A shock of numbness. That’s all I felt. No relief. No joy. I stared at my parents, their faces shining with hope, and I didn’t know what to think.
My dad walked in and sat beside me on the edge of the bed. He put his hand on my chest where he could feel the tenuous beats of my dying heart. “Son, it’s time.”
Part II
Four Years Later
Voices of the past echo with sorrow
carry through time
and space
separated by heartbeats
and the pain of living
without you
~B
13
Sebastian
The gym was mostly empty this early in the morning. Just a handful of dedicated—or crazy—people who’d gotten up before the sun.
“Are you serious?” Charlie asked. His hands hovered beneath the bench press bar as I lifted, spotting me in case I needed help.
“Yeah,” I grunted, pushing the heavy weight off my chest. God, that felt good. “One more.”
Charlie helped me with my last rep and the bar clicked against the rack when we set it down. I blew out a breath and sat up.
“Yeah, I’m serious,” I said. “I told you I sent them a letter, right?”
“You did, but a letter isn’t meeting the donor’s family,” he said.
“It was actually their idea,” I said. “They got my letter and we started emailing. Mrs. Harper asked if I’d consider meeting them in person. I said yes.”
“That’s some deep shit, dude,” Charlie said. “Wasn’t he, like, our age?”
I nodded. “A year younger.”
“Fuck.”
“I know.” I rubbed my bearded chin. Charlie gave me shit about it, but I’d let my facial hair grow out after my transplant surgery. I’d always had to shave as a wrestler. But I liked keeping it; it marked the difference in who I was now. “Believe me, I know. They lost their son and I’m alive because of it. But I think it might help give them some closure, you know?”
“Sure,” he said. “Get your ass up, though. I need to do my set.”
I laughed and stood to help Charlie load more weight on the bar. He was still stronger than I was, although not by much anymore. Since I’d started working out again, I’d regained a surprising amount of my former strength—and size.
My new heart worked like a champion. I still had to take a pharmacy’s worth of pills every day, and would for the rest of my life. I had to be careful about getting sick; the anti-rejection meds I took suppressed my immune system. But because I was healthier overall, I didn’t get sick nearly as often as I had before the transplant. I’d only had one close call, about a year ago, when I’d gotten a cold that had turned into a sinus infection. Pre-transplant, that would have landed me in the hospital. This time I’d been able to fight it off, although it had knocked me on my ass for a solid week.
I’d never be a competitive athlete again, and things like hang gliding and scuba diving were off limits. But other than that, after I’d recovered from the surgery, I’d been able to lead a normal life. I’d moved back to Iowa City with Charlie. Last year, I started back at U of I. I was beginning to feel like my old self again.
But really, I wasn’t him. I wasn’t the guy who’d been laser-focused on winning state. On wrestling for U of I. That guy had died the day my old heart had stopped working.
I wasn’t sure who I was now. I had a second chance at life, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it. Who I was supposed to be. People seemed to expect me to pick up where I’d left off. Finish college. Go work for my dad at one of his car dealerships in Waverly. But it wasn’t that simple.
Charlie told me to chill about it and just let life happen. But I’d always had a plan. A goal to focus on. Not having that made me feel like I was drifting. That fire I’d had inside me—that drive to achieve—had almost burned out. I wasn’t sure how to get it going again.
It had been four years since the transplant, and I was still trying to figure it all out.
Charlie finished his set and got up from the bench. “You tell your parents yet?”
“No,” I said. “I need to, but you know how they are. Especially my mom. She’ll freak out about me being so far away from home.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “So, driving or flying?”
“Driving,” I said.
“Cool. When do we leave?”
“We?” I asked.
“Road trip, bro,” he said. “It’s summer. I’m off until I coach at camp next month.”
Charlie was a teacher and an assistant wrestling coach at his old high school. He loved his job and he was amazing at it. He’d thought about pursuing a coaching job at the college level, but he liked working with the high school kids.
“You really want to come?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “If you’d rather go alone, it’s cool. I mean, you’d be an asshole, but whatever.”
“No, it’d be great to have company,” I said. “And someone else to drive. But we’re taking my car.”
“Dude, you have no love for the Beast.”
I shook my head. Charlie drove the same old pickup truck—the one he’d inherited from his dad when he was sixteen. It ate through gas like a motherfucker and drove like a tank. But he loved that piece of shit.
“You want to take the Beast, you pay for all the gas,” I said.
“Touché,” he said. “We take your car.”
“We leave tomorrow.”
After our workout, Charlie headed home and I went for a run. Because I could. Four years later, and I still hadn’t gotten over the way it felt to make my body move and feel it respond. Feel the air going in and out of my lungs. The muscles in my legs working. No dizziness or chest pain. Nothing but the lactic acid building up as I ran, the rush of air in and out of my chest. Deep breaths, filled with oxygen. My new heart thumping a steady rhythm.
It felt really fucking good to be strong again.
Recovery from the transplant surgery had been brutal. But considering they’d cut open my chest, taken out a vital organ, and replaced it with a new one, it wasn’t surprising. It blew my mind that it was even possible.
