Page 7 of The Wrong Heart

I try to remember the last time I felt calm, and I’m momentarily whisked away to one of my very first memories, shoulder blades pressed to the bark of a cherry tree as a young Border Collie licked the sticky fruit juice off my chin. The sky danced with pillowy white shapes, and I laughed when the grass tickled my bare toes, much like the puppy teeth nicking my jaw.

I’ll never forget that the midsummer breeze smelled like daylilies.

I only knew that because my father loved lining the front of our porch with daylilies, and he’d sit outside and watch them, eager to catch the first sign of life. They only stayed in bloom for one day—one day—before the yellow and orange petals closed up and went to sleep for another year.

It confused me.

Out of all the flowers in the world, why did he love daylilies so much? Their beauty was so short-lived.

I asked him once—why he loved them, why he enjoyed temporary things.

His reply has always stayed with me: “Fleeting beauty is the most precious kind. You appreciate it more.”

It’s one of my few good memories, and I wish it were strong enough to replace all the others.

I’m ripped from the reverie by a needle jabbing into the underside of my elbow, a lifeline of sorts, to keep me bound and tethered to this mortal Hell. My fingers curl around the cords in an attempt to pull it out, but I’m hindered by hands and arms and words of protest, words to sedate me while they poison my veins.

While they try tocalmme.

I want to laugh, a crazed, maniacal laugh, but I can’t recall the last time such a sound escaped my throat, and I wouldn’t even know how.

So, I just lie there instead, as apathetic as ever.

Just fuckingover it.

And that’s when I hear it. That’s when something other than my own dispassion, my own resignation, burrows inside and invades me.

An intrusion.

It crawls along my skin like decay. Something visceral, raw, unhinged.

It’s a woman’s scream.

She’s mourning—howling with an anguish that some fucked-up part of me wishes I could relate to.

It’s a ballad for the dying.

I don’t know why I let it in, why I let it cling to me like a dark passenger, but I feel compelled to carry it with me.

It’s comforting somehow. I’m not alone in my misery.

As I continue to lie there, the doctors and nurses transform into a blur of flashes and movement, their voices drowning out, words incoherent.

Maybe it’s the shit they fed me through the IV, polluting my veins.

Or maybe it’s my new companion.

Whatever it is, I’m grateful for it, because I realize for the first time in decades that I am calm.

—THREE—

I’ll never forget the lookon her face when she walks into the small, delicately furnished room, her eyes like acorns, hair dark and curly—a mess of chaos, like my petrified heart.

Her nametag tells me she is Dr. Whitley, but I think it’s a lie.

Her expression tells me she’s the Grim Reaper.

My legs are physically trembling as I stand from the chair, hand planting against the wall for support, while the other grips my chest. I still feel him in there, settled beneath my ribs, beating and warm. The vibrations tickle my fingertips, a soothing lullaby to outplay the dirge.

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