This Heart of Mine

by C. C. Hunter

  “The meds don’t make you feel bad?”

  “How do you know about the meds?”

  “I asked my dad about transplants. He said the meds can mess you up.”

  I forgot about his dad being a doctor. But the fact Trent asks about my meds is another nice thing that makes me feel like shit. “It’s not bad.”

  “You ready for school?” he asks.

  “I think. I’ll have to work to keep up.”

  “I’d be happy to help.”

  His pleading gaze tells me he’s thinking about Matt tutoring me.

  “Maybe.” Another jab of guilt hits because I don’t want Trent tutoring me. I don’t want Trent. But I used to. Used to. Suddenly I realize how often those words have played in my head tonight. Why is this so hard?

  We keep walking, following the scent of popcorn. I try to think of a way to set things straight between us, but I can’t. Or I can, but they all sound too blunt, too mean to say to someone who is too nice.

  The crowd noise around me is loud, but the silence between Trent and me is louder. “It’s colder tonight than it was earlier.” I feed the words to the silence.

  “Take my jacket.”

  “No,” I say. But it’s too late. He drops his jacket on my shoulders. Even pulls it around my neck, a tender, caring gesture that makes me angry. I feel like a bitch.

  His scent rises from his jacket. It stirs memories of us close. Making-out close. A couple of times we went to third base. When I thought I was dying, I reflected on it a lot.

  I’d even wished we’d gone all the way. Probably due to all those romance novels I read, but now I’m glad we didn’t. In fact, thinking about us touching each other so intimately feels weird.

  Feels wrong. Embarrassingly wrong.

  “Thanks,” I say, when I want to say, Stop. Stop being so nice.

  We come to the concession stand and get in line.

  “Do you want some popcorn?” His shoulder presses against mine again.

  “No.” I reach into my purse and reclaim my shoulder. “I’m just getting water.”

  I force the anger back because it’s not fair to target Trent. He didn’t do this. A virus did this. Myocarditis did this.

  “Do you need anything?” I ask.

  “No.” He’s too close again. “But I’m getting your water.”

  “No,” I say sharply. “I’ve got it.”

  He looks at me all strange like, as if I’m acting different. And I am. Old Leah didn’t argue. Old Leah was always accommodating.

  I focus on the couple in front of the line being handed sodas and popcorn. They turn to leave. Recognition slaps me in the face.

  “Matt?” His name falls out of me, taking my breath with it. He stops so fast kernels of popcorn float to the ground. He stares at me all swallowed up and warm in Trent’s jacket.

  Then I see the girl he’s with, her shoulder brushing against his. She’s pretty and reminds me of Cassie Chambers.

  “Hey,” Matt says.

  “Hey,” I repeat.

  “This is Paula.” He introduces the blonde. “And this is Leah.” He shifts his popcorn at me. Another few butter-scented kernels fall off the top.

  “Paula’s friends with Ted’s girlfriend. She’s with them.”

  It’s as if he’s trying to explain why he’s with her. Or maybe I’m just reading more into it.

  I notice he doesn’t try to explain me. But what could he say? “Leah is no one important. She used to be the shy girl who started the book club in our school. And now she’s the girl who has my brother’s heart and we’re having the same dreams about the last minutes of his life.” Yeah, that’s not explainable.

  Trent’s shoulder shifts closer. Then closer.

  I let Trent’s sleeves fall past my hands, as if wanting to hide. “You know Trent?” I force myself to be polite.

  Trent slips his arm around my shoulder. He seldom did that in public, even when we were dating. Without thinking, I lean into him.

  Oh, hell! Why did I do that?

  The reason plops itself down on my conscience.

  I’m jealous. Then I’m angry that I’m jealous. Angry because I’m using Trent. Angry because I’m not a user. Angry because the blonde is so pretty.

  The guys exchange nods. It gets too quiet too fast. Even the fireworks stop.

  The tension makes the cold air feel dense, unbreathable. Matt shifts away from the blonde. A few more kernels of popcorn hit the ground. Trent’s arm on my shoulders feels too heavy. His coat too hot.

  It doesn’t fit. Trent doesn’t fit.