It had taken a year before I’d felt like the surgery no longer impacted my daily life. But I’d been on the brink of death before that, so every day post-surgery had been an improvement. Even those first pain-soaked weeks when I’d felt like I lived with a stack of bricks on my chest had been better than the months leading up to the transplant. At least the new heart gave me some hope.
I’d indulged in that hope with a high degree of caution, especially at first. There were numerous things that could go wrong after a transplant. I’d needed regular tests, including multiple—painful—biopsies to determine how the heart was functioning. Every time, I’d braced myself for bad news. For the doctors to tell me something was wrong. That this heart was failing too, or my body was rejecting it.
It hadn’t.
With the help of a cocktail of drugs, my body had accepted the new organ. I hadn’t had a single fibrillation episode in four years. I’d been spared any other complications. My new heart worked just as it should.
Now, it was all on me. I had to take care of the heart Liam Harper had given me, and I took that responsibility very seriously. I didn’t fuck around with shitty food—at least not very often. Didn’t drink or let anyone smoke around me. As soon as I’d been cleared to work out again, I’d hit the gym with a vengeance. I’d been as weak as a kitten when Charlie and I had first started, but as time had passed, my strength had grown.
I fully intended to do everything in my power to keep my body—and my new heart—as healthy as possible. I didn’t ever want to be sick like that again.
When I was about half a mile from home, I slowed to a walk to cool down, and pulled out my phone. I’d thought about waiting until I was on the road to tell my parents I’d gone out of town. Or maybe call them from Phoenix. But that could upset my mom even more. I took a deep
breath, and called her number.
She picked up on the first ring. “Hi, honey.”
“Hi, Mom,” I said.
“How are you feeling? Are you okay?”
I tried to ignore the hint of urgency in her voice. It was like she was still expecting me to drop dead. “I’m great, Mom. Just went for a run.”
“Honey, you need to be careful,” she said. “You don’t want to overdo it. And it’s so early. Did you get enough sleep?”
“Yeah, Mom, I’m good,” I said. “I’ve been running for the last two years. I’m fine.”
“All right, I know,” she said. “You should come see us this weekend. Do you have plans? You could come to dinner. Bring Charlie if you want.”
“Actually, that’s why I called,” I said. “I’m going out of town for a few days.”
“You’re… you’re what?”
“I’m going to Phoenix to meet the donor’s family.”
She went silent.
“Mom?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“They invited me to come,” I said.
“Oh. Well… that’s very nice of them,” she said. “But Phoenix?”
“Well, yeah, it’s where they live.”
“Why couldn’t they have come here?” she asked.
I stopped on the side of the road, not far from the house Charlie and I shared. I knew my mom would be weird about this. “I offered. It’s not a big deal. It’s Phoenix, not Mars.”
“But what if something happens?” she asked. “What if you need medical attention?”
“Mom, I haven’t needed medical attention since… I don’t even know when, that’s how long it’s been. You don’t have to worry so much.”
“I’m your mom. Worry comes with the territory,” she said.
“Charlie’s going too,” I said. “Does that help?”
“A little,” she said. “At least you won’t be alone.”
“Okay, Mom, I have to go,” I said. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I’ll text you from the road.”
“All right, honey,” she said. “But don’t forget to let us know how you’re doing. I don’t like you being so far away.”
“I know, Mom,” I said. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I let out a sigh when I hung up the phone. That had actually gone better than I’d thought it would. It was hard to blame my mom for being concerned about me. But I wished she’d relax. I wasn’t sure how to assure her that I was really doing fine. It was like she was afraid to believe me.
Charlie was gone when I got home. His text said he was out getting snacks for the road trip. Dude cracked me up. I was glad he was going with me. As casual as I made everything sound, I was nervous to meet the Harpers. They’d been nice when I’d spoken to them—said they were excited for us to meet. But there was a thick veil of sadness that covered everything. Sure, I’d lived. I’d been given a second chance. But they’d lost their son—a young man in his prime. He’d been in college, recently engaged to his girlfriend.
As grateful as I was for the gift I’d been given, it was bittersweet. I hated that someone else had to die for me to live. My only consolation was that Liam Harper would have died whether or not he’d donated his organs. It wasn’t like he’d died because of me. But the joy I knew my parents felt at having their son back was mirrored by the grief of the Harpers losing theirs.
14
Brooke
The noise in the bar throbbed in my ears. Voices and music created a thick layer of sound that filled the space. Pressed against me. The dim light and constant noise wrapped around me, cradling me with their familiarity.
I sat on a stool, running a finger along the rim of my glass of… something. Whiskey, maybe? I’d already forgotten what I’d ordered. Didn’t matter. My head was pleasantly fuzzy, the buzz keeping my thoughts aimless. That was all I needed tonight—the haze of booze. The ebb and flow of people moving around me. Distraction. Anything to keep my mind off the hollow space in my chest.
Not that it worked very well. Nothing did. Even the oblivion of sleep never provided real relief. It was always there. The ache. Whether it was hovering in the background of my consciousness, or stabbing my awareness like a knife, the ache was a part of me, now.
