by Leddy Harper
I hesitated for a moment, gathering my thoughts enough to form a rational sentence without losing my calm. “You knew about the heart transplant. You knew who I was and that Bentley was spending time with me. Did you also know that he had lied to me from the very beginning?”
Luke finished his drink and then slammed the glass on the table. “I told him it was a bad idea that night he came back from the bar. I told him it was a bad idea before he even went up there to meet you. The night I saw you coming out of the bathroom? Yeah, I told him again that night how fucking stupid he was, and how he’d never get out of it unscathed. But he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“So then why is it my fault? What the hell did I do wrong?”
“You left him.” Ice formed in my lower stomach as his stare grew more intense, angrier. “He stuck by your side, defended you, refused to let you go because he couldn’t stand the thought of walking away and leaving you alone, and yet that’s exactly what you did to him. You left him—alone.”
“What was I supposed to do, Luke?” My voice rose, defensiveness overtaking my emotions until my hands shook and my head throbbed. “He lied to me. I trusted him, and he lied. From the very beginning. And not just about his medical issues. Do you seriously think I should’ve jumped for joy?”
He licked his lips and then leaned into the table with his forearms pressed against the edge, taking his time before responding. “Let me tell you a little story, Sarah. When my cousin was diagnosed, every doctor pretty much told him he wouldn’t make it. No one had hope. Because the only chance he had to survive was to get a heart, and that list is long. Most people die before their number is called. So before he left to come here, he had to say goodbye to his family. He had to hug his mom, believing it would be the last time. You think it’s tough being the one left behind after a family member dies? Imagine being the one dying, having to make peace with everyone. Having to make sure your loved ones get their closure. Sure, he had time to say goodbye—if there’s such thing as enough time for something like that—but can you even begin to imagine what it’s like knowing you maybe have months left to live? To think about all the things you still want to do in life, but you can’t do any of it? Well, that was him. That’s what he had to endure.
“And then his health rapidly deteriorated. Less than a week before Christmas, we had to rush him to the hospital. Luckily, they were able to move him up the transplant list, but that was pretty much an empty promise, and he knew it. They didn’t expect him to live to see the new year, and doubted he’d even make it to Christmas morning.”
I dried my eyes with my fingertips and interrupted him. “That’s a sad story, Luke, but I don’t know what that has to do with me. What does that have to do with my reaction to his lies?”
“No matter what I said to him, nothing was going to convince him to leave without seeing you, without seeing the person responsible for him getting more time with his family.”
“Why?”
He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. When his eyes met mine again, I noticed something had changed in them. The amber color had dulled, the light behind them faded, revealing the vivid pain behind them.
“He wanted to thank you for saving his life.”
“Then why didn’t he just do that and leave? Why string me along? He didn’t have to stick around and lie to me for a month. That was his decision, one I don’t deserve the blame for.”
“He stayed because of you. Because of how your mother’s death had affected you. And he felt guilty for that. He blamed himself—hated himself. You see, he had accepted his fate. He didn’t want to die, but he was ready for it. Before he came to stay with me, he’d tied up every loose end he had. There wasn’t one person that had come in contact with him throughout his life that would ever question how he felt about them. He made sure he left no stone unturned before coming here to die. Because that’s what he thought he was doing…spending his last days here. He honestly thought the only way he’d be going back to his parents was in a box.
“And because of you, because of your decision to donate your mother’s organs, he was given another chance at life. All he wanted to do was thank you, because that’s the kind of guy my cousin is. But once he saw you, and he saw how much pain you were in, how you were punishing yourself and everyone around you, he couldn’t do it. He felt guilty that he—someone who’d accepted his fate—lived while your mom had died. He hated that he had the chance to say goodbye to his mom, yet you never did.”
I pulled my glossy lip into my mouth and bit down on it, hoping to keep my tears away. “He needs to know that I don’t blame him.”
“Then you should’ve told him while he was here.”
My head snapped up, cold chills filled my insides while my skin burned hot. “What do you mean? Where is he? Did he go back home?”
“How much do you know about heart transplant patients?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want a lesson on hearts. I wanted information about Bentley. “Nothing. Why? Just tell me, Luke. Stop fucking with me.”
“When you get a new heart, your body thinks it’s a foreign object and your white blood cells attack it. The main reason transplants fail is rejection. So after surgery, you have to go back often to have the heart biopsied to check for signs of rejection so it can be caught early. One of the things they do to help prevent rejection from happening is daily medications to suppress the immune system. It keeps your white blood cells from attacking your heart. However, without a strong immune system, you have nothing to help fight off other things like the common cold.”
“Cut the bullshit, Luke. I don’t need a lesson on heart transplants. Just tell me what happened to him.” The hair on the back of my neck stood up, causing my body to shiver uncontrollably. The room spun and the noises around me turned muffled, my equilibrium becoming unbalanced.
“After you left him, he became secluded and really quiet. I thought he was just upset over what had happened between the two of you. But after a few days, I noticed he had gotten worse, and that’s when I realized it was more than just him being upset. I took him to the hospital and found out that he had a really bad infection.”
