell.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Don’t listen to the asshole. He’s going to continue to try to convince you that it’s best not to get involved with him. He will fight you tooth and nail. He thinks every day could be his last. There’s good and bad that comes from that attitude. He lives each day like it’s his last, yet the one thing that could make him the happiest, he won’t allow himself out of fear of hurting you. He’s a selfless person, but he should let you make the decision. He’s trying to make it for you because he thinks he knows what’s best for you.”

  “He’s what’s best for me.” I stood up from the bench and started pacing. “I need to see him. Can I tell him you told me everything?”

  “Yes. I’ll deal with his wrath. It was time, especially after what happened today. If he had his way, you’d still be in the dark. He never had any intention of telling you he was here.”

&nbs
p; “I believe it.”

  “He’s really stubborn.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “We should go back inside,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  When we got back to Damien’s floor, Ty said, “I’ll let you have some time with him. You’ll need it. I’m gonna get some coffee down at the cafeteria.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Ty.”

  I slowly approached Damien’s room. Through a small narrow window in the door, I could see he was fully dressed and sitting up at the edge of the bed. Knocking three times, I inhaled deeply then exhaled before entering.

  His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets when he saw me standing there. He said nothing. He didn’t ask me what I was doing there. He just stared at me for the longest time, looking straight into my glistening eyes that gave everything away without my even having to say anything.

  “You know,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Ty told you.”

  “Yes.”

  He dropped his head. “Fuck.”

  After allowing him almost a full minute to process, I finally spoke. “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t. You just think you do.”

  “I do.”

  “This doesn’t change anything, Chelsea. The end result is the same.”

  My instinct was to argue with him, but the smarter part of me knew that this wasn’t the right time. He was recovering, and the last thing I wanted was to upset him. So, I just focused on today.

  “Do you remember fainting?”

  “No. I only remember waking up with the paramedics there.”

  “The dogs went to your rescue, you know. They alerted Murray, who called 911.”

  “Remind me to make them some bacon.”

  “Remind me to stay far away that day.”

  The mood lightened a bit when he cracked a slight smile. “How’s your boyfriend, Marky Mark? I see you’re still in one piece.”

  “I never went back into the theater that night. I skipped out a side door, never saw him again.”

  Damien feigned disappointment. “Such a shame.” He looked so cute when he puckered his lips.

  “How’s the whore you were with?”

  “She wasn’t too happy. She told me I was way too interested in my sister’s business, made me drive her straight home.”

  “Shame.” I sat down next to him on the bed. “Nice try changing the subject off of you, by the way.”

  He let out a deep breath. “Didn’t Tattle-Ty tell you everything? What do you want to know?”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  His stare burned into mine. “You know why.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me.”

  “That’s exactly why I couldn’t tell you. It was never that I thought you’d leave. It was that I knew you’d stay. You don’t realize what getting involved with me could mean. Here today, gone tomorrow, Chelsea. You’ve already had your heart broken once. Is that what you really want?”

  “You don’t know what will happen. Any one of us could die tomorrow.”

  “But only some of us are wired to die early. It happened to my father. I have the same exact defect. And I don’t want what happened to my mother to happen to you. I care about you far too much. End of story.”

  A moment of silence ensued.

  “Your brother told me that they’re trying to convince you to have surgery.”

  “That comes with its own risks.” He paused. “I’m considering it, though. I don’t want to get into that right now, okay?”

  Respecting his wishes, I asked, “Are they discharging you soon?”

  “Yeah. It really was just a fainting spell. Because of my condition, I’m more prone to that. Probably happened because I was dehydrated and under stress.”

  I hesitated to ask, “Were you stressed about me?”

  He chuckled. “I’ve been stressed about you for months, so that probably wasn’t it.” He playfully tapped my thigh, causing my skin to prickle. “How did you find out I was here?”

  “I’d gone to the apartment to apologize for being so harsh, and because I missed you and the dogs.”

  “They miss you, too.”

  “They said so?” I smiled.

  “Not in so many words.” He smiled. “But they stop at your door all the time.”

  “I miss the Double Ds. Actually, I miss…the Triple Ds.” I cracked myself up. “I can’t believe I’ve never thought of that before.”

  “That only just now dawned on you? I was waiting for you to figure it out.”

  “Thank God I went to the building when I did. If I’d waited until tomorrow, I would have never known about this. You would’ve never told me anything. I just know it.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t have. But like I said, your knowing doesn’t change anything. I’m not good for you.”

