Page 8 of Ruin My Life
The bullet shredded one of my heart valves—tore it apart like tissue paper. They replaced it with something artificial, but I didn’t listen to the specifics. For all I know, they ripped my whole heart out and left an empty cavity behind.
That’s what it feels like, anyway.
My ribs were reset. My punctured lungs, stitched. Then it was up to time—and a cocktail of heavy drugs—to drag my body back from the edge.
Then this morning, I woke up.
Confused, choking on plastic tubes until a nurse rushed in and removed them.
She didn’t even wait for me to ask. Just filled in the pieces I’d missed, like reading from a script she'd memorized but never thought she’d have to perform.
After a full exam, I finally see the damage.
The scars.
Red. Swollen. Ugly.
One runs from the base of my throat, slicing straight down the center of my chest and stopping just beneath mybreastbone. Another, smaller one sits jagged over my heart—right where the bullet entered and ricocheted around my chest cavity like a stray bouncy ball.
I stare at it until I feel sick.
My doctor—a young man with tired brown eyes and a trembling throat who introduced himself as Dr. Kim—covers them with gauze and tape, like maybe that’ll make them disappear. Like if I can’t see them, I can pretend they don’t exist. Thatitdidn’t happen.
But it did.
After gulping down a glass of lukewarm water that does little to soothe my dry throat, I ask the one question I’ve been dreading.
“Did they make it?”
I already know the answer. But I need tohearit.
Dr. Kim’s face pales. His lips part, but no words come right away.
When they finally do, they fall like bricks.
“I’m sorry, Brianna... your family—they were declared dead at the scene.”
I nod once, my eyes dropping to the embroidery on his white coat.Alan Kim, M.D.,Cardiac Surgery Resident.
I wonder if I’m the first person he’s seen survive a gunshot to the heart. I wonder if he’s ever stared at someone and questioned why they lived when others didn’t.
Because I shouldn’t be here. I was shot in theheart. But apparently, the bullet missed doing permanent damage by millimetres.
“You got very lucky,” he says.
“Lucky.”
The word scrapes its way up my throat like a shard of glass.
What part ofthislooks like luck?
The silence thickens. It crawls up the walls, settles into the air like smoke. Every breath feels too loud. Too sharp.
Eventually, Dr. Kim clears his throat and instructs the nurses to keep a close eye on me. Then he leaves.
One of the nurses—Olivia Jones, according to her name tag—stays behind. She hovers beside the machines, eyes scanning the monitors with the same blank expression I’ve seen on every face today.
After a pause, she speaks. Her voice is quiet. Cautious.