“Where…is…he?”
“Leave him be, Sarah.”
“No. Tell me where he is, Luke!”
He buried his head in his hands and sighed dramatically, as if I’d been the one dragging him around. “He needs time to heal. Give him that.”
I stood up and pounded my fist against the top of the table, commanding the attention of people around us. I leaned over and lowered my voice to a throaty growl as I said, “Tell me where he is. Please, don’t keep me from him. That is my mother’s heart.”
Bentley
Heavy pounding woke me from a dead sleep. Incessant, panicked pounding that echoed through the otherwise quiet house. I shot straight out of bed, confused and taken by surprise by the interruption. Then I glanced at the clock on the side table, the blue digital numbers reading “2:08 a.m.”
My house was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and dirt roads, so there’d be no reason for anyone to simply stumble upon it, let alone, give them much reason to knock on the door in the middle of the night. I grabbed a shirt from my dresser and pulled it over my head as I carefully made my way to the front of the house.
The pounding continued. I maneuvered around the furniture in the dark, the noise growing louder the closer I got to it. I had no lights on outside, and contemplated turning the one above the door on to see through the peephole, but then I decided against it, wanting to take the intruder by surprise instead.
But a second before I unlocked the deadbolt, the pounding abruptly stopped. I waited silently with my ear pressed against the door, hoping to hear something from the other side. Other than soft shuffling noises, there was nothing…until the broken sob let loose. Just one. One short, whimpered cry broke through the silence and filled me with cold dread that turned the blood in my veins to ice. I immedia
tely unlocked the door and swung it open, finding myself staring into the eyes that had haunted my dreams for weeks.
Nothing was said as we stood a few feet apart, watching each other through the darkness of night. Only the sounds of crickets chirping could be detected as the seconds, minutes ticked by. I wanted to do so much—hold her, close the door, kiss those lips, tell her to leave—but I found myself unable to do anything other than blink as the silence stretched on.
“Bentley…” Just one word whispered softly, wretchedly, as she wiped the falling tears from her face on my moonlit porch. It sounded so miserable, so tender, and yet hopeful all at once.
“How did you know where I live?”
My emotionless question seemed to stun her and forced her to take a small step back, nearly tripping over a bag behind her that I hadn’t noticed until then. “Luke…he told me where to find you.”
I nodded stiffly and then said, “You shouldn’t be here.”
I moved to close the door, unable to take one more minute of her presence and the pain it left me with, but her next words made me freeze.
“I know. But there was no other place I wanted to be.”
“You don’t know what you want…”
Her head shook slowly, the loose curls next to her face swaying with the movement. “I’m not leaving, Bentley. Do what you need to, say what you have to, but it won’t change anything. It won’t change how I feel or why I’m here.”
“What if I don’t want you here?”
Her shoulders raised high, almost meeting her ears, and then fell heavily. “You really gonna make me drive six hours back home? Alone in the middle of the night?” She took a hesitant step toward me. “Just let me in, Bentley.”
If only she knew that I’d already done that. I’d let her in and she left, taking the air from my lungs, the pulse from my heart, and the life from inside me with her. I couldn’t handle that again.
But I couldn’t turn her away, either.
Sarah
I couldn’t breathe properly until Bentley stepped out of the way, letting me through the front door. But it didn’t do anything to calm my jittery hands or rapid pulse. Getting inside the house was the first step, now I just had to convince him to let me stay.
The sound of the deadbolt clicking behind me caught my attention and caused me to jump slightly, giving away my uneasiness. I wanted him to see me as the stronger person I’d become in his absence, and didn’t want him mistaking my nervousness. So I straightened my spine, holding the handle to my duffel bag tightly in my grasp, and waited in the dark foyer for him to make the next move.
When he moved around me, his clean scent swarmed my senses and offered a slight comfort to my overly sensitized nerves. But only for the briefest of seconds, because then he began to walk away, not even checking over his shoulder to see if I’d follow him.
My feet moved, shuffling in my flip-flops as I matched his steps. I couldn’t see much in the darkness, but the moon shining through his large windows cast a glow on his back, giving me at least something to follow.
But then he turned down a hallway, leaving me with nothing but sounds to go on. After a few feet, the jiggling of a door handle forced me to stop abruptly, and then the click of a switch sounded a split second before light flooded the dim hallway. I stood in front of a spacious bathroom decorated in white and black, and watched with curiosity as he silently moved around the room. Bentley pulled a folded towel out of a closet and set it on the edge of the sink. He didn’t say a single word or even check to see where I was.
Without meeting my gaze, he squeezed through the space left between my body and the doorjamb and walked out. “You can stay in this room,” he said with zero emotion in his tone as he pushed open a door directly across the hall from where I stood. “The sheets are clean and there’s an extra blanket in the closet if you need it. Soaps and shampoo are beneath the sink in the bathroom. Use whatever you need.” He kept his eyes downcast as he spoke quietly, his words directed at his bare feet.
