Page 34 of Heart Sick

“Why are you in here?”

Bowie and I are well past formalities. If we’re to do this, then it’s time we bare our souls. But this is the first time I’m telling another person what happened, whatreallyhappened.

There aren’t enough breaths I can take, or the appropriate words to use, to explain something which to me still makes no sense. So, I decide to strip it all back and just be honest.

“My son…he died, and well, I died too. I didn’t want to be here without him, so I…I took a bunch of pills.”

Silence.

“You’re thinking what a coward, right?” I finally meet his eyes, expecting to see judgment. But that’s not what I see.

I see understanding, like Bowie has lived the same life I have.

“Not at all.” He steps forward, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek with the back of his knuckles. “I was thinking of the immense pain you must have felt losing your son. I know that you loved him very much, your actions prove it.”

He doesn’t remove his hand from my cheek. Instead, he sweeps a finger across the apple of my cheek. I can’t suppress my gentle whimper.

“You’re not going to say things are going to get better? That with time, I’ll heal?”

He shakes his head, the full moon intensifying those blue eyes. “No, because they won’t,” he declares with honesty. “Time allows us to accept our fate, but do we ever heal from something which changes us forever?”

I wait for him to deliver me with his wisdom because I need to hear it from someone else. I need to hear that I’m not the only one who lives with this burdening pain where it’s impossible to breathe.

“No, we don’t,” he concludes, his fingers sliding down my cheek, across to my parted mouth. “We just learn to deal.”

And that’s it.

No psychological nonsense. No finding your inner strength to go on. Bowie has just perfectly summarized a pain so deep, it has not only cut you in half, it’s broken you into a million irreparable pieces. He has said the words which any therapist has failed to say.

We just learn to deal.

“Wh-what about you?” I say, only realizing his finger is tracing the outline of my upper lip.

“What about me what?” he replies, fixated on my mouth.

“Why are you in here?”

I expect him to deflect, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t take his eyes or finger off me as he professes, “I lost myself, Misha…and I don’t know how to get it back.”

Tears spring to the surface for so many reasons, but at the forefront is the fact he used my son’s name and it felt like I was hearing it spill from Misha himself.

“I tried to cut out my heart, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.”

My own begins to race because I can’t help but think of Misha’s heart which gives another life. I hate that person. I know it’s selfish, but I wish that person didn’t need his heart because it’s Misha’s. It doesn’t belong to another.

I assume Bowie is talking in the metaphorical sense because could it be his heart is broken too?

“You can’t play music because you lost a part of yourself?”

“Tryallof myself,” he corrects, swapping his finger for his thumb which takes off from the tortuous exploration of my mouth as I want his tongue, not his thumb.

“I can’t play music because I can’t hear anything in here”—he taps against his temple, before reaching for my hand and pressing it over his heart—“or in here.”

His heart beats fiercely and the echo is like coming home. I am in sync with it, and I never want the sound to end. I understand why Bowie wanted to end his life because music is his life and without it, he’d rather not live.

“How does the music return?” I whisper, my knees heavy as he slips the tip of his thumb past my parted lips.

“I don’t know, but with you…I hear it,” he confesses, robbing me of air and breath. “It gets louder and louder each time. I don’t understand it. But I don’t want to. The best things don’t ever make sense.”

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