My bag has been packed for perhaps a week now, sitting in the corner of my closet like a ticking bomb ready to detonate. Today is D-day. I left Harlow sleeping—I couldn’t bear to say goodbye, that’s what last night and this morning were. We’ve spent every night together since she was discharged. There wasn’t any need for a conversation or talking things through, our hearts did all the talking our lips couldn’t do. Once she’d fallen back to sleep I slipped out, knowing if I stayed a minute longer I’d lose my willpower and wouldn’t be able to do this. I drove to my apartment and collected my stuff before calling Logan’s hotel. He’s on his way over to the motel where I’ve just now arrived.
I pull the strap of the duffle bag higher on my shoulder, using one arm to cradle it against my lower back so I can bend and fill out the information card for the room I’ve just rented. The receptionist’s eyes feel like they’re burning holes into the side of my face while she watches me. “That’s fifty-dollars even,” she says.
I nod and slide her a note under the glass screen, noticing now that she’s come closer just how young she looks. She’s a skinny little thing, wearing too much makeup and not enough clothes. I’m hoping like hell she’s not going to need to be present to let the authorities into my room.
“Here’s your key, there’s an ice machine outside room seven and check-out is at eleven.” She drops a key into the metal bin and slides the drawer back so I can take it.
“Enjoy your stay,” she mumbles, before walking back over to the stool where she was reading when I arrived. She blows a huge pink bubble until it pops and the gum smacks on her lips. I pause watching her for second as she picks up her book. The cover is all worn and bent out of shape; I guess this isn’t the first time she’s read it. Jesus, it looks almost as old as she does.
I take the key and call out a “thank you” as I exit the reception area and walk across the parking lot that’s still darkened by the shadow from the nearby hospital to find room number four. The stucco around the doorframe is chipped and peeling, and the key jams in the lock. I have to twist and hammer at the damn handle while shoulder barging it for it to finally open. I stumble through into the room that looks every bit how I imagined it would, given its fifty-dollar price tag. There’s no way anything in here’s been updated since at least 1983. I pull the door closed behind me and make my way over to the bed. The blankets are a saccharine mustard color with a dark green palm leaf print that makes my eyes sore just looking at it. I drop my duffle and perch on the end of the bed for a moment.
It’s suddenly all too real.
I look around and see a small desk in the corner, so I pull over my bag stuffed full with documents and instructions for the poor bastard that finds me. I pull out the notepad, envelope and pen I’d pushed into the top of the bag and take them over to the desk. If everything goes to plan—and I have to believe that it will, otherwise what’s all this for?—this will be all over inside of the next twelve hours.
I just pray Logan can make it happen.
My chest feels so tight it hurts. It would be a cruel twist of fate to drop dead of a heart attack at this point, but I absolutely believe it could happen. All of this would be for nothing, and Christ, that scares me. My hands are trembling so hard I need to place the pen back down onto the desk and take a long deep breath.
You can do this—you have to.
I press the heel of my hands into my eyes. I don’t want to cry, so I push hard, so hard that for a moment it hurts more than the ache in my chest. I doubt what I’m about to do will take the sting out of the tears I’m trying to make disappear or loosen the vice wrapped around my heart. I can hope, though. The pen is an unexpected deadweight in my grip when I pick it up and press it to the paper once more.
This is it.
The beginning of the end…
Dear Harlow,
Being in love with you hurts. It’s the sweetest form of torture, but it’s torture all the same. You consume my every thought, every moment, and every breath. I can’t recall a time when I didn’t love you. What did I even think about before you took over my mind? What do you suppose I had done with my hands before they were able to pull you close? When I close my eyes, it’s your face imprinted on my eyelids, and it’s your voice I hear, even in silence. I’m an ordinary man, but I love you with a brilliance beyond anyone’s understanding. It scares me.
I realized today, or maybe I’ve always known, I can’t live without you, Harlow. I sustain myself with your affections, and that’s why it needs to be you who must live without me. You’ll hate me at first; I can accept that because I know that when enough time has passed, you’ll realize it had to be this way. I can’t see any other path, I’ve exhausted all avenues, and when I weigh the pros and cons, the answer is glaringly obvious: I have to be the one to do this for you.
You’ve had my heart since I was ten years old—you have it still. I gave it freely without any agenda, only a fierce hope that you’d one day give me yours in return, and you did. I don’t pretend to know why, but you did. I can’t even begin to express how terrified it made me feel—and how powerful—that you loved me back. I know the extent of the love I’ve given you, but it worries me that I’ll never truly know what you received—does that even make sense? I’m wracking my brain, trying to figure out if I told you enough what you mean to me, what you’ve always meant to me even when we were apart, because you deserve to be reminded every day.
Every.
Single.
Day.
And more than that, you deserve to be shown. I hope you saw it, I hope you felt it, but above anything else, I pray you never forget it.
Goodbye for now. I love you.
Ellis.
I drop the pen and fold the letter, stuffing it deep into the envelope as quickly as possible— the weight of what I’ve written makes my throat burn.
I don’t want to do this, but I have no choice.
My head feels too heavy for my neck to support; I rake my fingers wearily through my hair, lean back on the cheap plastic motel chair and let out a frustrated blood-curdling scream. It bounces around the room, echoing off one grubby laminate surface to another. Streams of light tear through the shadows as the ceiling pendant swings from the occupants next door banging loudly on the paper-thin walls. The din of their television rises as I hear it being turned up—no doubt to drown me out. I could be murdering someone in here for all they know, and they ignore it, annoyed by the interruption in whatever drivel they’re watching. Pay-per-view porn, if this motel is anything to go by.
I have to laugh a little—not because any of this is funny, it’s not. But the irony of the situation causes a strangled moan, half disguised as maniacal laughter, to hiccup out of my mouth. I am about to murder someone in this motel room.
Me.
I go back to the bed and take out the DNR order that I’d signed at Lo’s practice the last time I was there. I lay it out neatly, along with the folder’s contents: documentation from the NC Donate Life clinic, my living will, documents verifying Logan Smith as power of attorney, and the copy of my medical records attached to the Living Donor Consent Evaluation. I registered with them so that most of the relevant tests and procedures the hospital use to evaluate suitability are already done. A big part of it is that you’re required to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine competency and sound mind to go through with donation. Logan thinks it will help him once I’ve done the deed and he has to argue my case for the hospital to agree to the transplantation.
I’m not an idiot; I know the risks are high. I’m about to go through with this to save Harlow’s life, and all I might achieve is ending my own. The medical staff can refuse to perform the procedure on ethics alone, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. The alterative is to watch the woman I’ve loved my whole life die before my very eyes. I won’t watch that. I can’t. I refuse to live a life less beautiful in her absence, and if I have to go so that she won’t have to, so be it. I’ve taken so much from her already; at least this way she gets a chance to live, and that brings me peace.
I’ve had a long time to contemplate what loving Harlow means, and I’ve come to understand that love isn’t a commodity; it can’t be traded or substituted. You can’t imprison it because it’s transcendent, and you can’t ignore it because it’s a force of nature. Loving her means putting her needs before my own, and wanting what’s best for her, even if it costs me. The only way I can make any real difference in Harlow’s life is to not be in it. I know that now.
My cell begins to ring and I look over to the desk where it rests, then back at the bed, making sure everything is sitting in place.
Harlow already has my heart; her name was written on it from the first moment I met her, and it’s been hers ever since. This just makes it official.