He turned and started to walk away, and my pulse spiked at the thought of him leaving me alone in the stillness of the hallway. “Wait.” I grabbed his arm, his body heat practically searing my skin. “Where are you going?”
His eyes finally met mine, but his cold expression burned my soul, leaving it frostbitten and numb. His brows pulled together so hard that the creases in his forehead became deep valleys and the wrinkles around his eyes tripled. “I’m going to my room…to go back to sleep. You’re right, you shouldn’t drive back home tonight. You can sleep here—in that room—and then head back in the morning.”
He turned around once more, but before he could take a step, I spoke again. My words were filled with pain and uncertainty as I asked, “Why are you so mad at me? I mean, I get that we’ve hurt each other, but I don’t understand why you’re so angry with me.”
Without turning back, he dropped his chin to his chest and shook his head slowly back and forth. “I’m not angry with you… Just forget it, Sarah. It’s late. You’ve been driving all night and need to get some sleep.”
I stood frozen in place as I watched him walk away from me, disappearing into the darkness. I became empty and hollow as I stood alone, unmoving, desperately waiting for him to come back to me. But I knew he wouldn’t. And instead of growing weak and breaking down, I held my shoulders back and took in a deep breath. He needed time. And I’d give it to him.
But the one thing I wouldn’t give was space.
I closed the door to the bathroom and made my way to the sink, staring at my reflection in the decorative mirror on the wall. It was like looking at a picture of my mom when she was around my age, healthy and happy. I wasn’t the same girl who’d walked away from him three weeks ago. I wasn’t even the same person he sat next to in the bar almost two months ago. He’d spent so much time trying to bring me back to life, and I wouldn’t give up until he saw it for himself.
I studied my reflection as I pulled out every bobby pin from my hair and let the curls fall to my back. Then I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower, needing to clean the grime of heavy makeup off my face. After the wedding, I ran home and quickly changed out of my dress, throwing on the first pieces of clothing I found in my drawers, not caring that it was lounge-wear. And then I took off down the road.
The warm spray helped to ease the tension in my neck caused by frantic driving on dark, winding roads. It calmed me down and offered me a moment to relax. I’d spent hours in my car, nothing but the sound of my tires on the highway filling the air around me. My nerves had been fried, and I don’t think my mind stopped once during the long drive. But when I stepped out of the shower, I felt like a new person. I’d seen Bentley breathing, alive, so I no longer had that fear living inside me. With that worry gone, I was ready to fight for what I wanted.
I wrapped myself up in the thick towel Bentley had set out for me and then rummaged through my duffel bag. I pulled out a pair of panties and slipped them on, keeping the towel in place around my body. I was here, in Bentley’s house, with him on the other side. There was no way in hell I planned to put on my clothes and crawl into an empty bed with him that close.
I had no clue where his room was, and the darkness made navigating the unfamiliar layout nearly impossible, but I finally managed to make my way across the house, finding a closed door next to the kitchen. I rapped my knuckles softly on the wood and waited, taking in deep breaths to calm my erratic nerves. After a second of silence, I turned the handle, cracked open the door, and peered inside with bated breath.
Moonlight filtered in through the glass panes on a set of French doors along one wall, casting a glow into the large room. I pushed the door open even further, stepping more into the silent space, and then settled my gaze on the massive bed in front of me. My hand fell from the door and knocked against the handle, the noise interrupting the peacefulness of the room. The sound caused Bentley to jump. He sat straight up, staring harshly in my direction, and then groaned
to himself. I didn’t offer him time to reject me. I stepped more into the room, closer to the bed, and stood there with my towel wrapped around my damp, naked body.
“What do you want, Sarah?” His voice was deep and groggy, like I’d just woken him up. He ran his hands over his face, hanging his head to prevent me from seeing him.
“I forgot to pack clothes to sleep in. I was in a rush and didn’t really think about what I was putting in my bag. Do you have anything I could borrow?” It was a lame excuse, considering the clothes I came in was a T-shirt and yoga pants, more than fitting to sleep in. But he didn’t say anything.
He reached over and pulled the chain on a lamp next to his bed, the soft yellow light brightening the room. It offered me a chance to see him, but he hadn’t taken the same opportunity with me. He averted his gaze as he walked to his dresser. Without speaking, he pulled out a shirt and a pair of boxers, like the ones I’d worn before. He handed them to me and then stood next to his bed, his back facing me.
I dropped the towel and waited, hoping I could drag this out long enough for him to turn around and see me, and when he did, my stomach dipped with relief. But then his gaze fell to my body, focusing on something with narrowed eyes. I had no idea what he saw, or what had caught his attention, so I didn’t move a muscle, waiting for him to say or do something.
“Why did you come here, Sarah?” His focus snapped to my eyes, never leaving them as if I hadn’t been standing in front of him in only a pair of panties. As if he hadn’t just intently studied my nearly naked body.
“I came here for you.”
“But why? If you have something to tell me…just say it.”
I shook my head slowly, trying to understand what he’d meant.
“Are you pregnant?”