  “Don’t tell me what’s good for me,” I barked.

  I stood up and walked toward the door, peeking outside to see if the doctor was coming.

  Returning to Damien, I began to massage my fingers slowly through his hair and watched his resolve weaken with each second. He closed his eyes before clutching the material of my shirt and pulling me closer to him.

  He leaned his head into my chest. “You’re not allowed to come around anymore.” Breathing into me, he said, “You make me forget all the shit I’m supposed to be doing right. I can’t think straight.” He then looked up at me. “You have no idea how much I wanted to kill that guy for touching your ass that night. I realized then more than ever what a lost cause I am when it comes to you. It pissed me the hell off.”

  “I love your jealousy. And you were totally right about him.”

  “I’m always right. Haven’t you figured that out?”

  The door opened, and Tyler walked in, holding a coffee. “Hey. I just talked to your doctor. They said you’re free to go.”

  I turned to Ty. “Are you taking him back to the apartment?”

  Knowing I didn’t have a car, Damien asked, “How did you get here?”

  “I pretty much stole Murray’s car.”

  “That piece of shit? You were probably in more danger than I was.”

  “Do you want me to come take care of you?”

  “Trust me, he wants you to take care of him very much,” Ty cracked.

  Damien shot daggers at him. “Shut the hell up.”

  ***

  I ended up letting Damien rest that night, opting to head back to my apartment while Tyler took him home.

  The first thing I did was open up my laptop to search the Internet for information on Damien’s condition. Some of the stories about hypertrophic cardiomyopathy were terrifying. There were countless reports of young people who’d dropped dead without warning, some of them on athletic fields. Their families had only discovered the condition after the fact. One of the articles indicated that conditions like Damien’s were responsible for at least forty percent of all sudden deaths in young athletes.

  I also looked up the types of surgeries and the risks associated with them. It was all starting to hit me. It was easy to see how Damien let fear rule his world, especially when his fears weren’t totally unfounded. An unbearable heaviness weighed on my chest. While it was all too easy to let my mind wander to that horrible place of “what ifs,” I wasn’t going to let fear rule my world.

  I shot Damien out a text.

  I was going to stop by tomorrow after work. Will you be home?

  Damien: Actually, I’m leaving in the morning. Going away to San Jose for a few days. I need some time away from here to think.

  What did that mean? Not knowing how to respond, I texted back the first thing that came to mind.

  Chelsea: Do you know the way to San Jose?

  Damien: I do. And that’s a song.

  Chelsea: Very good! My grandmother used to sing it to me. I used to always want to go to San Jose as a kid, thinking it was some far off place. Little did I know you were there.

&n
bsp; Damien: I would have tugged on your ponytail and thrown sand at you back then. I was a dick.

  Chelsea: So, not much has changed?

  Still making girls cry.

  Damien: We’ll catch up when I get back.

  Chelsea: Actually, when you get back, I’ll be gone. I’m leaving for NY to visit my sister. I’ll be staying with her for a week.

  Damien: Wow. I’m glad you’re finally doing that.

  He knew that was a big step for me, that I’d always avoided New York because Elec lived there. A few days before Damien’s fainting episode, I’d finally bitten the bullet and purchased tickets to see Jade.

  Chelsea: I guess I’ll see you when I get back.

  Damien: Ok. Be careful in the big city.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HIT THE FLOOR

  It had truly been a dream come true to see Jade perform. She had a lead role in a new off-Broadway musical called The Siren and The Suit. The banter between her character, Eloise, and the main male character, Tom, was hysterical. Tom was played by a handsome actor named Jeremy Bright. I later learned Jeremy was very married in real life. Up until that point, I thought maybe something was brewing between Jade and him, but I guess they’re just really convincing actors with great chemistry.

  After the show, Jade took me to dinner with the cast. We went to a Japanese restaurant and bar called Sake Sake. Between the drinks and the loud conversations, I’d almost forgotten about Damien for a couple of hours. Almost.

  When we got back to Jade’s tiny apartment, though, thoughts of him were back in full force. It was the first time I had an opportunity to tell Jade the news of my discovering his heart condition. Since I knew I was coming to Manhattan, I’d waited to talk to her about it in person.

  Jade sat on the floor with her legs crossed. Her face was still in full makeup. “Wow. I’m just…I’m speechless.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s like everything I thought I knew about this situation just went out the window.”