Heart Murmurs (2 page)
Authors: R. R. Smythe
The whispers and I agree; I feel our mutual indignation. I'm sick with helplessness. There are hundreds of them. I'm only one person, what can I do? I pick up a large stick and take a swipe at the ones within reach.
One dodges my swing, and with small, pointed tusks bites into a man's arm, ripping off a dangling muscle with one upward snap of its jaw. Another comes and grabs the muscle's other end â they push and pull in a macabre tug of war. I wince as the limb rips in two.
Find him. Find him, the whispers moan. I actually hear the words now. I can't make out if it's male or female.
I register the sounds of a drum and fife core, over the ridge. I automatically take inventory, counting the conscious soldiers on the ground.
I know what to do. I just don't know how I know what to do. I have to count the living, stabilize them, and report back to their commanding officer.
I bolt toward the small rise; feeling a pack I didn't realize I was carrying bounce against my side.
I reach the summit and spy the back of several heads. Three men. One with white-blond, long locks, and two with dark, wavy hair. One is limping. Dragging is more accurate. His one leg looks impossibly crooked. I sprint toward them.
Yes, yes. The whispers goad me on.
The murmurs are a furious whirlwind of excitement, bloating my head.
A rifle shot. My shoulder flies forward from the impact. A searing, ripping of my flesh on my right shoulder blade â a flaming circle of acid.
The scene is dissolving as quickly as it came, fading to a dab of light. My longing is alive, a separate being inhabiting my chest. A longing to catch the trio of men. I must see him.
The banshee of yearning wails, imploring me to make it to the three men. The scene wavers.
No, no. Not now, don't go yet.
My heart rebels. Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
Silence.
I wake, inhaling an exaggerated gasp, clutching my chest. I feel my eyes rolling around crazily, but can't hold them still.
My room. I'm in my room. My vision begins to focus. Low, reassuring embers burn in my fireplace and Mozart plays from my speakers.
More snippets of familiarity become clear as my eyes adjust. My laptop, right beside my bed. My rocking chair.
“You're awake.” Claire walks halfway across my room and stops dead as her eyes drop to my trembling hands. The âwelcome-back' smile fades quickly from her face as she backs toward the door. “You were having a nightmare, calling out. I'll go get your mom.”
“No. No, Claire. I'm okay. I'm okay. Come sit, please.” I hide my hands under my legs.
She hurries over, dropping beside me on the bed. She slips her hand under my leg, extracting my fluttering fingers and gives them a quick squeeze. One eyebrow rises in anxious question.
“I'm okay now. Bad dream. I keep having them, almost every night.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. I want to forget it.” She's wearing her cheerleading uniform. Her shiny black hair is curled and pulled into a taut ponytail. Her black eyeliner perfectly applied. She's the perfect All-American girl.
I picture all the stares and whispers of my first day back at school. Ugh. You'd think I wouldn't mind â I mean, I used to wear the same uniform, get the same attention as Claire, before the surgery. Before the illness ate my heart alive. But something's changed; the thought of being in the limelight prickles my arm into gooseflesh.
“Big game tonight?”
I had no idea it was Friday. I lose track of the days in this prison of a bedroom. I need a piece of chalk, like in the movies, to scratch off the days on my wall.
“Yes. Are you ready for Monday? Big day, back to school?” she smiles, teasing.
“I guess. Not really. But I have to rejoin the living sometime, don't I? I just⦔
“What? Tell me. You know you can tell me anything.”
“Just⦠people like Apple. They can be so cruel â and I don't know if I'm mentally up to it.”
Claire smiles sympathetically. She picks up the tome at my bedside, The Complete Works of Jane Austen, and shakes it at me. “We've discussed this. You taught me, remember?”
I've tortured Claire by familiarizing her with the classics. Elizabeth Bennett is one of my heroes. While I couldn't convince her to read Pride and Prejudice, I did manage to get her to watch the BBC miniseries.
I think of Lizzie's impulsive sister, Lydia, who was reckless, selfish, and silly.
“I know⦠Apple is a Lydia.”
