Page 1 of Heartbeat

Chapter One

Waking Up

I didn’t remember much about what had happened. I remembered how it felt, waking up. How I’d had all these wires and tubes coming out of my chest and arms and how, as I looked around the room, there was no one there. I also recalled being tied to the bed—that I remembered quite well; I dozed off shortly after noticing it. Dr. Foster stood next to me, watching as she waited for me to come to. We talked for a bit. You know how it goes, if your brain is deprived of oxygen for an x amount of time things have a tendency of getting…messy. So we went through the usual questions. I told her my name, my age, where I lived, and who my parents were—stuff like that. Then she asked if I remembered how I’d gotten there.

I didn’t answer.

Not because I didn’t know, which I didn’t, but rather because I knew she’d tell me eventually, which she did. We’d both done this before, so I knew she must’ve had a good reason for not smiling like she usually did whenever we found ourselves in this particular situation. It was then that she told me Noah was the one who’d found me. It was also then that I began feeling like complete and utter shit and started sweating profusely.

Who lets their kid brother witness something like that?

I knew I didn’t. I fucking wouldn’t. He was supposed to be out. There was a party or a birthday or whatever it was that made him all but beg our dad to let him spend the night at Joe’s. He was supposed to be out.

Dr. Foster handed me her scarf, which I readily took, even though I had no idea what she was trying to do. It was pretty—black and blood-red with this sort of English pattern printed on it. She untied my left hand and touched her face, as if showing me something. I mimicked her. Turned out I wasn’t sweating. I’d started to cry, and the fact that I didn’t even recognize it immediately should have been enough to illustrate just how fucked up a person I really was.

I stopped talking after that. I didn’t say another word, except for when I told Dr. Foster I wasn’t going to repeat my behavior anytime soon. She looked pleased with the words that floated from my mouth, most of which were actual truths this time. One of Dr. Foster’s biggest talents had always been how good she was at discerning between truths, half-truths, and lies; one of my biggest talents had always been knowing just how much information to supply to keep our relationship well balanced. Basically, I knew when to shut up.

My name is Thomas Hart. I’m seventeen years old, and I live in New York City, NY. My parents are Jane and Lucius Hart, and I have a kid brother called Noah.

This was my second suicide attempt in as many years, and it earned me a six-month stay in the psych ward of St. Yve’s Hospital. It was also my last one—at least for the foreseeable future. I didn’t want to break anyone’s heart. I didn’t want my brother or anyone else to suffer too much. So, I’d wait. At least until I could be sure Noah would be okay.

I’d wait.

Chapter Two

The Crazy Ones

Dr. Foster split her professional time between the hospital, her practice downtown, and her home. The latter being where she saw a few select patients I always referred to as The Crazy Ones. Not out of judgment. I was the last person who would ever do that. Besides, I’ve always kind of admired Dr. Foster for her ethics toward her patients and how much time she dedicated to making sure they got the help they needed. I, for one, had directly benefited from such work ethics. I’d also recently moved on from having our sessions in her office downtown and had become the newest member of The Crazy Ones, ever since my last episode.

For the first two weeks immediately following my discharge from St. Yve’s, I saw Dr. Foster on a daily basis. As of week number three, we gradually began reverting to our usual schedule, with appointments every Monday and Thursday at 5:00 p.m. There was a coffee shop just around the corner from her house where I used to wait until it was time to go in for my appointment. I did that whenever I was early, which was basically every time since I was never late for one of my sessions. I didn’t particularly enjoy waiting rooms, but that was only one of the reasons why I preferred waiting in the coffee shop.

Truth was, it was almost always quiet, cozy enough; there was always Bowie playing in the background, and the coffee was just the way I liked it, every time. Also, as of the last week, whenever I went to the coffee shop and ordered my usual white chocolate mocha, I noticed the only other customer was this one guy who always had his head down and kept extremely focused on whatever it was he was doing on his laptop. The first couple of times, I didn’t much pay attention to him, not really. But then I started noticing how he did the same thing, always.

There was a bottle of Evian next to his mug, along with a small plate that had a different kind of muffin on it every time—and it was always untouched. The time it took for me to have my coffee was usually long enough for the guy to remove chunks from the top of his muffin of the day and nibble on them without taking his eyes away from his computer screen. There were only two occasions when he’d look up: whenever the door opened up and the tiny silver bell attached to it sounded off, or when his phone started vibrating on the pink marble tabletop next to his unopened copy of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Those were the only times I got to properly see his face. He had shaggy, short brown hair, a thin nose, and full lips, and his eyebrows were almost white, they were so light. He also had a cleft chin and a tendency of moving his lips along with whatever song he was listening to—or as he read something on his computer.

*

So there I was, sitting across from Dr. Foster in the living room of her brownstone. It was extremely clean, tastefully decorated, and rather inviting. During our sessions, she had this habit. She would close the double doors that led to the living room and put some relaxing background music on—never too loud so as to become a distraction but just enough to provide a warm and comfortable environment designed to make someone feel safe.

“How are things at home?” Dr. Foster asked with her head down while looking at me above the frame of her red glasses.

“Fine,” I said, not too keen on being there in the first place, let alone going over just how bad I felt.

Dr. Foster was good though. She remained quiet, staring back at me until I finally caved.

“Everything’s fine,” I assured her. “We all pretend. We’re used to it.”

“What do you mean?”

“My parents keep pretending not to be fighting. My brother pretends he’s not mad at me, and I pretend not to notice how the conversation always seems to stop whenever I enter a room, or how they keep staring at me when they think I’m not looking.”

“And you think that’s fine?” she asked, scribbling something on her pad.

“I don’t mind,” I truthfully said. “No one really wants to talk about what happened, and that works for me. So, yeah, it’s fine.”

She gave me one of those undefined smiles she was so good at. They weren’t friendly, not exactly; they weren’t hostile either. “Are you excited about the new school?”

“What do you mean?”

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