  I don’t fit. I don’t fit me anymore.

  “We should go.” He shifts from foot to foot. “Talk to you later.”

  “Yeah.”

  Matt and the girl leave. When I step forward, Matt’s popcorn crunches beneath my shoes, and I’m grateful that Trent’s arm slips off my shoulder.

  I don’t say a word to Trent. If I didn’t need the drink to take my pills, I’d leave. Just walk home.

  I finally make the counter and ask for a water. I see Tootsie Rolls and add one to my order for the little boy who’d been watching fireworks next to me. Trent and I start back. Dogging our steps is the uncomfortable silence.

  We’re almost back to the others when I can’t take it anymore. I stop and face Trent.

  A voice in my head tells me not to do this, that I might regret it. That in a couple of weeks I’ll feel more like myself, like Old Leah, and Trent will fit again. That New Leah will be lucky to have him.

  I take his coat off. It’s cold, but I feel free. “Here.”

  “You can wear it.” He hands it back. I don’t take it.

  Words squirm around in my chest, then crawl up my throat. I’ll choke if I don’t say them. “I like you, Trent. But I just want to be friends right now.”

  He looks punched. Hurt. I feel like a bitch. Not a heartless one anymore, but with a heart that’s not mine. A life that’s not mine.

  He tosses his coat over his shoulder. “Because of Matt Kenner?”

  “I don’t think so … but I don’t know. I’m trying to figure this all out.”

  “Figure what out?” he asks.

  “Me.” My answer echoes in my head then crashes into my new heart. It’s so true it hurts. Hurts because I don’t fit into my old life any more than Trent fits in my new one. Or is it the heart that doesn’t fit?

  No, it’s not just the new heart. It’s me. I’ve changed.

  I’m not sure who I am anymore. I’m not sure I can go back to being Old Leah. And who this New Leah is is a big freaking mystery.

  9

  Voices bounce around Matt. Fireworks light up the Texas sky.

  Ted and the others are laughing. Matt’s huddled in a lawn chair, wishing he wasn’t here.

  Then he gives up. “Hey, I’m cutting out early.” It’s only eleven, but so what?

  He can’t stop thinking about her. Her with Trent. Wearing his coat.

  At least this time, she introduced him.

  Instead of looking up at the fireworks, he’s spent the last hour looking out in the crowd—searching the faces for Leah. He wants to talk to her. To tell her about Cassie’s mom lying to him, saying Cassie wasn’t back in town yet. He wants … Eric to be alive.

  But his reason for wanting to see Leah isn’t all about Eric.

  Earlier, he realized he never asked her how she was doing. How selfish is he?

  He drives to his house, pulls in the driveway, but doesn’t get out. His mom’s car isn’t there. She’s still out.

  The house is dark, looks abandoned. He feels abandoned.

  The thought of walking into the empty house has him backing out of the driveway. He doesn’t know where he’s going until he turns into Leah’s neighborhood.

  He parks across the street. The garage door’s open, as if waiting for someone to come home. Leah’s car, the one he spotted at Brandy’s house, isn’t here. Which means she’s still with Trent.

  One of the drape
s in Leah’s front windows flutters back, and someone peers out. Feeling like a stalker, he drives off.

  His heart leads the way again. Not to home. He pulls over at the roadside park where Eric was found. He doesn’t turn the car off. He doesn’t turn his lights off. He doesn’t turn the pain off. Not that he knows how.

  His headlights light up the white cross there for his brother.

  He shoves the car in park. “What happened, Eric?”

  Closing his eyes, time and his anger crawl past. Fireworks pop off overhead.

  Then he starts to feel things. Emotions that don’t feel like his own. Fear. Frustration. Fury.

  He considers getting out and trying to walk it off, but a police car slows down as if checking on him.

  Not wanting to explain to a cop why he’s here, he starts the engine and pulls away.

  His mom pulls up into the driveway at the same time he does. He looks at the time as he gets out. Five minutes until midnight.

  She meets him in the driveway. Both his dad’s and Eric’s cars are still parked in the garage. As is the old Mustang his dad had bought and they were supposed to rebuild together.

