Page 31 of Poison Aches

“Climb up and come closer.”

“You mean, I should climb into your bed?” she squeaks.

I roll my eyes.

Growing impatient, I grab her tiny hand, pull her closer, then I help her climb up into my bed.

“Hey, be careful! You’re still not well enough to?—”

I don’t give her a chance to finish her words because as soon as she climbs next to me, I grab the back of her neck, then I cup her jaw with my other hand and pull her in, until her head is pressed against my chest.

With her ear right over my blotched heart.

“What are you?—”

“Just listen,” I snap, and then wait.

I look up at the ceiling, remembering the look on my mother’s face seven years ago when we found out…

Almost immediately, the clueless girl pulls back so fast. If I wasn’t holding her she’d fall over the side of the bed.

With wide eyes, she stares at me. First with confusion, then uncertainty, and lastly… shock. It’s like a play of all the emotions that bother me.

But behind the shock is something I’ve seen in her eyes before… the night we met… fear.

Beautiful, glorious fear. Just as I intended.

“What… w-what was that?” the girl finally asks after a long, stilted silence.

I study her, feeling a swell of satisfaction in my chest.

“Oh God, what was that sound? It sounds like?—”

“That’s the heart of a monster,” I say, cutting her off, watching her intently.

A tremble moves through the girl, so powerful it moves through me too.

“That… that was your heart?” she gasps in obvious disbelief. “That can’t be! Why does it sound so… strange?”

I stare into her large doe-like brown eyes, feeling funny inside.

She stares right back, without the usual hesitation I’m used to seeing from everyone, including my so-called friends and neighbors.

The girl gawks at me boldly, and then her eyes flash with something else that makes me look away.

I expect her to go screaming and never return—after all, she does look like a coward—but she does the one thing no one has ever done, except for medical reasons, that is.

She goes right back to pressing her ear over my heart, listening intently.

But instead of my heart, all I feel is the warmth of her cheek pressed up on my cold chest.

Her hair also smells divine, like coconuts, mint or rosemary and something else that makes me breathe a little faster than I probably should.

I’ve been sick for a long time and in that time, the differences between me and other kids like Noah, Alex, and George have become like background noise.

I’ve since ignored the fact that my body temp sometimes runs colder than theirs or that I can’t afford to join track and field teams because of the faulty thing in my chest. But the longer the girl’s cheek and ear are pressed against the left side of my chest, the more I wonder why I always keep to myself.

Why do I never participate in sports even though I desperately want to?

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