The gym was mostly empty this early in the morning. Just a handful of dedicated—or crazy—people who’d gotten up before the sun.

“Are you serious?” Charlie asked. His hands hovered beneath the bench press bar as I lifted, spotting me in case I needed help.

“Yeah,” I grunted, pushing the heavy weight off my chest. God, that felt good. “One more.”

Charlie helped me with my last rep and the bar clicked against the rack when we set it down. I blew out a breath and sat up.

“Yeah, I’m serious,” I said. “I told you I sent them a letter, right?”

“You did, but a letter isn’t meeting the donor’s family,” he said.

“It was actually their idea,” I said. “They got my letter and we started emailing. Mrs. Harper asked if I’d consider meeting them in person. I said yes.”

“That’s some deep shit, dude,” Charlie said. “Wasn’t he, like, our age?”

I nodded. “A year younger.”

“Fuck.”

“I know.” I rubbed my bearded chin. Charlie gave me shit about it, but I’d let my facial hair grow out after my transplant surgery. I’d always had to shave as a wrestler. But I liked keeping it; it marked the difference in who I was now. “Believe me, I know. They lost their son and I’m alive because of it. But I think it might help give them some closure, you know?”

“Sure,” he said. “Get your ass up, though. I need to do my set.”

I laughed and stood to help Charlie load more weight on the bar. He was still stronger than I was, although not by much anymore. Since I’d started working out again, I’d regained a surprising amount of my former strength—and size.

My new heart worked like a champion. I still had to take a pharmacy’s worth of pills every day, and would for the rest of my life. I had to be careful about getting sick; the anti-rejection meds I took suppressed my immune system. But because I was healthier overall, I didn’t get sick nearly as often as I had before the transplant. I’d only had one close call, about a year ago, when I’d gotten a cold that had turned into a sinus infection. Pre-transplant, that would have landed me in the hospital. This time I’d been able to fight it off, although it had knocked me on my ass for a solid week.

I’d never be a competitive athlete again, and things like hang gliding and scuba diving were off limits. But other than that, after I’d recovered from the surgery, I’d been able to lead a normal life. I’d moved back to Iowa City with Charlie. Last year, I started back at U of I. I was beginning to feel like my old self again.

But really, I wasn’t him. I wasn’t the guy who’d been laser-focused on winning state. On wrestling for U of I. That guy had died the day my old heart had stopped working.

I wasn’t sure who I was now. I had a second chance at life, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it. Who I was supposed to be. People seemed to expect me to pick up where I’d left off. Finish college. Go work for my dad at one of his car dealerships in Waverly. But it wasn’t that simple.

Charlie told me to chill about it and just let life happen. But I’d always had a plan. A goal to focus on. Not having that made me feel like I was drifting. That fire I’d had inside me—that drive to achieve—had almost burned out. I wasn’t sure how to get it going again.

It had been four years since the transplant, and I was still trying to figure it all out.

Charlie finished his set and got up from the bench. “You tell your parents yet?”

“No,” I said. “I need to, but you know how they are. Especially my mom. She’ll freak out about me being so far away from home.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “So, driving or flying?”

“Driving,” I said.

“Cool. When do we leave?”

“We?” I asked.

“Road trip, bro,” he said. “It’s summer. I’m off until I coach at camp next month.”

Charlie was a teacher and an assistant wrestling coach at his old high school. He loved his job and he was amazing at it. He’d thought about pursuing a coaching job at the college level, but he liked working with the high school kids.

“You really want to come?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “If you’d rather go alone, it’s cool. I mean, you’d be an asshole, but whatever.”

“No, it’d be great to have company,” I said. “And someone else to drive. But we’re taking my car.”

“Dude, you have no love for the Beast.”

I shook my head. Charlie drove the same old pickup truck—the one he’d inherited from his dad when he was sixteen. It ate through gas like a motherfucker and drove like a tank. But he loved that piece of shit.

“You want to take the Beast, you pay for all the gas,” I said.

“Touché,” he said. “We take your car.”

“We leave tomorrow.”

After our workout, Charlie headed home and I went for a run. Because I could. Four years later, and I still hadn’t gotten over the way it felt to make my body move and feel it respond. Feel the air going in and out of my lungs. The muscles in my legs working. No dizziness or chest pain. Nothing but the lactic acid building up as I ran, the rush of air in and out of my chest. Deep breaths, filled with oxygen. My new heart thumping a steady rhythm.

It felt really fucking good to be strong again.

