Between Hearts: A Romance Anthology Read online

  Not until I finally hear my mother’s voice when she calls my name.

  “Zac! Zac! Zac, what are you doing?” my mother shrieks.

  I don’t pull completely away from Lilly, but turn to face my mother and lean on the counter, still between Lilly’s legs—grateful that Mom’s screaming completely killed the boner I had going—and effectively blocking Lilly with my body.

  Lilly reaches to the side and stops the music. I’ve heard of the term ‘deafening silence’ before, and at this very moment, I understand it. Without the music and my mother calling my name, the room is quiet. I can’t even hear anyone breathe for a while.

  My mother’s face is red with anger and fear. If she reacts like this to just a kiss, I can’t even imagine what she’d do if she had come home half an hour earlier and caught us in my bed. Naked.

  “Go home, Lilly. You’re no longer welcome in this house.” Her voice is harsh and shaky.

  I feel Lilly stiffen behind me and start to move, but I put both hands on her knees on either side of me and stop her.

  “She’s not going anywhere, Mom.” My voice is steady, calm. That seems to irritate her even more.

  “Lilly, leave now!” She grits the words through her teeth.

  Lilly gently pushes at my back and hops to the floor, looking up at me. I grab her hand and lace our fingers.

  “Mom, you’re overreacting. I’m fine. It’s just a kiss.”

  “You could die!”

  “What?” Lilly looks at me, confused, and then back at my mom. “What do you mean?”

  “He never told you, did he? He can die at any minute. He can’t exert himself. Sex can kill him!”

  Lilly looks at me for confirmation, hoping for a denial. I squeeze her hand in mine and don’t say anything to her. I turn back to my mother.

  “The doctor also said that I should avoid stressful situations, and the way you’re talking to Lilly right now is very stressful to me. But you don’t seem to care about that, do you?”

  She blanches. I regret my words as soon as I say them. I never talk back to my parents. I’m always the good little boy who follows the rules. But their rules never excluded Lilly before, and that I’ll fight.

  My mother waves a hand in Lilly’s direction. “She is doing it. She is turning you against me. Against your own mother. It’s all her fault. I always thought that she had a hold on you. I’m right. I know I’m right.”

  She turns to Lilly. “You. It’s always been you. You’re always pushing him to do things he shouldn’t, getting him to do yoga and go to the beach and ride bikes and learn to drive. You will be the death of him. You are killing him!” She’s hysterical now.

  I push Lilly behind my back to get her away from my mother. Lilly’s body is rigid with tension.

  My father comes running in and stops short in the kitchen doorway before walking up to my mother.

  He looks at me when he asks, “What’s going on?”

  “She’s trying to kill him!” my mother cries.

  Dad, always the calmer one, looks at me, waiting. “She saw us kissing. Nothing happened. We’re just hanging out. I was making us a sandwich, and we kissed.”

  Dad puts his arms around Mom and looks back at me. “Therese, this is not the time. We have to go.”

  “Go where, Dad?”

  “We got the call. They have a donor heart! We have to go to the hospital now. That’s why we came home early.”

  My step falters, and if Lilly wasn’t behind me, her hands on my back, I may have fallen down.

  I get ahold of myself.

  “A donor heart?” Lilly asks me.

  I look at Lilly and see fear in her eyes, confusion, and . . . betrayal? She feels betrayed. I grab and squeeze her hand, and with a slight shake of my head at her, beg for understanding.

  Lilly presses her lips together and nods at me. She’s letting it go, for now.

  “Okay, let me throw a couple of things in a bag and we can go.” I pull Lilly with me, and that gets my mother going again.

  “She is not going anywhere.”

  “She is if she wants to.”

  “No, she is not!”

  “Therese, not now. We have to go.”

  I let go of Lilly’s hand and take a step closer to my mother. “What would you have me do, Mom? Spend my entire life locked up in my room? Never do anything, never go anywhere, no friends, no girlfriend?” I look over my shoulder at Lilly. “What kind of life would that be? Is that what you want for me?”

  “You would be safe!”

  “Safe? There are no guarantees I’d be any safer locked up inside this house than I would be spending time with Lilly. You don’t want me to live. You just want me to exist, to be your puppet and do as I’m told. Well, guess what? I’m not a puppet. And I don’t want to just exist. I want to live and enjoy life like any other seventeen-year-old kid, and that includes taking some risks. That includes having a girlfriend and kissing her. You cannot keep me alive by shutting me in a box and throwing away the key. That’s no life at all, and I’d rather be dead than do that.”

  Mom sobs, her eyes rimmed with tears and red with anger. She starts pointing at Lilly again.

  I cut her off. “Mom, there are only two constants in my life—death and Lilly. If you take Lilly away, death is all I have left.”

  I let my words sink in and walk out of the kitchen, tugging Lilly behind me.

  When we get to my room, I pull her into my arms and drop my head to her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Mom doesn’t mean any of it. She’s just overprotective.”

  Lilly hugs me back, her arms tight around me. She’s trembling but trying to hold everything in for my sake. I can tell. I know her so well. This. This right now is the reason I never told her the truth. It was my burden to shoulder. Sharing it with Lilly would not have made it any easier for me. It would have been the opposite.