  So now they park in the driveway.

  “You’re home early.” His mom rests a warm hand on his shoulder.

  “Didn’t want to get caught in the traffic leaving the fireworks.”

  She studies him. Lately, he’s noticed her doing that, as if she’s looking for something. “Did you have a good time?”

  “Yeah.” He white-lies it. They walk into the house. Lady yelps from her kennel. He lets her out and heads toward the back door. His mom follows him. They stand in the dark and watch Lady sniff in circles. Frost forms on his breath in the cold night air.

  “Did you have a good time?” he asks.

  “Yeah. It’s been a long time since I met up with my friends. We need friends,” she says.

  The fireworks start, and the puppy, tail tucked between her legs, races up to Matt and climbs his leg.

  They chuckle. Matt picks up the animal. Lady buries her head under Matt’s chin, hiding from the crackles and booms. Her breath is warm and puppy-scented.

  Matt and his mom look up at the sky exploding with colors. She slips her hand in his and squeezes. He feels it all the way to his heart.

  “Happy New Year,” she says.

  “Happy New Year.” He squeezes her back. They walk inside, and he sets Lady down. She slips and slides to her puppy bowl to crunch on her leftover dinner.

  “You want something to drink?” she asks.

  “Nah,” he says. “We still on for running in the morning?”

  “Yeah, but a little later.” She motions to the barstools. “Sit down. Chat time.”

  That means it’s serious. She hasn’t requested chat time since before his dad died. She used to do it all the time with him and Eric. She said it was her way to make sure her boys were following the right path. Then after their dad died, she didn’t worry about paths.

  He drops down. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah.” She sits beside him. He notices some new wrinkles around her eyes. She’s not quite forty, but looks older. Losing people does that to you.

  He bet he had a few wrinkles, if not on the outside, then surely on the inside.

  “Have you thought more about seeing a therapist, like we talked about?”

  “Not yet, Mom. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”

  “Then what would you think about a grief counseling group? Where we meet with other people who have lost someone and offer each other support. I’m thinking of joining one. It’s for all ages. I thought maybe you’d come with me.”

  His mental brake is all the way to the floorboard. “I’m not sure that’s … I think it’s great for you, but I don’t think it’s for me.”

  The wrinkles around her eyes deepen. “We’ll never be the same after what happened to your dad and Eric, and the way to healing is going to be a long road. But there are people who can help. It’s a huge burden to carry alone, Matt. And you don’t have to.”

  “I know, Mom. I’ll think about it, okay?” He doesn’t really intend to, but saying so will make his mom feel better.

  Lady whines and he picks her up. She hides under his chin again. Her nose is cold. The firecrackers popping off sound too loud. Fractured light flashes in from a few windows.

  His mom’s gaze meets his. There are tears in her eyes, but he sees something else there too. Worry. Fret. A new kind. What the hell’s wrong?

  She finally speaks. “Detective Henderson called me.”

  Shit! This is what chat time is about. “I just want him to do his job.”

  “He has done his job, Matt. They investigated it.”

  “No!” Matt’s tone comes out locked and loaded with emotion. He puts the puppy down and faces his mom. “You told me yourself you didn’t think Eric did it.”

  Tears fall down her cheeks, and she wipes them away with her palm. “That was before we knew it was your dad’s gun. God, I don’t want to believe it.” She chokes up, and he can hear the tears in her voice. “But Matt, why else would he have taken it?”

  “I don’t know. But I know it’s not true.”

  “You don’t know, Matt.” She shakes her head.

  “I do!” He hits the counter with his palm. “I know it like I knew Eric’s arm was broken when he was three. I knew he was gone the minute it happened. Why do you think I was throwing up that night? And I know he didn’t commit suicide.”

  Her tears continue to fall. She doesn’t wipe them away now. She puts her palm on his cheek. It’s warmer than his face. Her touch is so soft and motherly and it sends currents of emotion into him. Love, grief, sadness.

  “I messed up with Eric.” Her voice shakes. “I refuse to mess up with you. I don’t want you…”

  “I’m not going to kill myself.” He grips his fist as his chest tightens. “That’s not in me, no more than it was in Eric.”

