Every Beat After

Chapter 1

When I was little, I begged my mom to tell me stories every night.

She would lie beside me, allowing me to melt into her warmth, the softness of her arms cradling me.

I’d breathe in the calming notes of lavender from her lotion that mingled with the sweet, lingering scent of whatever treat she’d baked that day.

She’d weave tales about princesses and inventors and world--renowned doctors.

All of them were named Olivia—and all of them saved the world in one way or another.

In none of her stories did Olivia end up spending the second half of her senior year of high school in a hospital with a machine forcing her heart to continue beating, waiting for someone else to die so Olivia could live.

It turns out, my mom’s stories were a load of crap.

“You’re going to the dark place again, aren’t you.”

It isn’t a question, so I don’t answer.

“We could play a prank on Dr. McHottie. It is April Fool’s Day. It would be criminal not to take advantage of this opportunity.”

“Seriously?” I gesture to the tubes and machines that keep me tethered to this world but also trap me in this bed, and I lift my eyebrows at Talia. “How do you suggest I prank any of the doctors here when I can’t even go to the bathroom without paging my nurse?”

“We can come up with something.” Talia shrugs, her long, brown hair falling over one shoulder.

If I look closely, I can see my reflection in the glasses she put on to “do homework”: my greasy blonde hair (because dry shampoo can do only so much, and showers are not the easiest with an LVAD), my blue eyes with bruises the color of overripe plums beneath them, and the faint cyan line, like an unfortunate shade of liner, that traces my lips.

My face, pale and colorless, blends into my pillowcase.

Talia, by contrast, glows—olive skin kissed by sunlight, and her “root-beer eyes,” as her abuela so fondly calls them, spark with mischief.

“Ooh! What if I run out of the room in a panic and when I see him, I grab his arm and say it’s an emergency and drag him in here and tell him you need mouth-to-mouth and—”

“No.”

“But—”

“No!” I point at her, scowling. “You stay in that chair, and don’t ever grab Dr. Nielsen by the arm—or anywhere else either.

He’s at least twenty years older than us, and he’s my doctor.

You can go home and never see him again if you want, but I’m stuck here.

I’d have to remove myself from the transplant list so I could die of humiliation along with heart failure if you did that. ”

“Okay, okay. Geez.” Talia lifts her hands in defeat. “Drama much? I’m just saying. It would be a funny prank, and if you got a kiss from him in the process, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

“A kiss from whom?” The door to my room opens, and of course, because the universe hates me, Dr. Nielsen himself walks in, as if summoned by Talia. Barb, one of the nurses who has been like a second mother to me, trails behind him, holding my chart.

He is attractive, but also too old—this doctor who has literally cut through my chest to access my lungs and heart (not sexy).

Not to mention, he’s married. The LVAD’s rhythmic pulse urges life into my pale skin, aiding the furious blush that creeps up my neck to my face and stains my cheeks with color.

“No one,” I say at the same moment Talia says, “Well, actually—”

But I glare at her with so much force (If you dare, I will hate you forever, I say with my eyes) that she trails off and ends with a low, defeated echo. “No one.”

Dr. Nielsen’s eyebrows rise, but he says, “Well, I have news for you—and it’s no prank.”

There’s something in his eyes that makes my diseased heart squeeze. Somehow, I know. Even before he speaks the words.

“You’re getting a heart, Olivia.”

Talia’s hands fly to her mouth . . . and she bursts into tears.

I stare at him, this brilliant surgeon who saved my life when I came into the hospital in heart failure six months ago, who has never wavered in his belief that this day would come, and I can hardly draw a breath.

“A heart?” The words come out softly, a whisper that threatens to buckle beneath the weight of all the ramifications of his pronouncement.

Dr. Nielsen nods, and I’m struck by the tears in his eyes. I knew he cared but not enough to cry.

Barb moves past him to come to my bedside and takes my hand, her cheeks wet, too, though her tears are less of a surprise. “It’s real, honey. The heart is already on its way here; they’re rushing to stay in the four-hour window. But she’s such a perf—”

Dr. Nielsen shoots her a sharp glance, and she cuts off abruptly.

“It’s such a perfect match,” Barb corrects with a wince. “Everyone is determined to make it happen.” But I caught her slipup. My donor is a girl.

Barb squeezes my hand. “You better call your mom.”

I nod. Swallow.

A heart. I’m getting a heart.

I’m getting someone else’s heart.

My fingers shake so hard when I reach for my cell phone that I can barely unlock it. It rings twice before my mom answers.

“Hello?”

Her voice is only slightly louder than the raucous noises of my brothers near her. I can picture them wrestling with some video game blasting in the background.

“Hey, Mom.” My voice quavers with the gravity of my news.

“Boys! Turn that off! I can’t even hear myself think, let alone your sister!” Her words are muffled—she’s covered the phone with her hand to yell at them. The video game goes quiet, and then she says, “Sorry, hon, you know how crazy the boys are. How are you?”

