One Foot in the Grave

by C. C. Hunter

  The doctor leaves. His mom and aunt stand in the middle of the room holding on to each other. There’s still three cops hanging around. He wishes they’d go find out what happened instead of just standing here, watching their pain as if they feed on it.

  Mom makes sad noises, and his aunt says, “I know. I know. I know.”

  All that Matt knows is his brother is dead. Gone. He drops into the chair, drops his elbows on his knees, and tries to get his lungs to accept air.

  He stays like that. Eyes closed. Trying to shut everything out, but he can’t. He hears his mom crying, he hears his aunt soothing, he hears his heart breaking. And in the distance he can almost hear the beeping of the machine that forces air into Eric’s lungs.

  Matt breathes in.

  Matt breathes out.

  With the rhythm of the machine.

  That’s all he can do. Breathe. And that doesn’t feel normal.

  He closes his eyes and almost goes to sleep for the first time since it happened. Waking him up are voices. He looks up. There’s a lady in a suit telling his mom something. He doesn’t want to listen, but his mom cries harder. What could they say now that would hurt more than what’s already been said?

  His aunt’s gaze beckons him to come over. Her green eyes, eyes that look just like his mom’s, have more soul, more life. She hadn’t lost her husband and her son.

  He stands and goes to stand by his mother.

  “No,” his mom says. “No.”

  “What?” he says.

  The woman focuses on him. “I’m with the transplant center. I know this is very difficult, and your loss is so great, but you have a chance to save . . .”

  “Yes,” he says before the woman finishes.

  In the back of his mind, he thinks of Leah and others who would get a second chance at life. But his heart hurts too much to think about her; he just knows that this is what Eric wanted.

  “But I can’t live with the thought of them taking . . .”

  “Stop it, Mom!” Matt says. “Eric wanted this. You can’t deny him that.”

  “I will not let them do this,” his mom snaps.

  He tries to find patience. Digs deep, but he doesn’t find much. He curls his hands up. “Eric and I registered when we signed up for our licenses. He told me he wanted to do this. I’m not going to let you stop it.”

  “He never told me.”

  He might have if you’d ever come out of your bedroom. Thank God he finds the thread of strength not to say what he feels. Deep down he knows this isn’t his mom’s fault. It’s not Eric’s fault either.

  “Well, he told me. It’s on his license.” He looks at the woman and sees she has Eric’s license on her clipboard. He takes the board from her hand and shows it to his mom. Then he looks back at the woman. “Yes. The answer’s yes.”

  The woman looks at my mom. Tears run down her cheeks. She nods, turns around, and buries herself in her sister’s arms and sobs.

  I’m reading a romance novel. The first kiss is about to happen. The phone rings. It’s not him, I tell myself.

  It rings again. I frown, now completely pulled out of the story. Not so much from the ring, but from hope that won’t die. It’s been a month.

  It’s not even my phone. He wouldn’t call my home number.

  Then I start ticking off every reason he would. He lost my cell number. He wanted to make sure that it was okay with my parents if he called me. Yup, sadly even after all this time, every time a phone rings, I hold my breath and wait for my mother to call my name and tell me it’s for me. I allow myself to wish for something that I shouldn’t.

  “Leah!” My mom’s voice rings all the way down the hall to my room. I suck in a quick breath, slap my romance novel closed, and look up as mom stops in my door. Mom with a phone in her hand. Mom with a strange look on her face. Hope flutters in my stomach like a butterfly beating its wings for the first time.

  “Is it for me?”

  She nods.

  I smile. I stand up. That smile curls up inside my chest. I hold my hand out for the phone. I’m trembling inside. I try to think of what to say. I don’t want to sound too eager, but . . .

  Mom doesn’t move. “Give it to me.”

  She blinks. “We . . . You. There’s a heart available.” Her voice sounds like she’s inhaled helium.

  It’s not Matt, or Eric. It’s . . . I digest what she said. Then it’s like time stops. The air from my pink polka-dot ceiling fan whispers across my bare skin, and I feel the tiny hairs on my arms stand up. “You sure?” I shake my head, certain she’s mistaken.

  She nods. “Yes.”