  She blinks. “I know the truth is horrible, but we need to accept it so we can heal. So we can go on living.”

  “I can’t. I’m going to prove that Eric didn’t do it; then I’m going to make sure the person who did it rots in a jail for the rest of his life!”

  He storms off to his bedroom, the storm inside him brewing harder than before.

  * * *

  My alarm chimes at 8:55 A.M. on Wednesday morning, the first day of the year. Eyes still shut, I slap the alarm off. Then I run my hands around the nightstand, palming the top of it to find the thermometer. I find it, press the button, and slip it in my mouth, still studying the backs of my eyelids.

  Every morning and every night I have to check my temperature and take my blood pressure. When the thermometer beeps, I force one eye open. Seeing it’s normal, I grab the blood pressure cuff, fit it on my arm, and hit START. When it beeps, I check the numbers, write them down, roll out of bed, and sleepwalk into the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Sunshine,” Mom says.

  I half nod at the breakfast table.

  My eyes are still at half-mast. I pour milk, snag my pills, down them, and start out of the kitchen.

  “Did you have fun last night?” Dad asks.

  They were awake when I came in. I heard them talking. Dad wouldn’t let Mom come in and question me. I love that man. But I’d love him a lot more if he’d let me go back to bed.

  I point to my face. “I’ll tell you all about it when I wake up.”

  I got in at exactly one. Then couldn’t sleep trying to figure out who New Leah is.

  Failing at that mission, I told myself that I’d figure it out first thing in the morning.

  But who wants to start a new year sleep deprived.

  I step toward my room.

  “Did you take your temperature and blood pressure?” Mom’s motherly concern slows me down.

  “Both normal.” I make it to my bedroom and fall face-first on my mattress. I reach to fluff my pillow and see the notepad beside my bed. Last night I decided to
keep a record. Every time I have a dream about Eric, I plan to write it down.

  The pad’s empty. I didn’t dream last night. I fall back to sleep.

  Later, Mom’s touch, checking me for a fever, almost wakes me. She’s afraid I’ll reject my heart.

  Honestly, I don’t know why I’m not living in constant fear of it. Why I have so much faith that things are going to turn out this time, when I had zero before. Maybe I just can’t let myself go there. Maybe it’s because I refuse to believe Karma would give me Eric’s heart and then let it fail.

  I bury my face in the covers. Sweet slumber claims me, or it does until I’m stirred awake again. “Leah?” It’s my father’s voice.

  “She’s not here.”

  “It’s eleven thirty,” he says in his forever-patience voice.

  “One mo’ hour.”

  “Okay. But this is the second time he showed up this morning.”

  I hear him, but it takes like two seconds for me to get it. Sitting up like a loaded spring, I flip my hair, squinting to block out the sun that streams in from my window. “He? Who? Hewho? Hewho?” I sound like a bird belting out a mating call. I swallow too much air, too fast; my lungs feel like they might explode. I force myself to slow down. “He, who? Who is it?”

  Before he answers, I think I know. I lose my oomph.

  “Trent?” My memory foam mattress pulls my butt in, and I recall the memory of giving Trent the just-friend speech. The visual of the hurt in his eyes sucks on my conscience, and I start to suck on my teeth. Even New Leah doesn’t like hurting people. New Leah also hates dirty teeth, but so did Old Leah. I keep sucking.

  “Not Trent,” Dad says. “Your mom said his name was Mark or Matt.”

  “Shit, shit, shit!” I scream and haphazardly swipe some more hair from my eyes.

  Dad chuckles. My newly acquired language doesn’t disturb him as much as Mom.

  I bolt up and off the bed like a superhero. I stand in the middle of my room, trying to think. I need … my bra, my jeans.

  I need to wake up.

  Finger-combing my hair, one of my slippers peers out at me from halfway under my bed. I snatch up Dumbo. Standing tall, still sleep dazed, I hold the slipper like the Statue of Liberty holds her flame. I’m not even sure why I picked it up. Then with my other hand, I start running my index finger over my front teeth to remove the morning fuzz.