It stole through my chest, radiating from the place where my heart had once lived. Nothing was left in that space. Just an empty hole. Sure, I still had an organ to pump blood through my veins. But my heart? It had been torn from my chest. Held outside my body, beating in time with the machines that had kept Liam’s organs functioning. It had stopped when Liam’s had. Died with him.
In the beginning, the pain had been debilitating. I’d awoken every morning and the ache had ripped through me, burning me from the inside. It would steal my breath, take the oxygen from the air, leave me gasping. It had been shocking to realize that the pain wouldn’t kill me. That my body would continue to function in such a state of desperate agony.
But it had. I’d gone on, day after day, still breathing. Still existing.
I took a drink. Felt the burn as it slipped down my throat. A hint of nausea turned my stomach over and my cheeks felt flushed.
“Hey Rick, can I get some water?”
Rick, the bartender tonight, nodded. He got me a glass of ice water and slid it across the bar. “Have you had anything to eat tonight, kiddo?”
I cracked a little smile. “Aw, are you worried about me? Or just worried I’ll puke on the bar?”
He wiped a few drops of moisture off the bar top. “You just look a little pale. Maybe you should call it a night. Go get some food and sleep it off.”
“You’re a sweetheart, Rick.” I flashed him another smile I didn’t feel. I always gave people a pretty smile. Real or not, it was what they wanted to see. “But I’m fine.”
He raised his eyebrows, like he didn’t believe me. Which was fine. I didn’t believe me either.
I wasn’t all that drunk. I knew where I was and what I was doing. But my level of intoxication had nothing to do with whether or not I was fine. Another girl could be smashed out of her mind, falling all over the place, puking her brains out, and she’d be more fine than I was.
Shifting on the stool, I glanced at the band. They called themselves the Death Pixies, which was pretty fucking stupid if you asked me. I thought it made them sound like an all-girl punk band, but they were a bunch of rocker guys in ripped denim and leather.
Jared met my eyes, a slow smile crossing his face while he sang into the mic. It made my stomach turn again. I took a sip of water, hoping it would help. His hair was slicked back, his jaw rough with a week’s growth of stubble. Full sleeve tattoos on both arms. Half the girls in here were ready to spread their legs for him, and he acted like he only had eyes for me.
He wasn’t my boyfriend. He liked to put on a show in front of other people, claiming some alpha-male style ownership over me. Give a shout out to his girl in the crowd, fling an arm around my shoulders, grab my ass when he knew people were watching. Make his groupies jealous. He loved that shit. Ate up the attention like it was booze-filled candy.
But he was just as likely to fuck some random tonight as he was me. He didn’t love me, and I didn’t love him. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I even liked him. He was an asshole with an ego so big I was surprised he fit in the bar.
It raised the question: What the hell was I doing here, sitting in a crowded bar, drinking too much while Jared and his band played mediocre music?
Mostly, I didn’t have anywhere else to be.
I’d lost yet another job, and this time, my apartment with it. I’d known Jared and the other guys in the band for a while. We traveled in the same social circle, if that’s what you called a bunch of people who partied together and generally knew each other’s names. They all lived in an old house not far from here, and they’d offered to let me come crash with them.
Hooking up with Jared offered me the protection I needed, living w
ith a group of five guys who were drunk or high more often than not. Jared had claimed me, so the other guys left me alone. And he wasn’t all bad. We did have fun together. He had a crazy streak—liked to flirt with danger. Chase the adrenaline rush. So did I. He often said he liked me because I was the only one who could keep up with him.
Our non-relationship worked for me. I wasn’t capable of loving someone, and that wasn’t what he wanted. He liked the appearance, having someone to call his muse, without the hassle of having a real girlfriend. And if I slept with him sometimes, there was no harm in it. He was a distraction. Something to fill the empty space inside of me, even if only for a little while.
I wasn’t my mother, with a desperate need to be with a man. To not be alone. I hadn’t moved from guy to guy since losing Liam. Sure, I lived with Jared now, but it was temporary. I’d get back on my feet and move on.
That’s what I’d been telling myself, at least. But as I took another swallow of whiskey—or whatever this was; it didn’t taste like anything to me—I knew the truth. Every day I inched closer to being just like her. My only hope was that I retained a degree of self-awareness that she’d lacked. And maybe that would count for something.
My mother had always blamed everyone else for the way her life had turned out. She’d gotten pregnant with me when she was too young. My dad had skipped out on her. The guys she’d dated had screwed her over. Everything had always been someone else’s fault.
I knew how badly I’d fucked myself over. I didn’t claim to be a victim of circumstance. I’d lost my job because I’d stopped showing up. Lost my apartment because I hadn’t paid the rent. My life was a disaster, but it was all on me. I could blame Liam for dying, but other people had loved him too. They weren’t sitting half-drunk in a dive bar, listening to their non-boyfriend’s band, picking up a few shifts at a crappy diner as their only means of feeding themselves.
His Heart Page 9