  “Zac?”

  She pulls away just enough to look at me. “You need a donor heart?”

  “I do.”

  “Why—why didn't you ever tell me about it?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want that hanging between us. It’s not like you could do anything about it—”

  “You should have told me. You didn’t think that’s something I could handle?” She’s upset, angry even, but she’s keeping her voice level and low.

  My hands leave her and go through my hair. I grasp the back of my neck. “That’s not it, Lilly.”

  “What then? What reason did you have to lie to me?”

  “I didn’t lie. I didn’t tell you the extent of my condition, but I did not lie.”

  “Ever heard of lie by omission?”

  I can feel my face turning red. She’s got me there. I have so many emotions whirling in me right now. Wave after wave hits me. Fear, doubt, shame, anger, hope, and love. I feel like I’m drowning. I hold on to the love like it’s a lifesaver, because it is. My love for Lilly has kept me afloat all this time. It must show in my face, because Lilly’s eyes soften when she looks at me, waiting for a response.

  “I hate that word, condition. It’s an attempt at making something terrible sound better. I have a fucking heart defect that could be fatal.”

  Her eyes widen in fear. Fear for me. For us.

  “But I’m still better off than many others. I don’t need to be in a hospital, but I have to be careful and take a shitload of meds. I try to live my life from a place of gratitude instead of anger.”

  She reaches for me, a gentle hand on my chest.

  “It would have been all too easy to give in to anger and depression. I didn’t want to bring you down with me, Lilly. I didn’t want you to look at me with pity in your eyes. I just want to be like any other normal kid.”

  My hands go to her face, a thumb brushing over her lips.

  “The only time I don’t feel broken is when I’m with you. The only time I dare to hope is when I’m with you. I didn’t want you to look at me like I was less. You make me feel normal. I di
dn’t want to taint what we have with the knowledge that I could die. I still don’t.”

  There is understanding in her eyes. They fill with water. I catch a tear with a kiss to her cheek, and it tastes like the ocean. Lilly turns her face into my palm and I pull her to my chest. Her arms tighten around my back. I tuck her into me and hold her head under my chin. She speaks into my chest.

  “Is it true what she said? That sex could kill you?”

  It pains me to answer, but I tell the truth. “The doctor said that sex could send my heart into an irregular beat, which in turn could kill me.” I smile and add, “But we know that’s not true. We’ve proven him wrong at least a dozen times.”

  I don’t give her chance to reply. I take her lips into mine and kiss her until I can’t breathe. Probably not a smart move, but I do it anyway. I break the kiss and start looking around my room, grabbing stuff to take with me. I’ve read the What to do when you get the call list so many times, I have it memorized. Lilly watches me.

  “Zac, you should have told me.”

  I look at her and shake my head. “Would you be with me right now if I had said anything about it to you? Would I know the taste of your lips or what it feels like to be inside you?”

  She presses her lips together, but she doesn’t say anything, and I have my answer.

  “I’m sorry I never told you, but I just couldn’t. I wouldn’t trade what we have for anything, Lilly.”

  “I know. I—I just don’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t,” I promise her, even though I know it’s a promise I might not be able to keep. I kiss her forehead and look into her eyes. I’m sorry I upset her, but I can’t say that I’m sorry for my omission. I wouldn’t have done anything differently if I had a chance to.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  She takes a moment to think about it. Her eyes stray from mine as the thoughts bounce in her head, and I can see each fleeting emotion as it washes over her.

  “No. I’m upset but not mad. I think I’m in shock. I need some time to process it.”

  I’m glad that she isn’t mad at me for the omission. She should be, but she isn’t. She knows my reasons, and she accepts me just as I am. I can’t ask for anything more.

  Stepping away from Lilly, I grab a backpack and toss a change of clothes, my iPod, and a headset inside. When Lilly turns away from me to get her backpack and check to make sure her jar of wishes is there, I grab a notepad and an envelope from my desk drawer and toss it in with the clothes in my backpack and zip it closed.

  Her eyes catch mine, and we both stare at the bed where we made love earlier and then at each other. Without saying any words, I know what she’s thinking, because I’m thinking the same. Will today be the last time we made love? Is today my shot at a second chance or the end of it all?

  She steps into her flip-flops and looks at me. Fear shows in her beautiful face. She’s scared for me. For us. I smile and push my own fears away. I don’t want Lilly to see how scared I am. If these are to be our last moments together, I want them to be filled with hope and love, not fear.

  I wish I wasn’t broken, but looking into her eyes makes me feel whole again.

  “I think I need another wish,” she says.

  #7: I wish I could be the person I see reflected in your eyes when you look at me.

  Wish #8

  Zac

  Lilly and I go back downstairs. Dad’s waiting for us by the front door. That meeting in the kitchen had been tense with my mother angry and me trying to protect Lilly, acting as a buffer between them. Thank God Dad showed up when he did because I was about to leave the house with Lilly and not come back until my mother was ready to apologize.

