Page 7 of Heart Sick

I know she wants her to be on board with whatever decision I make, but she will fight me if I decide to stop taking the medication. But this is my choice and she knows I always get what I want.

A young nurse enters and I throw her a flirty smile because although she is really beautiful, there is something I need, and it’s not her number. She goes to check my vitals, leaning in close. She smells of ripened strawberries on a spring day.

The hospital gown sags low and she doesn’t make it a secret that she’s looking down the front of it, no doubt attempting to work out what my tattoos are. My body is randomly inked with sheet music from my favorite pieces. Some are just a bar of music, but each note means something to me; it helped shape me into who I am today.

My favorite is down the side of my neck, starting under my ear—I have the opening musical notes of my favorite classical piece—Moonlight Sonata.

She tilts her head to take in the piano keys tattooed on the outside of my forearm. “I take it you like music then?”

“What gave it away?” I quip, throwing her a flirty smile.

She nervously brushes a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I don’t suppose I can borrow your pen?”

Before she can object, I reach for the pen which is clipped to the collar of her scrubs. A shudder of breath leaves her.

“And some paper?”

She appears confused by my request, but doesn’t see the harm in it and she digs into her pocket. She tears off a few sheets from her small notepad.

I position the movable tray in front of me and shift to sit upright, ignoring the pain in my entire body. “Thank you.”

She places the sheets of paper onto the tray and watches with interest as I organize them in a line. Pen in left hand, I begin to draw the keys of a piano, lost in that world I go to whenever music is near. When I am done, I look at the sight before me and a sense of peace overcomes me.

My fingers twitch just as they always do and this to me, this is foreplay. This is what gets me hard. I place my fingers on the makeshift keys and close my eyes, familiarizing myself with my mistress because all I want to do is make her scream.

I decide to play a piece I already know, something a little upbeat—Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 seems like the perfect choice.

I wait for the music to kick-start in my brain, but all I hear is white noise. I give it a minute because Dr. Norton said this was normal, but when all I hear is…nothing, a heaviness kicks me in the chest. I am aware of his heart beginning to trounce wildly, but I ignore it because that sound is the only thing I can hear.

It is drowning out all other noise and I want it to stop.

I move my fingers to the keys I’ve memorized by heart, but I hear nothing.

“Dutch, your heart rate—”

But I ignore the nurse.

I push aside her voice filled with concern and every other sound which is drowning out the music and focus. However, the harder I concentrate, the foggier things become.

No fucking way will I surrender.

I vaguely hear the sudden commotion of machines beeping and a flurry of panicked voices swarming around me because the faster his heart beats and the harder it is to breathe, the music begins to breed. It’s small at first, a flicker of light, but as the pain heightens and I struggle for air…I hear it.

Music flows through me and my fingers move.

The soothing sounds of the notes are all I need because the harder I play, the faster his heart beats. I ignore it, however, and let the music consume me, surrendering to the melodies which flood my brain.

Finally, I am home.

“Dutch! Can you hear me?” Dr. Norton screams. Her voice amalgamates with the music and it feeds the beast.

I only play harder.

“Nurse, get me the defibrillator. Now! He is about to go into cardiac arrest!”

His heart gets faster and faster. Louder and louder. And unfamiliar images begin to flick before me; memories that aren’t mine. They make me want to vomit—blood, so much blood.

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