“Yes, she is. And unfortunately, half the school is Lydias. It's an epidemic nowadays. Louisa and Jane would be appalled.”
I smile and squeeze her hand. I imagine returning to school and the grin dies on my lips.
We've been friends since we were eight. Claire was always the one, the show-stopper. She dragged me into the spotlight with her from my self-imposed exile behind books and glasses. She'd pitched my black, goth-y clothes, and tamed my dark red frizz into perfectly spiraled curls. Convinced me to try contacts.
But it wasn't me. Not really. Changed the wrapper, but the filling was the same.
Inside, I still loved books, and words, more than⦠most things.
As if reading my thoughts, Claire says, “I'll drive you to school and help you with your books all day.” Her blue eyes cloud with concern.
I sigh, resigned. “Okay.”
“How's the new book coming? Have any more publishers responded?”
I laugh a little. I don't mean it to sound cold, but it does. My eyes flick to the computer. I don't want to admit my writer's block. I haven't typed a word since the surgery.
“No, not yet.”
“They will. Your stories are fabulous.”
I don't take her too seriously. This from someone who thinks Glamour is literature.
Claire's phone beeps a text message. She reads it and responds with lightning fast thumbs. “I have to go. I'm going to miss the bus.” Her white teeth worry her bottom Crimson Kiss colored lip. I know â I bought her the shade months ago.
I feel guilty, she shouldn't worry about me. She should go be a normal teenager. That's what I'd be, if I could. “I'm fine. Go already.”
She wraps her pinky around mine. “You hang in there. I need my best friend back.”
I nod, keeping the smile plastered on my face till I hear her feet pound down the stairs.
The room tilts as my breath rattles out. I jam my eyes shut.
Everything is different. I'm different. I don't know who I am since the operation. It's like my insides are split and are warring over my new heart. I flutter between utter helplessness and a raging, angry determination, which drives me out of bed and forces me to be brave.
I stare out the window, my fingers spread against the pane. My mare, Charlotte, trots around the fence, flicking her head and snorting.
I can't ride her. Can't run. Can't even flippin' climb steps without having to stop and take a rest.
I have to figure out a whole new me. I slither back down under the covers and crush the pillow over my face, muffling my sobs.
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Re-entry
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I pause outside the cafeteria door, with a whole new understanding of my heart in my throat. My fingers splay across its shiny metal â all I have to do is push it open.
I close my eyes, exhaling my anxiety through my lips.
I should've let Claire drive me to school when she offered. Lunch started five minutes ago. I planned the timing precisely, to draw the least attention. Right now, everyone will be buzzing around, filling lunch trays, generally getting settled.
If I was doing this, I needed to do it now.
Someone brushes past me, swiping my shoulder. I gasp, my nerves short-circuiting with anxiety. I turn in time to see⦠who is that?
A new someone, who I've never laid eyes on. His blue-green eyes scan the length of me in a quick and obvious assessment and flick forward in the space of a breath.
I intend to just steal a glance, but I'm riveted. I stare, embarrassingly, at his thin lips, dark wavy locks, and the light peppering of hair across his cleft chin. Wow. Inside, my stomach pitches like the jerky start of a Ferris wheel. And soars up in the same fashion. He's beautiful.
In a very non-Gettysburg way. He crosses the cafeteria, completely oblivious to the stares. It was his eyes. They looked⦠I crack the door and peek through it like a pathetic stalker.
They looked old, somehow. And sad? They spoke more than any other part of his face; as if they had the depth to deliver the punch of a Shakespearian sonnet with one somber glance.
I roll my eyes. I hear Claire's too loud voice, ringing in my head â “You read too much, have a crazy imagination, and that flare for melodrama is killin' me.”
I push the door open, managing the best strut I can, considering. I've learned, navigating the jungle of high school, it's always best to appear confident. It keeps the savages at bay. Even if your new heart is painfully loud, and sweat is popping out from pores you didn't know existed.
I mean, I was hot at one time. Not Claire-hot. Before I became Gandhi-thin. Not that I cared. In my opinion, being hot is entirely overrated and a crap-load of work.