  This is the moment I’ve been anticipating for the last six months, and yet I’m not ready. A part of me wants to say no. I feel guilty someone died to save me. Forget about it. Give it to someone else. But saying those words would be the same as signing my death sentence, so I don’t say anything. I just go through the motions and do what I’m told. My parents are frantic and nervous. I catch Mom going back and forth between tears, smiles and angry stares at Lilly. Dad is better at holding it in, but I can see he is scared. There is fear in his eyes—fear for me and for what may happen.

  If I don’t survive this, I’m not sure my mom will. She may exist, but deep down inside, she’ll be as dead as me. I envision what would happen if I don’t make it. I imagine the doctor coming to the waiting room and just shaking his head, saying they did everything they could but my body didn’t take the new heart. That it had been painless. I see Mom screaming and Dad trying to hold her up as her knees hit the floor. I see my dead body being covered with a sheet. A shell, an empty husk is all that’s left of me. I go as far as imagining my funeral. Who would show up? My family, uncles and aunts, grandparents, cousins I was never close to. Friends from school? Neighbors? Teachers maybe? My mom would be numb with pain and drugs. Dad would hold everything in like he always does.

  And Lilly. What would she do? Thinking of Lilly is the most painful thought of all. She would go on and go back to school and college. She’ll make new friends and find another boy to love her, but no one could ever love her like I do. No one would know her thoughts like I do. How long until she forgets me? How long until some guy replaces me in her arms, in her life?

  I look up and meet her eyes, and she shakes her head at me like she can read my thoughts and knows how dark and scary a turn they have taken. She’s nervous for me. Her hands are shaking and she pushes them into her pockets.

  We’re just about to leave when I stop and run back upstairs. I come back with a zipped hoodie and give it to Lilly. “It may get cold in the hospital.”

  She takes it from me and hugs it to her chest. “Thank you. You’re always thinking of me.”

  We walk to the car, staying a few feet behind my parents so we can talk. “You don’t have to go, you know. It will take hours and you won’t be able to see me after. They’ll keep me in the ICU for a while.” I’m worried about what may happen when I’m not there to stop my mother and her mean words.

  “I’m going!”

  Her voice is almost angry, and I know that there’s no dissuading Lilly.

  “You would do the same for me,” she says in a softer tone.

  “I would.”

  “So don’t try to decide this for me. I’m going with you and your parents, and I’ll stay in the hospital and wait. I don’t care how long.”

  “Are you going to tell your parents?”

  “I’ll text them when we get there.”

  I smile, because I know what she’s doing. She’s not giving her parents a chance to say no to her. Not after what just happened with my mother.

  Mom gets our attention. She gives Lilly one last disapproving look. “Let’s go.”

  As soon as we get in the car, I give her one more wish.

  #8: I wish that your heart will always be filled with hope and love, even when you’re scared.

  Hope

  Zac

  When I finish writing the letter, I stuff it into the envelope and seal it before writing her name on it. I’m alone, near the nurse’s station, lying on a bed behind the curtains and waiting to be prepped for the heart that is being flown from somewhere in the country for me. It will be here any minute now. They have already taken my blood for some tests, and the last thing to do is take me into the operating room and do the final prep in there.

  You’d think that there would be a lot more involved, but there is nothing to do on my end other than wait until they take me to the OR.

  A nurse comes into the makeshift space and tells me it’s time. The OR is ready for me. “Nurse?”

  She looks at me, compassion in her eyes.

  “There’s a girl out there in the waiting room. She’s waiting for me. I know she won’t leave until she can see me again. Her name is Lilly. She’s my girl.” I smile. “Can you make sure she gets something to eat? Make her drink some water. And could you please give
this to her when they take me in?” I hand her the envelope with Lilly’s name written on it.

  The nurse takes it and smiles at me. “I will. I promise to give her the letter. Now you just relax and let the doctors take care of you. You will be out of here and with that girl of yours before you know it.”

  I thank her, but I don’t trust her words. I don’t doubt the giving Lilly the letter part or getting her to eat something. I know she’ll do that. I don’t believe the rest of it.

  Wish #9

  Lilly

  A nurse comes into the waiting room, looks around, and asks me if I am Lilly.

  I nod. The knot in my throat hurts, and I don’t think I can speak.

  “I’m one of the nurses assigned to Zac, and he asked me to give this to you.” She hands me an envelope.

  I recognize Zac’s handwriting on it. My name. Five letters, but I would know his handwriting even if it was just a single one.

  The nurse touches my shoulder. “He also asked me to make sure you eat something and drink water and to tell you not to worry,” she adds.

  I smile. It’s just like Zac to be worried about me when his life is on the line. My lips tremble at the thought. The nurse squeezes my shoulder again and reaches into her pocket and pulls out a chocolate bar.

  “Here, just keep this. For later.” She hands it to me and I take it. My lips move to say thank you, but no sounds come out.

  Zac’s parents are sitting across from me. I look at the letter again, knowing I can’t read it here.

  I get up and walk down the hall to a glass atrium that’s filled with plants and comfortable chairs. Instead, I find a hidden spot behind some large, potted trees and slide down the wall to read Zac’s letter.

  I haven’t even opened it yet, and the tears I’ve been holding are already running down my face. With trembling fingers, I break the seal, careful not to rip the envelope.