Page 34 of His Heart

12

Sebastian

August. Age twenty.

My chest achedwith every breath. I would need to lie down soon. Ten minutes of being on my feet was all I could handle. Forget the stairs. I glanced up them. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been upstairs. My parents had cleared out the den and brought the hospital bed down so I could stay on the ground floor. Mom had said she worried about me too much when she was gone—she didn’t want me to overexert myself.

I didn’t want to tell her that getting up to go to the fucking bathroom was an overexertion.

Mom had been doing her best to put on a brave face, but I’d heard her crying when she thought I wouldn’t know. Dad had remained stoic as ever, at least in front of me. But I could see it in his eyes. He knew. We both knew my time was running out.

Picking up my feet was hard work, but I did it anyway. I just needed to get to the kitchen to refill my water. I could do this.

Just outside the kitchen, I paused in front of a large wall covered in framed photos and memorabilia. Medals, plaques, framed newspaper articles. Photos of me winning. Always winning, the ref holding my arm up in the air. Looking strong, healthy. I shook my head. The wall looked like a shrine. That was appropriate, I supposed. Shrines were for dead people.

I would be, soon.

I glanced down at myself. My t-shirt hung off my thin frame, my body a fraction of its former size. All that muscle, so hard-earned from countless hours of training, melted away. My heart too weak to supply the blood my body needed.

I could feel every beat now. Labored. Heavy. A ticking clock, counting down the beats until my death.

It would have been easier if I’d just died that day at state. At least it would have been over quickly. I wouldn’t have had to endure this slow, agonizing deterioration. Two and a half years, countless pills, an open-heart surgery with a brutal recovery. And I was still dying.

I made it to the kitchen and refilled my water. Then came the slow, deliberate walk back to what was now my bedroom.

It was a strange thing, to look in that room and know I’d probably die there. Either there, or in a hospital, but I’d already told them to keep me home if they could. I wasn’t going back to a hospital ever again if I could help it. I’d had enough of them, and what did I have to show for it? Scars. Pain. And a heart that was still dying inside my chest.

“Sebastian,” Mom said from behind me. I’d almost made it to my room.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Honey, why are you up?” she asked. “Here, let me get that for you.”

She pointlessly took the water from my hand and walked past me to set it on the bedside table. “Come on, honey, let’s get you back in bed.”

“I’m good, Mom. I’ve got it.”

She clicked her tongue and took my arm. “I know you do. Come on.”

I let her help me into bed, my body aching from the strain of the walk to the kitchen. God, why did everything have to fucking hurt so much? Wasn’t it enough that I was wasting away?

She moved the wire from the battery pack and control unit that I was wearing. The VAD had done its job to keep my heart rhythm regular, but it hadn’t made my heart any stronger. It hadn’t helped me heal.

“I’m taking myself off the transplant list,” I said. I didn’t know what prompted me to blurt it out right then, but it was something I’d decided a while ago. I just hadn’t mustered the strength to tell my parents.

The color drained from my mom’s face. “What?”

“I’m taking myself off,” I said. “I don’t want a donor heart.”

“Sebastian, honey,” she said, “what are you talking about?”

I closed my eyes—so tired. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I’ve made my decision.”

“No,” Mom breathed. “You’re just tired. This has been so hard. But it isn’t going to last forever. You just have to hang on a little longer.”

“I’m sick of hanging on,” I said, my eyes still closed.

The bed moved as my mom sat down on the edge. Her trembling hand closed over mine. “Sebastian. No.”

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