“Hunter,” she says calmly. “Stop. Just stop.”
“Ari, what the hell are you trying to tell me right now?”
She stands up from the bench and wrings her fingers around her wrists as she paces back and forth. “Last Friday afternoon I had my bi-annual heart check-up. The doctor found something we had all been hoping not to find.”
“What? Ari, tell me, please,” I beg.
“The scans came back showing that I have acceleratedcoronary arterydisease.” I don’t even know what that means but the word disease and artery give enough away.
“Well, they can fix that. They can give you meds or change your diet, right? Now that they know you have it, they can treat it...surely.” I know I sound ridiculous and I have no idea what I’m talking about. “I’m sure they can do something to help you. Again, don’t be so negative.” I’m nearly yelling at her, scolding her for saying what she’s saying. Why is she saying all of this to me? Why does she look like she’s about to be sick? Why do I feel like I’m about to be sick? Why the hell do I feel like I might start crying like a goddamn baby here in a minute?
“They gave me a year at most, Hunter,” and, just like that, she says the words I was hoping never to hear from her. “I was going to keep this to myself for fear of putting you through something like this after what you have already been through.”
I stand up and, without any words to say, I grab her and pull her into me tightly. I squeeze her harder than I should, and I cry harder than I’ve let anyone see me cry in years. I bury my head in her shoulder, shaking her along with my shuddering body. “No,” I cry. “No, no, no…”
She wraps her arms back around me. “I was given six years—a gift from Ellie. It was a gift, Hunter. I was never supposed to make it past twenty and now I’m almost thirty. It’s a gift. Please, realize what she did for me. Her heart was supposed to be only for her but she shared it so I could experience just a little bit of a normal adult life. It’s all I had wanted since I was diagnosed with heart failure at fifteen. I’m not sad. I’m not scared. I’m so unbelievably grateful for what you and Ellie have given me.” What did I give her? I didn’t give her Ellie’s heart. I would have fought Ellie on giving away her heart if I had known her plans. I wanted to keep her together and whole for my own selfish reasons, which is crazy since she was cremated into a billion pieces, but because she was smart enough not to tell me, Ari was given time because of Ellie. Only Ellie.
“I’m not leaving your side,” I tell her.
“Yes, you are,” she responds. “You’re going to go be with the woman you are in love with, and it will make me happy to know I can leave this world to find Ellie up there and tell her that in return for the gift of her heart, I made sure your heart is happy.”
Her sentiment is appreciated but I can’t sit here and tell her I’m walking away now because she’s dying—because Ellie’s heart is dying. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to help you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she says. “My parents are moving in with me next week.”
“Is it going to just happen or...”
“I’ve been through it once before. It’ll be a gradual deterioration again, the doctor said.”
“What about another donor? Can we find you another donor?” I’m spitting off ideas I’m almost positive she has already considered.
“Hunter,” she laughs quietly. “Ellie was my one and only. Trust me. I’m sure you knew she had a rare AB negative blood type.”
“Yeah, the rarest of blood types. It wasn’t something I ever had to think about, though,” I tell her.
“Fate brought Ellie and me together, I believe. Less than one percent of the population has that blood type and to end up finding her, it all just felt like a sign for both of us.” Ironic, how we both feel the same way about Ellie—for so long, I considered Ellie to be my one and only. Though, the healing process has recently proven to me that sometimes there is more than one chance for all of us.
“One percent of the world’s population is seventy-one million, Ari.”
She squeezes me again and rests her head against my shoulder as her hand finds mine and brings it up to her chest, allowing me to feel Ellie’s heart beating again. “Now do you understand why I told you I am not your path?”
“Yeah,” I breathe, “but your path brought me to where I am right now. You were right about Robert Frost being wrong.”
“Take me to Charlotte,” she says. “I need to talk to her.”
“What? Why?” I ask, pulling away, staring at her with question.
“Just take me to her.”
During the ride from the gardens to my house, I feel like I’m stuck in gridlock traffic. I grip the steering until my knuckles are white, my chest is aching, my throat is tight, my head is pounding, and I still feel like I might get sick. I’m trying to understand everything Ari just told me. I’m also trying to find loopholes and ways to spin this in a better direction. No one has ever told me they’re dying and now that it has happened, I feel lost in the center of a black tornado, one that’s sucking my organs out of my pores. She was right in a way about Robert Frost being full of it. In some aspects there are no paths to choose from, everything is predestined and when a person is meant to die, they die. There are no options.
“Do you feel sick and stuff?” I ask her.
“I’ve been a little tired, breathless, and nauseous, but I have definitely experienced worse.” Of course she has, she was days or weeks from dying when she received Ellie’s heart. Now she has to go through this all over again. How cruel is life to do this to someone twice?
“I want to help you,” I tell her again. I’m not going to sit back and pretend she doesn’t exist until I read her obituary in the paper some day.
“I appreciate that,” she says, “but knowing what I will go through over the next several months is not something I want anyone to bear witness to.”