Claire's eyes light up, shining a beacon of acceptance, which blinds me to the gawkers. I focus on her, head in a straight line, and attempt to block out everyone else. Her face breaks into a genuine smile, and she pulls out the chair beside her. I feel a hundred sets of eyes on me, all around, like I'm stuck as the center-stage-star of an Imax theater.
Haven't they ever seen a freak before?
I feel my heart, too far back in my chest, beating hard. I walk a little faster, strut disintegrating. Only three more feet.
I reach the table and collapse into my seat, feeling the red climb my face like a blushing, wandering ivy.
Claire grabs my hand under the table. “Welcome back, stranger.”
I spend a few minutes deflecting questions from vaguely interested cheerleaders who quickly return to their idle chatter of who's-wearing-what-where, and tune out the has-been, already old news.
“Mia, here comes Steve.”
My hands twist under the cafeteria table. My boyfriend? I'm not entirely sure that's what he is anymore. My life has been surreally split down the middle, much like my ribcage, to before my surgery, and after.
Before, the amount of time Steve spent with me was linear to my recent weight loss. Another five pounds gone, another five days without a word from him. It wasn't like we were soul mates, but he was my ever-present date to every dance, every party.
After my operation, he dropped off the face of the earth; or at least the town of Gettysburg. Not responding to text messages, never visiting. Claire thought it was the tubes. She said he visited once â took one look at me wired to every machine and turned and left without a word.
I'm doomed with the curse of perception. I notice everyone around me. Their facial expressions scream volumes of what's in their heads, and I'm rarely wrong. Even if they try to hide it. Like now.
Apple Jones, cheerleader bod extraordinaire, and quite possibly the most self-absorbed human on the planet, is watching Steve's approach with what can only be described as mad-dog hatred. What's up with that? Has he been⦠with that, while I was lying in bed, fighting for my life? Because I would never give in? My nostrils flare with anger.
Claire notices. She's always telling me to get angry. To stop being such a doormat. A wicked smile twists up the sides of her mouth.
Steve stands beside me, shuffling uncomfortably, trying, but not meeting my gaze. My hands ball into fists. The whispers flare inside, taunting sounds, as if saying, âShe won't do it, she's weak.'
I bite my lip and my hands itch to punch him. Right in that big-fat-football-hero face. I'm seeing him in a brand new way. Like a wide, blinding light has opened in the cafeteria ceiling and illuminates him. With a flashing sign of POSER suspended over his head.
“Um, hi, Mia.”
“Hi.” My voice is flat. Everyone is watching. Even a few teachers. It's like a bad soap opera.
“I, um, meant to call.”
“Save it, Steve.” His brown eyes flash up, eyebrows raised. His mouth drops open. I've never said anything remotely rude to him in my life.
“Well, I'll call you. We'll talk later.”
“Whatever.” I turn my back on him and snatch a fry off Claire's plate. I wait a full minute, chewing. “Is he gone?”
“Yep.” She laughs her too-loud laugh. “What's gotten into you?”
I open my mouth to tell her about the whispers. That's the great thing about Claire â I really can tell her anything. But something stops me. “I don't know. The drugs, maybe?”
I desperately hope it's the drugs. That's preferable to losing my mind.
Apple, undeniably the most irritating girl on the cheer squad, squawks, “I don't care if he has a weird walk. That boy is smokin'. You can't deny he's hot.”
I turn to see who she's talking about and find the new boy in her crosshairs. I stare after him.
Suddenly, his whole body flickers, like an old silent movie.
My stomach lurches and sweat breaks on my neck.
I stare left and right. No one else seems to notice.
With every step his color mutates â sepia, flicker, black and white, flicker. Normal.
I jam my eyes shut and reopen them, blinking hard. What? What was that?
My stomach clenches. Mental illness may be a real possibility. He looks perfectly normal now.
I refocus on Claire in an attempt to gather my thoughts.
“Who is the new guy?”
I feebly try to wipe all emotion from my face, but the climbing-rash-o-fun flares again, giving me away.
Claire's blue eyes read my expression but, mercifully, she doesn't comment. She can't stop her half-smile, though. “Well, a lot's been happening since you were down-under.”