Page 67 of Lovesick
Huh? What is she talking about?
“Emotional baggage?”
“Yeah, you know—my cheating ex,” she answers point-blank, as if this has been a previously discussed talking point. “Remember? He said he loved me, but after I collapsed in front of the entire school, he just up and vanished! Then he cheated on me while I was recovering in the hospital! And even worse, he told me that his teammates pitied me because I was the ‘sick’ girl.”
Huh? She collapsed? She was in the hospital? What does she mean by “sick”? I don’t think getting angry would be helpful in this situation, though I’m already fantasizing about ways I can beat some respect into Fuck-Up Felix.
I force myself to get over the initial speed bump of shock. “What do you mean by the ‘sick’ girl?”
“Oh, I just have some heart complications. I fainted during the biggest competition in my dance career. Everyone caught it on camera. I ruined everything for my teammates, my dance teacher, the whole school. It went viral within hours. I’m surprised you never came across it.”
This is all…a lot to take in. I don’t even know where to start. Why wouldn’t she tell me early on that she had heart complications?
“I’m so sorry, Merit. I can’t imagine having to go through all of that. You’re the last person who deserves to be treated that way, and your ex is the biggest fucking coward on the planet.”
Her levity cuts me to the quick. “It’s alright. It’s why I moved here, you know. That plus my parents wanting to monitor my health.”
If she needed to move back home to be under surveillance, her health is worse than she’s letting on. Heart complications and fainting aren’t things you just casually drop into a conversation.
I don’t know how to approach the situation without potentially offending her. So, dressing my voice in a gentle tone, I throw caution to the wind and hope that my risk-taking bears some framework of an explanation. “Princess, how did you get that scar on your chest?”
Her brow crumples. “Hmm?”
She then looks down the neckline of her shirt as if to confirm that the laceration is, in fact, still there. “Oh, this? You weren’t supposed to see it,” she sing-songs.
I wasn’t supposed to…see…it? I mean, Ididn’tsee it during our first night together, or any time in between when she wore low-cut dresses. Has she been hiding it from me this whole time?
“I got it from heart surgery. Crazy, right? I don’t even know how I’m still alive.”
Jesus. Heart surgery? I broke my arm once when I was playing hockey, and even then, the injury didn’t require surgery. I can’t imagine what her body has been through.
I’m scared to ask, but I have to now—to guarantee her safety. “Why did you need surgery, baby?”
“Well, it’s a long story. When I was born, I had a hole in my heart that needed to be closed so I could live. And then after it was closed, I developed bigenima…bigimanyjeans…big…eminy. It means my heart goes like this a lot.” She flails her hand around to demonstrate. “The doctor said I have a sixty percent chance of making it to thirty-five. I don’t even know if I’ll be married by then! Oh, that would be sad if I never got married or had kids.”
And just like that, the bluff underneath my feet starts to crumble, breaking off into chunks that descend into the restless ocean below, shattering on spiky sea stacks and fighting against cresting whitecaps. My whole world has been destroyed by one measly truth.
A hole in her heart? A condition where it now beats sporadically? I’ve never heard of those diagnoses before, but I’m assuming she’s downplaying their severity for my sake.
Sixty percent chance. Thirty-five. No marriage. No kids. No promise of growing old. How can Merit just…keep going…knowing that her life has an unfair expiration date? Fuck, I don’t even know what to think right now. My mind is racing. It feels like the walls are closing in on us.
I never expected this. I promised Merit’s father that I would look out for her. I made a promise tomyselfto protect her from anything that might hurt her. How can I do that now? Should she have been drinking tonight? Dancing?
Floored, I must have gone unintentionally silent because Merit’s head pops back into frame. “Crew? Can you hold me?”
It’s like she doesn’t even realize how devastating that truth bomb was—we’re talking about radioactive fallout, earthquakes, tsunamis, firestorms, shockwaves that have never reached this height of magnitude before. And everything has a hundred percent fatality rate.
I can feel my heart in my throat. “Yeah,” I croak, climbing into bed next to her so I can wrap my arms around her frame.
She splays her back against my front, and I’m not sure how long I hold her, but I eventually hear soft snores rumble from her figure. It dawns on me that moments like these are ephemeral in all the wrong ways.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to accept the fact that Merit’s been keeping a life-threatening illness from me this entire time. Not because I feel betrayed, but because I wish there was something I could do.
I wish she hadn’t told me. I wish I didn’t know. I’m so fucking afraid to let go of her—as if her memory will reach a vanishing point in the brackish waters of my mind—so I don’t.
At least not tonight.
19
