“Go! Make your own magic. I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
Lou sighs and blushes a little bit, belying how excited she is for her date. She’s been talking of nothing else since her friend at Wells Fargo sent her this guy’s Instagram page and said he was ready to date again after getting out of a rocky relationship a few months earlier.
“Okay. And don’t let Hunter get to you. Ever since the accident, he can be ... a little moody at times. But he’s like a cactus.”
“Acactus?” I choke on my bite of popcorn, nearly inhaling it from the laugh I try to hold back.
“Yeah, prickly on the outside, but inside, he’s mush—full of the waters of kindness.”
“Thewatersofkindness?” My heart issues aren’t going to take me out after all. I’m going to die from aspirating popcorn after laughing too hard. “Aren’t some cacti full of spiders?”
“Shut up. You know what I mean.” Lou flicks her hair over her shoulder. “He’d do anything for the ones he loves.”
“Well, he’s made it clear I’mnotgoing to be on that very short list. Now, quit making the Dreamboat Banker wait.”
Lou seems about to say more, but then her phone buzzes, and after glancing down, she flushes and nods. “All right. But we’re not done with this conversation.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” I wave her off as she hurries out the door.
Once I hear her car pull away, I settle into our plush couch with my bowl of popcorn and a determination not to let Hunter’s comments—or the memory of his abs—replay over and over in my mind.
But not even Monica saying, “I could go for some chicken,” can drown out the words Hunter flung at me from echoing through my mind. Especially when I hear him moving around next door, reminding me that he’s right there, a few inches of wood and plaster away.
No. You don’t get to be a jerk and then make it so I can’t ignore you. I turn the volume up until I can no longer hear the sounds of him pacing the floor next to me and secretly hope he hatesFriends.
4.
My alarm startles me out of a dream where I’m trying to climb onto my dad’s hospital bed to lie next to him. But no matter how hard I try, my hands slip off the metal rails. I keep falling to the floor until my mom drags me away, out the door, her eyes empty, as lifeless as they were for months after his death. And then, as I’m trying to push past her to get back to him, I feel a jagged pain rip through my chest. Somehow, I know my chest is about to split open, and suddenly, I’m running through the hospital, begging every person I pass for another heart because mine is dying.
These lovely nightmares like to grace me with their presence whenever I’m stressed out, and thanks to the financial worries at the bakery multiplied by Hunter being such a jerk, I’m apparently quite stressed. The alarm is a welcome relief.
Lou’s date went so well that she texted me at eleven to tell me not to wait up for her, so I finally switched off the TV and said a little prayer that I could get ready for bed and into my room without another run-in with Hunter since the water is turned off in his half of the duplex. I’ve never washed my faceor brushed my teeth so fast in my life. I almost texted Lou to ask exactly how long Hunter was planning on staying but decided against ruining her date.
I try to shake off the lingering terror of my dream as I stumble to the chair where I laid out my gym clothes. Wednesdays are Mom’s day to start at the bakery, so I go to the gym with Talia. Lou even joins us sometimes, but I’m guessing, based on her late night, that she won’t be today.
I hop around my room, pulling up my leggings and wrangling my sports bra on while still half asleep. Before I put on my high-necked tank top, I pause and look in the mirror. My gaze immediately goes to the thick scar that bisects my chest. A ghost of the pain that lingered long after my life-saving surgery shivers through my memory when I trace the scar with one finger.
I’m used to the feel of the puckered, discolored skin. But I never let anyone else touch it, not when justseeingit often inspires morbid curiosity or barely concealed aversion. I’ve been asked all sorts of questions about what it felt like to have my chest cracked open, my heart literally cut out and replaced. Jordan, a guy I dated for a month in college, asked if I’d ever had memories of the other person’s life. That question sent me into a panic attack in the middle of Texas Roadhouse.
I can never adequately explain the simultaneous gratitude and guilt I live with every day becausesomeone else’s heartis inmybody. And his question drove that reality far too deep; it’s haunted me ever since. It clearly freaked us both out, because he lasted only another week before breaking up with me.
I was devastated; I’d really fallen for him, traumatizing questions notwithstanding.
Now, as I stare at the ridge of flesh, Hunter’s words from last night rise up again. I don’t do scar buddies.
Why didn’t Lou tell me?I have a vague memory of her saying he’d been in a car accident, like, five or six years ago, but she never mentioned he’d been burned. If I’d known—if I’d been warned—I could have avoided the shock he saw on my face. How different would our first meeting have gone? Would there have been a chance of becoming friends? With someone who maybe, just maybe, wouldn’t have been turned off bymyscar or frightened by my health history and my loaner heart? Who might have seen me asme—just Olivia? Not Olivia, heart-transplant survivor who would beat the odds to live past forty. Who may never be able to have a baby, who has to take medicine every morning and night to keep my body from rejecting the foreign organ keeping me alive ... and who will needanotherperson to die so I can keep living when the day comes that this heart quits or I get so sick that all the medicine in the world can’t keep my body from rejecting the heart that saved my life at eighteen.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell my reflection quietly. “I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.”
It’s the mantra I’ve told myself for years because I have no choice but to believe it.
I pull my tank top on right as my phone vibrates. I glance down to see a text from Talia.
Just leaving. See you in fifteen?
Yep, about to head out, I reply.
I put on my socks and shoes, grab my keys, headphones, and water bottle, and open my door to a silent hallway. The sun is beginning to rise, gilding the condo in golden light as I head down the stairs to the kitchen. I inhale and exhale slowly, breathing in the peace of a quiet morning at daybreak.
