The hardest thing in the world is to truly love somebody even when they’re no longer around. Harder still if you don’t want to like them at all. A decade of telling myself I was over him, of training myself to not compare every other man in my life to Ellis, is undone the moment our laughter arouses feelings I’d told myself I must have imagined because I hadn’t experienced anything akin to them since him.
His fingers push through my hair and leave a trail of fire across the back of my neck. My body is alight with sensation, and I’m putty in his hands, desperately drinking up every ounce of passion he’s pouring on me. Kissing this Ellis, the older, hardened, rougher version of the man I once knew is even more fantastic than I feared it would be. What a punishing and unfair life I’ve lived being denied this feeling for so long.
I was eighteen years old when I first learned that life wasn’t always fair. I like to think I’ve always been a glass-half-full person, but sometimes no amount of optimism or positive thinking can prepare you for a blow you have absolutely no control over. I’ve often wondered if maybe I was a bad person in a former life, because once the punches began rolling in, I don’t think they ever stopped.
I was the child that never really got sick. I’d had one bad bout of mono, but in general I seemed to be the only member of my family who managed to dodge colds and sickness bugs. Jared and Jake were like beacons for every illness: if something was making the rounds at school you could bet your last dollar at least one of them would catch it. I was pretty athletic; I was on the school varsity swim team and loved to skateboard. I spent most of my time outdoors and was healthy. Except, I wasn’t. I just didn’t know it.
The day of my collapse, I’d been feeling a little off, but nothing that worried me. I’d been tired and felt a little dizzy. I was on my period, though, so nothing out of the ordinary, given my monthly cycle. On the way to the skate park that Saturday the dizziness had subsided, and I’d been feeling fine right up until challenging Ellis to race.
I never won him, but I’d always try. My legs started feeling tingly and began to shake, but I ignored it. I was skating as fast as I could; I didn’t for a second think anything sinister was happening. Once I pulled in front of Ellis, I knew something was off. I started feeling odd. My chest became too tight, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe right. I remember coming to a stop and bending to catch my breath; I could hear Ellis in the background taunting me.
Before I knew what was happening, my vision faltered. It was as if I’d stared directly at the sun. I remember telling Ellis I couldn’t catch my breath and vomiting all over my shoes, but most everything after that is still just a blur. The next thing I knew I was laid out in a hospital bed and my chest felt as though someone had rested a ton of bricks precariously atop of me.
“Miss Stevens, you suffered a massive heart attack,” the doctor had told me, with little in the way of a gentle build up. The heart attack may not have killed me, but I’m pretty sure the shock of realizing that’s what had happened could quite easily have triggered another. I was scared and confused. Nothing made any sense; surely I was too young to have had a heart attack? I was still a teenager. Heart attacks were reserved for middle-aged, overworked, overweight, and severely stressed adults who probably drank too much. I was none of those things.
I wasn’t prepared for the battery of tests: ECG’s, MRI’s, X-rays and blood work. I had wires and electrodes sprouting from every available patch of skin, while machines beeped in the background and nurses came and went, recording results on clipboards and making notes. I felt like a lab rat in some strange science experiment. My parents didn’t leave my side, and if they did, it was only to trade places with Ellis or my brothers. Our conversations dwindled into stilted rundowns of my stats, and a barrage of false compliments. You’re looking much better today, Harlow. You seem to have some color back in your cheeks. You’re so brave. You’re doing really well.
I hated all of it.
The answers soon came, though, and when they did, I’d rather have gone back to my blissful ignorance. The news irrevocably altered my life in an instant.
I had something called myocarditis, possibly stemming from what the doctors called mononucleosis, which is basically mono. Apparently an EBV (mono) infection can occur if symptoms last for more than six months. I’d been hit with it pretty bad, going to and from Dr. Peterson’s office, but it finally subsided, and I thought all was well. Everyone did. Apparently, we were all wrong. EBV lies dormant in the blood cells for the rest of your life, and can occasionally reactivate, even without symptoms, the doctors explained. It was ridiculously rare, but wouldn’t you know, I’d be the person to prove the statistic.
I sat dumbfounded. Myocarditis was inflammation of the heart muscle—my heart muscle. It’s responsible for contracting and releasing, pumping blood in and out of my heart and the rest of my body. Because it was inflamed from the virus, its ability to pump blood lessened, causing my heart attack. As if that wasn’t the kicker, the damage my heart had sustained had altered its rhythm.
“We feel that in your case, Miss Stevens, given the extent of the damage to your heart, you would benefit from being fitted with an ICD—a defibrillation device.”
I stared at them, not understanding a word of what they were telling me.
“What do you mean being fitted with a device? Like a pacemaker, you mean?” My head was swimming with the thought of needing to have surgery. I was all right. I felt a little dizzy and collapsed. How could that equate to heart surgery?
“Arrhythmias cause your heart to beat either too quickly, too slowly, or in an irregular pattern. That’s what you’re experiencing at the moment, Harlow. They can happen suddenly and unexpectedly, and sometimes people die as a result. You were very lucky that you were with someone when you collapsed. Your boyfriend getting you help so soon most likely saved your life. We’re recommending an ICD because it can give your heart electric pulses, or shocks, to get your heart rhythm back to normal.”