Talia continues to cry, her hands pressed against her mouth, and Dr. Nielsen nods at me, his eyes liquid and bright.

I try to speak, to tell my mom, I’m going to live, but that’s when the sob rises, choking away my words.

“Liv? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

My voice breaks, each word a struggle against the flood of feeling inside me. “Mom, I got a heart.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath, then nothing except silence until one of the boys says, “Mom, why are you crying?”

“It’s Livvy,” she manages thickly. “She’s getting a heart!” The boys don’t cry; they start whooping and cheering, and it makes me grin through my tears. After a moment, Mom says, “I’m coming. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

I nod, though she can’t see me, because even though the heart is apparently hours away, a sudden, desperate please--hurry-come-now need for my mom to be here strangles my words.

“I’m coming, baby girl,” she repeats fervently. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” I manage, and then she hangs up.

When I set the phone down, Dr. Nielsen comes to the other side of my bed and takes my free hand.

“We’re going to make sure everything goes perfectly, okay?

When your mom gets here, I’ll explain more details of what’s going to happen, and then we have to start prepping you for surgery.

As Barb mentioned, it’s a very tight timeframe, so we’re going to have you ready and waiting for the second the heart arrives. ”

I nod and whisper, “Thank you,” as if he personally had found me this heart. Which, in a way, he did by giving me the time to have one come to me.

He and Barb each squeeze one of my hands again, and then he nods to Barb. “Let’s give her a minute.” They murmur congratulations and leave me alone with Talia.

Once they shut the door, Talia launches out of her chair and grabs me into a hug—careful of all the machines and tubes I’m hooked up to—shaking with the force of her emotions. “I can’t believe it. You’re getting a new heart, Livvy. You’re going to make it.”

But the tears that slip down my cheeks are more complex than hers. I think of the countless prayers I know she, my mom, my brothers, and so many other people have sent to heaven on my behalf—pleading with God for this moment to come over and over and over. I never could though.

Not after I realized what we were actually praying for.

“You’re getting a new heart,” Talia repeats, soft with wonder.

“More like a gently used heart,” I joke, but it falls flat.

“Compared to your current heart, I definitely think you can check the box that says, ‘like new.’”

I release a shaky breath, tremulous with grief. “Because someone else died.”

Talia stiffens and pulls back. “Oh, Olivia.”

My shoulders cave in, and I drop my face into my hands.

I will live, finally breaking free from the prison of this hospital room and the LVAD machine.

But somewhere else, someone else is never going to open her eyes again.

Never walk out of the hospital her body lies in, as they cut her heart from her chest to save me from the same fate.

The prayers of those who care about me have been answered .

. . while in another corner of the world, God ignored the desperate cries of another family.

Talia’s hands come to rest on my shoulders, forcing me to meet her earnest gaze.

“I know I can’t ever understand what you’ve been through.

Or how hard it must be to know that someone had to die for you to live.

But if it were me—if I had died and had the choice to save someone else with my death—I wouldn’t want that person to feel bad.

I would want them to experience as much happiness as possible since I wouldn’t have the chance to. ”

I crumple forward, pressing my forehead into Talia’s shoulder.

“I’ll try,” I say. But I know what it’s like to bury someone you love, to look at a once-familiar face turned waxen, lifeless, and foreign way too early in their life.

I know what the family in the waiting room somewhere else in this country is going through.

Grief like that never leaves you—it roots in your body, lodging in your bones, echoing in the hole they’ve left behind.

I don’t know how to reconcile being so heartbroken for them while feeling so relieved for myself. Any joy I dare let myself feel is consumed by the simultaneous guilt.

Talia strokes my hair. “It’s a gift, Liv. Whoever she is, whatever happened to her, you can’t change it. But you can choose what you do with this gift.”

I know she’s right. But I can’t shut off the visceral reaction that makes my body shake, my stomach twisting into knots of nausea.

“I’ll try,” I say again.

Talia, who has given up her entire senior year to sit by my side in this dismal hospital room, suddenly grins. “I know! While we wait for your mom to get here, we’re going to make a list.”

“A list,” I repeat, dubious.

“Yes, a list. Of everything you want to do now that you’re getting a second chance at life.

” She hurries to where she dumped her backpack on the floor a few hours ago and rummages for a notebook and pen.

“We’ll call it your ‘New Life Bucket List.’ And forevermore, April 1 will no longer be April Fool’s Day; it will be your New Life Day.

The day we celebrate your second birth—your new heart day. ”

It’s impossible not to smile back at her. “The list is a good idea. But I hate to point out that since it’s already seven o’clock and the heart isn’t even here yet, I might not get my new lease on life until April 2. We could be stuck with April Fool’s Day.”

Talia rolls her eyes and uncaps her pen. “Number one on the list: Stop being so sarcastic.”

I gasp and put my hand to my chest, over the tubes that I still can’t believe will be gone by tomorrow. “No more sarcasm? Then what would even be the point of living?”

“Now there’s a girl who deserves a new heart.”

And despite myself, I grin at my best friend through my tears.