  “Shit,” I say, and hear it like it’s too loud. My knees start to give, and I lock them. My plans hadn’t included . . . living. It’s not that it’s an unwelcome change; it’s just a huge change. One that includes . . . getting my chest cracked back open.

  I drop back onto the mattress. The memory foam sucks me down. I’m stunned. I’m numb. Oh, shit! I’m scared.

  My hands shake.

  Mom smiles and cries at the same time. “Come on.” She rubs her hands down the side of her pants. Up. Down. Up. Down.

  I’m getting dizzy watching them, but I can’t look away. I can’t . . .

  “We have to go. They want you there in an hour and a half. I’m calling your dad. Grab your bag from the closet. You’re getting a heart, baby! You’re getting a heart.”

  Standing, I feel numb and yet top heavy, as if I have too much emotion in my chest. I grab my extra battery that’s charged and ready to go. I stick it in my backpack. I slip my shoes on. They feel too tight. Like they belong to someone else.

  In less than five minutes we are out of the house. Dad works close to Houston. He’s meeting us there. Mom keeps talking. I stop listening. I stare out the side window and watch the world pass by. Cars. Trees. Houses. People.

  I wish I’d have remembered to bring a book. Something to help me forget this fear.

  “It’s gonna be fine,” Mama says when we’re a mile from the hospital, and I’m almost certain she’s said it around a hundred times by now.

  I want to believe her. I really try. I try not to remember the statistics of how many don’t make it through the surgery. I try not to think about the person who just died. The person whose heart is going to be put into my chest.

  I wonder how old they are? I wonder if someone is crying for them. Then my vision blurs and I realize I’m crying. Crying for them. Crying because I’m scared. Crying because if something goes wrong, I’ll die. Today. I could die. Today.

  I’m not ready. Maybe I’ve been fooling myself about accepting it. Or maybe it’s just because I haven’t completed my bucket list. I haven’t graduated yet. I haven’t read a hundred books. Haven’t figured out if it was Matt or Eric who I kissed.

  I haven’t lived enough.

  Matt stands in the hall, leaning against the wall. He ignores the nurses, doctors, the hospital sounds, and the smells. His mom and his aunt have gone into the room to say goodbye. They come out, looking older than when they went in. He tells them to go on back to the hotel. He wants to say goodbye alone. His mom argues. Then her sad eyes meet his, and she relents.

  They start out, but his aunt swings around and hugs him. “You sure you’re okay?”

  There is nothing okay about this. But he forces the lie out. “Yeah.”

  He watches them walk down the long hall, getting smaller and smaller. Only when they turn does he walk into his brother’s room. His lungs feel like they have liquid in them. He sits in a chair next to his brother’s bed. He can’t look at him.

  The machine beeps, beeps, beeps and makes swishing sounds. Finally, he forces himself to watch his brother’s chest go up and down. “Hey,” he says. Not that he believes his brother is there. Or maybe he does.

  He looks at his brother’s face, almost completely bandaged. “A lot of damage,” they’d said earlier.

  Closing his eyes, Matt sits there, his heart beats with the machine. Thu . . .
thump. Thu . . . thump. He closes his eyes. After a minute, or maybe ten, he opens them.

  He looks again at his brother. It’s him, but it isn’t. His personality, his essence is gone.

  Seeing the clock on the wall, he realizes his time is up.

  “What happened, Eric?” The damn knot crawls up higher in Matt’s throat. Tears fill his eyes. He touches his brother’s hand. Matt’s breath catches when it feels cold.

  He glances back to make sure no one is standing outside the door. Then he stands up and moves closer to his brother’s side. “You know, you told me when dad died that we just had to live for him. Well, now I’ve got to live for the both of you. That’s hard to do.”

  Matt runs a hand over his face. His chest feels so tight he’s sure it’s gonna break. “I don’t know how to be me without you.”

  His voice shakes. “I’m gonna try. I’ll do right by mom.” He pauses. “But I’m pissed at her right now. If she hadn’t . . . I know you didn’t do this. I won’t stop trying to find out who did. I promise you. Now go hang out with dad. Tell him I love him.”