Hearing a doctor tell me that I almost died wasn’t something I was prepared for. Emotion overcame me, and to my dismay, I began to cry in front of a room full of near-perfect strangers.
“The ICD would be inserted just under your collar bone.” The male doctor that looked like a slightly older, rounded version of Jake carried on. “It looks similar to a pacemaker and is a little bigger than a matchbox. It’s made up of a battery powered electronic circuit and electrode leads which are placed into your heart through a vein.”
I couldn’t hear anymore. I held my hand up for him to stop talking, and asked if I could see my parents. I needed someone here with me. “Actually, if it’s okay, could you find my boyfriend too?” I added. I needed to see him. Not only to make myself feel better, his presence always had a way of calming me, but to thank him too. Ellis had saved my life.
The three-week hospital stay I’d been made to endure altered my state of mind, and not in a positive way. Between bouts of crying and lashing out at anyone within a ten-foot radius and reverting to a scared ten-year-old that wanted her mom, I’d had just about all I could take. I was horrible to everyone for the smallest of things. I’d bitten Ellis’s head off the third time he brought me a fruit basket and magazines. He didn’t even look upset that I’d turned into a mega-bitch, just picked them up off the bedside table, casually walked out of the room and knocked on the door next to mine.
“What did you do with them?” I asked when he returned a minute later.
“Gave them to the old lady next door, Jean. I haven’t seen many people visit her, so I took her some flowers last week. She’s sweet. She reminds me of Logan’s grandma.”
I’d wanted to slap myself at his admission. Instead, I bit my bottom lip and tried to stop myself from breaking down. Again. I was doing an alright job until he leaned over, kissed my forehead and told me he loved me and I could cry or shout or do anything else I wanted if it made me feel any better.
My brothers visited a couple of times, and I made an effort to not yell at them too, but it was hard. I felt sorry for myself. Dad kept telling me how amazingly lucky I was to be here, but all I could focus on was just how unlucky I was. All the things that I couldn’t do anymore occupied my mind, leaving no room for appreciation.
Nobody seemed to understand that I was grieving. I’d lost the Harlow Stevens that I was just three weeks previous. I’d have to quit the swim team, skating was out of the window and the likelihood of me being able to go for a run on any given morning, or play fight with Ellis, or have a tickling match until we both collapsed in a heap was suddenly a thing of the past. It felt like everything about who I was had been snatched from me, and I was mad. Instead of Harlow Stevens, happy-go-lucky, always ready to try something new, I was Harlow Stevens, cautious and careful. I had become the girl who couldn’t do anything too strenuous or tiring. I had to remember to take various medications at different points throughout the day. I had to change everything about who I was. It wasn’t fair.
“I’ve never seen her like this,” Ellis had said to my Mom, not knowing that I could hear them talking outside my room. “She’s just so depressed, and I don’t know what to do or say to make her feel better. She looks at me like she wishes I’d just go away and leave her alone.”
What was left of my weak and damaged heart was broken by his words.
“She’s been through a lot in a very short time, Ellis. She’s just scared and coming to terms with what this all means for her. Give her time. She’ll come back to us,” Mom had replied.
I hadn’t heard Ellis cry since that day I shot him in the knee when we were ten. But I could hear muffled sobs out in the hall and my mom making soothing, shushing noises. My heart giving out hadn’t killed me, but the sound of Ellis Hughes crying felt like maybe it could.
I was self-conscious about my scar. It wasn’t like me to be bothered by something so superficial, but the puckered, raw skin served as a reminder of everything I needed to give up. I had a three-inch scar running down the inside of my left arm from falling off my board when I was twelve. I’d been trying to land a kickflip and misjudged the whole thing. I’d tripped and thrown my arms out to catch my fall, but I landed awkwardly. My left arm had taken the majority of the impact, breaking in two places.
I’d laid, sprawled face down for a few seconds after the impact, knowing that I’d broken it. It was a strange sensation; the shock and adrenaline kicked in almost instantaneously, and it hadn’t hurt at all until Ellis had lifted me up and I could see the new and unnatural angle the bones had created. The instant my eyes dropped to my forearm, the pain registered.
Ellis carried me home. He wasn’t much bigger than me at the time, but he’d hauled me up and made his way shakily over to my house to get help. My Mom looked like she was about to pass out when she’d taken in the jutted-out position of my arm. Dad had to drive me to the emergency room because Mom had gone dizzy. I needed surgery, and a plate and pins put in to fuse the bones back together.
Never once had it bothered me, not like this one. This scar served as a reminder of everything I’d just lost. I didn’t want Ellis to see it. It was a little higher than my breasts, but the bubbled up, purple incision line stood out dramatically against the paleness of my skin. Ellis liked to pay my chest attention, maybe liked is too weak a word—loved would be more accurate. The unsightly blemish made me feel almost disfigured, and I wondered if it would repulse him as much as it did me. The thought alone made me want to hide it from him. I didn’t want him to look at me differently, and I certainly didn’t want him to treat me any differently.
