Page 83 of Heart Sick

Coming to a shaky stand, I grip the sink and stare into the smudged mirror. Who the fuck is this person? When I took to the stage, I knew I had done it before. I also knew I had seduced many men before. It all came so easily to me.

Is this what I did to Jack?

This seems too unbelievable to be true.

Splashing water onto my face and rinsing out my mouth, I make my way into the bedroom and for the first time ever, I feel uncomfortable being near Dutch. I sit on the chair instead of the bed. He doesn’t say anything, but I can read his heartache—how that word now takes on a different meaning.

He is sitting at the foot of the bed, legs splayed. He really is so stunning. I wonder if my attraction is because the donated heart beating within his chest is of the man I killed.

“Stop it,” Dutch says, reading my thoughts. “You’re making assumptions from visions that I don’t even know are real.”

“And if they are? You do realize that means I was screwing the man whose heart you now have. And that I possibly killed him. Oh my god. I can’t believe this is happening.”

Dutch exhales, interlacing his hands behind his head. He’s frustrated. But it’s the truth. I’m only preparing us for what might lie ahead.

“You told me you lost your…son, and because of that, you tried to take your own life. That’s why you were admitted.”

“A son?” The walls close in on me. “I was a mother. I can’t believe I can’t remember him. What sort of mother doesn’t remember her own son!”

My heart breaks into a million pieces.

“I’m so sorry. This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I wanted to save you the pain.”

Sniffing back my tears, I try and hold it together because I asked for this.

“It was hospital policy not to use our real names, so we were to choose a name. Yours was Misha. Does that mean anything to you?”

Misha?

I dig deep into my subconscious and wade through the fog in my mind. I try and push against the mental block, desperate to remember something—anything. But I don’t. The only time I heard that name was when I called it out to Dutch.

“What happened to me? Why can’t I remember?”

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “There are holes in my memory too. But one day, you came back like this. A stranger in your own skin. Parkfields is a horrible place, filled with fucked-up orderlies and nurses who abuse their power without a second thought. There was one orderly who took a liking to you.”

Something comes over Dutch, and it scares me.

“I think he might have something to do with this. But we can never go back there. We’re both dead if we do.”

“So there’s no one there we can trust? Someone who could tell me who I am?”

Dutch ponders on my question. “There may be someone, but as far as trusting him, I don’t. But he may be our only chance.”

“What else?”

“Your best friend had you committed.”

“Some friend,” I mumble under my breath. “Maybe if we found her?”

Dutch nods, understanding my train of thought.

“So we need someone inside of Parkfields? How else are we supposed to figure this out? I don’t even know my last name.”

Dutch stares into the distance, clearly deep in thought. “There may be someone else. A doctor.”

“I thought you said they all abused their power.”

“She’s different.”

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