Recovery from the transplant surgery had been brutal. But considering they’d cut open my chest, taken out a vital organ, and replaced it with a new one, it wasn’t surprising. It blew my mind that it was even possible.

It had taken a year before I’d felt like the surgery no longer impacted my daily life. But I’d been on the brink of death before that, so every day post-surgery had been an improvement. Even those first pain-soaked weeks when I’d felt like I lived with a stack of bricks on my chest had been better than the months leading up to the transplant. At least the new heart gave me some hope.

I’d indulged in that hope with a high degree of caution, especially at first. There were numerous things that could go wrong after a transplant. I’d needed regular tests, including multiple—painful—biopsies to determine how the heart was functioning. Every time, I’d braced myself for bad news. For the doctors to tell me something was wrong. That this heart was failing too, or my body was rejecting it.

It hadn’t.

With the help of a cocktail of drugs, my body had accepted the new organ. I hadn’t had a single fibrillation episode in four years. I’d been spared any other complications. My new heart worked just as it should.

Now, it was all on me. I had to take care of the heart Liam Harper had given me, and I took that responsibility very seriously. I didn’t fuck around with shitty food—at least not very often. Didn’t drink or let anyone smoke around me. As soon as I’d been cleared to work out again, I’d hit the gym with a vengeance. I’d been as weak as a kitten when Charlie and I had first started, but as time had passed, my strength had grown.

I fully intended to do everything in my power to keep my body—and my new heart—as healthy as possible. I didn’t ever want to be sick like that again.

When I was about half a mile from home, I slowed to a walk to cool down, and pulled out my phone. I’d thought about waiting until I was on the road to tell my parents I’d gone out of town. Or maybe call them from Phoenix. But that could upset my mom even more. I took a deep breath, and called her number.

She picked up on the first ring. “Hi, honey.”

“Hi, Mom,” I said.

“How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

I tried to ignore the hint of urgency in her voice. It was like she was still expecting me to drop dead. “I’m great, Mom. Just went for a run.”

“Honey, you need to be careful,” she said. “You don’t want to overdo it. And it’s so early. Did you get enough sleep?”

“Yeah, Mom, I’m good,” I said. “I’ve been running for the last two years. I’m fine.”

“All right, I know,” she said. “You should come see us this weekend. Do you have plans? You could come to dinner. Bring Charlie if you want.”

“Actually, that’s why I called,” I said. “I’m going out of town for a few days.”

“You’re… you’re what?”

“I’m going to Phoenix to meet the donor’s family.”

She went silent.

“Mom?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“They invited me to come,” I said.

“Oh. Well… that’s very nice of them,” she said. “But Phoenix?”

“Well, yeah, it’s where they live.”

“Why couldn’t they have come here?” she asked.

I stopped on the side of the road, not far from the house Charlie and I shared. I knew my mom would be weird about this. “I offered. It’s not a big deal. It’s Phoenix, not Mars.”

“But what if something happens?” she asked. “What if you need medical attention?”

“Mom, I haven’t needed medical attention since… I don’t even know when, that’s how long it’s been. You don’t have to worry so much.”

“I’m your mom. Worry comes with the territory,” she said.

“Charlie’s going too,” I said. “Does that help?”

“A little,” she said. “At least you won’t be alone.”

“Okay, Mom, I have to go,” I said. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I’ll text you from the road.”

“All right, honey,” she said. “But don’t forget to let us know how you’re doing. I don’t like you being so far away.”

“I know, Mom,” I said. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I let out a sigh when I hung up the phone. That had actually gone better than I’d thought it would. It was hard to blame my mom for being concerned about me. But I wished she’d relax. I wasn’t sure how to assure her that I was really doing fine. It was like she was afraid to believe me.

Charlie was gone when I got home. His text said he was out getting snacks for the road trip. Dude cracked me up. I was glad he was going with me. As casual as I made everything sound, I was nervous to meet the Harpers. They’d been nice when I’d spoken to them—said they were excited for us to meet. But there was a thick veil of sadness that covered everything. Sure, I’d lived. I’d been given a second chance. But they’d lost their son—a young man in his prime. He’d been in college, recently engaged to his girlfriend.

As grateful as I was for the gift I’d been given, it was bittersweet. I hated that someone else had to die for me to live. My only consolation was that Liam Harper would have died whether or not he’d donated his organs. It wasn’t like he’d died because of me. But the joy I knew my parents felt at having their son back was mirrored by the grief of the Harpers losing theirs.