Doctor Foster, the one that reminded me a little of my brother, had come to check on the incision and make sure that the ICD was working correctly. I’d asked my mom and Ellis to leave the room when he’d announced his intention to check on the scar. They left my room to go and drink bad coffee in the cafeteria, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Between Ellis’s family and my own, they’d devised a tag team system so that I was never left on my own for too long. At first, I’d been thankful for it, the nights were long, drawn-out affairs. It took forever to try and ignore the noises of the machines and relax with a million and one things happening around you. I’d finally begin to drift to sleep, and then someone would be in to take my observations, or there’d be a commotion out in the ward. Sleep and hospitals do not go together. Did I mention I’m kind of a bitch if I’m overly tired?
“How are you feeling today, Harlow?” Dr. Foster had asked. “We can administer more pain medication if you’re feeling uncomfortable or a little sore.”
I wasn’t feeling too bad until he began removing the white gauze taped over my chest. The tape pulled and stretched at the skin around my stitches, revealing the tenderness I hadn’t registered previously,
“The incision is looking nice. It’s a neat, small scar,” he mused, and I closed my eyes, willing myself not to get upset. He began waving a paddle across my chest, which bleeped and registered my vitals across its face.
“This is all looking good,” he proclaimed. Your stats are satisfactory, the anti-arrhythmic drugs seem to be working well, and you’re stable enough to be discharged.” I sighed dramatically in relief, and he chuckled. I’d wanted out of the hospital from the very first moment I’d woken up in it.
“Some things you need to know, Harlow, before you’re released. I’d recommend you waiting to have a bath or shower for three or four days. It’s important that you keep the arm on the same side as the defibrillator below your shoulder level until after your first ICD check-up, just because there’s always a small chance the leads can move. It’s perfectly okay for you to then do gentle arm and shoulder exercises to keep the arm mobile. We don’t want you getting sore and stiff, now. That all sound okay with you?”
It sounded anything but okay, but I nodded anyway.
“Excellent. Well, I’ll let the nurses know to begin organizing your discharge papers. I’ll have someone come by with all the relevant information you’ll need for your outpatient care.” He smiled and walked out of the room to go visit with the next poor schmuck that had landed himself in the cardiac wing.
I’d thought that being home would improve my mood, but my mother’s fussing put a dampener on what glimmer of relief I’d had to be discharged. Apparently having a heart attack had pushed her over the edge, and she’d quickly become over protective, over attentive, and completely overbearing. She meant well, everything she was doing for me was out of love, but despite knowing that I couldn’t stop myself from snapping at her the fifteenth time she’d popped into my room to fluff my pillows and ask if I needed anything.
“I’m not a baby, you don’t need to keep checking on me!” I yelled. She immediately took a step back from her task of trying to force another pillow behind my head and smoothed down the front of her blue cotton dress. A piece of her shiny blond hair had fallen across her face from the chignon it was neatly pressed into, and she blew it away dramatically before placing her hands on her hips and sighing.
“You’ll always be my baby, Harlow. I’m sorry if I’m annoying you, I just want you to be comfortable.” Her eyes looked slightly glazed over, but she stood straight and spoke clearly. I think my Mom was the one who coined the phrase, “stiff upper lip.” She liked to be in control of a situation and wasn’t someone who showed weakness quickly. “I’ll leave you to rest, just holler if you need anything.”
She slipped quietly out of the room, and I lay back looking around at all of my belongings, things that had always brought me comfort: photos, a ratty old stuffed bear from when I was a baby, and the quilt my mom and I had made in 7th grade. It had been a project that she’d persuaded me to help her with. The parts I’d sown were glaringly obvious and stood out against the perfect squares that Mom had made, but I’d actually enjoyed seeing it all come together, even if my thumbs did resemble pin cushions for weeks.
I pulled the blanket over me, sinking down into the mattress, and stared out at my skateboard propped up against my closet door like nothing had changed. I closed my eyes trying to ignore the slither of panic that crawled over my skin, willing myself not to think about my heart attack, the ICD in my chest, or what might happen if I collapse again.
My breath hitches as Ellis’s hands move slowly from the small of my back to my hips. I stumble forward as he breaks our connection, pulling his mouth from mine. I feel drunk and heady with arousal as he bunches my nightshirt in both fists and drags it up and over my head without any protest from me.
His eyes are fixed on the faint white scar on my breast. It’s not like he hasn’t seen it before, but suddenly I’m that shy teenager all over again.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I ask, letting my hand fall from where I’d absently been rubbing over the scar.
“Try and hide yourself from me,” he says, taking a half step closer and running his finger across the raised skin above my breast. The lightness of his touch makes my skin tingle. “This bit,” he presses his lips to the scar, and speaks his next words onto my skin, “it’s one of the best bits of you.”
“Really?” I ask skeptically, “and, why’s my ICD one of the best parts of me?” His face is still buried in my chest, but my tone is reflective enough of the confusion on my face.
“Because…” Kiss. “It keeps…” Kiss. “Your beautiful heart beating.” Kiss.
I swallow around the lump that’s formed in my throat because I remember him saying something similar once and I’m not so confident that my beautiful heart can survive Ellis Hughes twice.