Page 1 of Love Sick

Welcome to my hell.

“Here comes the airplane. Open up.”

I once thought Alanna to be kind, caring. But as I look at her now, all I can envision is ramming that silver spoon she holds into the side of her throat.

My lips are pulled into a tight line because I would rather starve to death than eat her fucking pureed apple.

“Dutch, stop this. You need your strength. You’re injured.”

“Yeah, I’m injured because you broke my leg with a fucking hammer!” I retort, turning my cheek so she gets the memo that I am not going to be spoon-fed—now or ever.

Alanna sighs, but I’m not sure what she was expecting.

“You’ve already got the perfect patient over there.” I gesture to good ole dead Jonathan with my chin. “He won’t object to anything because he’s, you know…dead.”

Alanna knows who my Achilles’ heel is. So it’s only fair that I know hers.

She pulls back her shoulders and drops the spoon into the baby dish she holds. It’s got blue bunny rabbits running laps around the lip.

“A gift for your nonexistent children? Makes sense you use it, I guess. Seems a waste otherwise.”

Tears begin to well in her eyes, but she can blow me. I don’t feel sorry for her. She chose the wrong person to fuck over because the moment I’m strong enough, I’m getting out of here. But not before burning this place to the ground.

“I should have let you die,” she says, coming to an abrupt stand.

“Yeah, you should have,” I counter, content she’s pissed off. “Because there is no fucking way I’m helping you, and you want to know why? Because it’s insane.Youare insane! And I swear to God, the moment I’m free, you’ll pay for what you’ve done.”

Alanna’s lower lip trembles. “I just wanted my happily ever after. Why is that so bad? Why does everyone else get to be happy but me?”

“Oh, grow the fuck up,” I spit, not interested in her sob story. “Do you see me skipping off into the sunset, picking daisies? No. No one gets what they want. Did Misha?”

Alanna’s tears stop when I mention the man whose heart gives me life—literally.

“Did Luna?”

Just saying her name makes my heart ache because it aches for the both of us. Me and Misha—her son.

This story doesn’t need a rotting corpse or crazed scientist to add drama because it’s a horror story within itself. This is the stuff you read about in Gothic horror books, it’s not real life. But here I am, living this fucking nightmare.

I knew Luna was someone special the moment I laid eyes on her. It felt like I knew her, and that’s because I did. Misha’s heart is what drew us together. His heart gave me his memories and showed me who Luna was.

The odds of this happening are slim to none. Alanna said it’s called heart memory transfer, and it’s happened before. That it’s not uncommon for the recipient of the donor heart to fall in love with the donor’s family.

But what I feel for Luna, those feelings are mine alone; Misha’s heart has nothing to do with it. Even without his heart, I would love Luna, and I do. I fucking love her with every beat of this heart. And I never got the chance to tell her that.

All because Alanna is hell-bent on using me as some science project to revive her very dead fiancé.

“I would rather cut out this heart than give you what you want.”

In all honesty, I still can’t wrap my head around what Alanna wants to do. It’s that messed up. She believes she can give Jonathan Misha’s heart and give me my old heart back, which she kept, just in case.

What I don’t understand is why she didn’t just do the damn transplant on Jonathan in the first place. Why did she go to the effort of giving me Misha’s heart if she always intended it for Jonathan?

“I wish you wouldn’t fight me,” she says with a sigh, removing her glasses and massaging the bridge of her nose.

“Yeah, well, I want a unicorn, but I don’t see that happening.”

“Don’t you see? We would be creating history. If this is a success—”

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