  He hears a slight shuffle and looks back. A nurse is in the doorway. Her eyes are wet. She walks up to him as if to hug him, but he holds out his hand.

  He hurries out of the ICU and finds an empty family room. Dropping into a chair, he wipes the tears from his cheeks and tries to piece together what’s left of his broken soul.

  He leans back in the chair, closes his eyes, and attempts to smooth the emotional wrinkles from his head. Staring at the blackness of his eyelids, he lets his thoughts float away, feeling so damn tired. Maybe if he could sleep a few minutes . . .

  Maybe.

  He lets his shoulders relax. He’s almost asleep when he sees it and feels it again. Sees Eric running through the trees. Fear swells in his chest, his brother’s fear. He senses someone is giving chase. He can almost hear the thud of footsteps following. Who? Who would want to hurt Eric?

  Matt shoots up from the chair. Runs a hand over his face. He feels Eric. Feels him here. “You trying to tell me something?” He waits for an answer and then . . . worries he’s losing it.

  Unsure what he believes, he heads to his car. The heat claws at his skin. The air feels thick. Sweat runs down his brow. He sticks his hands in his jeans and thinks about Eric’s cold hand.

  He stops walking, realizing he doesn’t even know where he is. He looks around. His car isn’t where he thought it was. He stands there, fisting his hands in his pockets. Then he remembers parking in front of the emergency room. He starts that way, through a maze of cars, hurrying to get out of the smothering air.

  He rounds the corner of another building. Nearby voices float above the sound of traffic. Something familiar about the voices causes him to look up. He sees the dark-haired girl with a backpack about two rows over. Leah and her parents. His knees almost buckle.

  His gaze stays on her, on the way she walks, a little slow, her shoulders slumped over as if she’s carrying too much. And not all of it physical weight, but emotional.

  Air, with the weight of cement, catches between his Adam’s apple and tonsils. They’re walking into the hospital.

  Just like that he knows. Leah McKenzie is getting Eric’s heart.

  Eric wanted this. Matt wanted this. Yet an emotion he can’t quite name pushes its way into his already crowded and clutching chest. Leah gets to live. Eric gets to die. That feels so unfair.

  He waits for the three of them to get inside before he dares to take a step. Then he bolts to his car.

  Climbing behind the wheel, he fists his hands onto the steering wheel, as if by hanging on to it, he’s hanging on to his sanity. Five. Ten minutes later, he’s still there.

  Still hanging on.

  He’s not in a hurry to leave. Instead, he sits there trying to fit everything he feels in a nice, neat little package.

  It won’t fit.

  It’s not nice. It’s not neat.

  Even his father’s death didn’t hurt this bad.

  Books by C. C. Hunter

  New York Times Bestselling Shadow Falls Series

  Born at Midnight

  Turned at Dark (free novella)

  Awake at Dawn

  Taken at Dusk

  Whispers at Moonrise

  Saved at Sunrise (novella)

  Chosen at Nightfall

  Spellbinder (novella)

  Almost Midnight: Shadow Falls: The Novella Collection

  Fighting Back (novella)

  Shadow Falls: After Dark Series

  Reborn

  Unbreakable (novella)

  Eternal

  Unspoken

  Midnight Hour

  The Mortician’s Daughter

  One Foot in the Grave

  Two Feet Under (coming soon!)

  Three Heartbeats Away (coming soon!)

  This Heart of Mine

  (coming February 27, 2018!)

  For more information, visit www.CCHunterBooks.com

  C.C. also writes adult contemporary romance as Christie Craig.

  To find out more, visit her at www.christiecraig.com

  About the Author

  C. C. Hunter is the New York Times bestselling author of over thirty-five books, including her wildly popular Shadow Falls and Shadow Falls: After Dark series. In addition to winning numerous awards and rave reviews for her novels, C.C. is also a photojournalist, motivational speaker, and writing coach.

  In February 2018, Wednesday Books will publish C.C.’s contemporary young adult and hardcover debut, This Heart of Mine. C.C. currently resides in Texas with her husband, junkyard dog, Lady, and whatever wild creatures meander out from the woods surrounding her home. To find out more, visit www.cchunterbooks.com.