He didn’t respond, and I knew his prolonged silence would only give my mother false hope.
“We’re going to keep her on the medicine, keep her blood pressure down, and we'll just have to pray that it doesn’t get worse. I’m going to continue looking into alternative treatments. There might be some new experimental options if you’re willing, but the transplant surgery isn’t an option for her, not with how bad she is.” There was a moment of silence. “She probably has a few years at best. Last month’s heart attack left more scar tissue—anymore and she’s likely to go into cardiac arrest.”
My mother’s silence was painful to listen to. He spoke again, discussing instructions to proceed, but I wasn't listening anymore.
I turned my back to lean against the door, my gaze lifting to the paneled ceiling. It felt like the walls were closing in on me, like the floor would fall out from under my feet at any moment. My knees weakened and I slid to the floor. No matter what we did at this point, no matter how careful I tried to be, the damage had been done. I should probably be crying at the news, but no matter what, the tears wouldn’t fall. They’d already been exhausted in my short life.
The news didn’t surprise me though. No, I knew this day would come.
Displayed on the wall was the glowing MRI of my heart, a black and white mass of muscle and tissue. Cardiomyopathy. Whether caused by a genetic defect or by an outside source, there was something wrong with my heart. It was deteriorating, and I was dying.
After collapsing in gym class at eight years old, tests had revealed scar tissue building up in the chambers of my heart, preventing it from functioning the way it should. It was just my luck that I had a rare form of cardiomyopathy. It made it more difficult to treat, let alone cure.
My weak heart danced beneath my skin. How I hated it. It was a curse, and I wondered what I’d done to deserve it.
The doctor’s words stretched across my thoughts, winding and repeating, as if a monologue were stuck on repeat. Maybe a few years, if I was lucky. I could almost hear my mother’s heart breaking. The string of bad news and failed treatments must have been wearing her down to the bone. To know that your twenty-year-old daughter would die before you—no parent should have to say goodbye to their child like that.
Peeking from beneath my sweater sleeve I could see the faint, hairline scar across my wrist. It was a reminder of a time when I’d seen no way out, when I’d attempted to end it myself instead of letting the misery drag out. There must have been some small shred of hope for a chance at life still lingering within me; I could never go through with it.
It was a lie that hope was what kept me from doing it. No, I’d been too cowardly to end it myself.
Still, the burden of my existence on my parents had weighed on my shoulders for a long while. Like every parent, they wanted to give me every opportunity they could for a long, happy, and productive life. Nothing they did, however, would change the truth: I was going to die, die before they could see me do anything with my life.
I would most definitely never get married; I’d kind of need a guy in my life to do that. I’d never had the chance to even date, let alone consider marriage.
The air rushed out of me. There were so many things that I would never get the chance to experience, things most people took for granted.
Still… only a few years? I thought about the possibilities. I’d at least get to celebrate my twenty-first birthday. I wasn’t allowed to have alcohol with my medications though, not to mention I only had one friend, so no big extravagant birthday party.
A hollowness nipped at my chest. Was this the point where people started working on a bucket list? Bucket lists cost money, and I’d wasted enough of my parents hard earned savings as it was.
I pushed myself up from the tile floor of the medical room, stepping back over to the bed. The medical bed was particularly hard, but I sat, waiting for my mom and the doctor to return. While I knew this news was a long time coming and had anticipated it, it still didn’t feel real.
The click of the handle turning broke my spiraling thoughts and my mom walked in with that same reassuring, strong smile. I saw through it, but I still smiled back, feigning strength for her sake. I couldn’t deny the truth staring me in the face though.
I didn’t have much time left.
* * *
The dark night crept across the sky outside my window. I lay bundled in my bed, staring up at the ceiling of my room, but my warm blankets offered no solace. I’d somehow managed to avoid an awkward dinner with my parents. The look on my father's face when my mom broke the news was something I’d rather not see.
Instead of watching my father’s heart break, I was busy escaping my grave reality, lost in my nightly conversation with my best friend. There wasn’t much for me to say but listening to the one-sided conversation was a good distraction.
“I got a call back from that job I applied for. Thefy’re gonna have me start next week!” Kat chimed over the phone.
Kat, or Katarina, was my one friend. She’d been the only one I stayed in touch with after switching to homeschooling. It had eased the transition from a normal routine to my current hermit lifestyle, if only a little bit.
I smiled. She’d recently applied to be a medical assistant at a local doctor’s office, which would be a huge help with the nursing degree she was pursuing. “That’s so cool!”
“Are you planning on getting a part-time job? I never hear you talk about it,” she asked.
Her question made my throat dry. “No. My parents are afraid work would distract me from my studies. They’re taking care of the bills for me, so I can focus on my degree.”
The words were a lie. I’d begged to help with expenses countless times, but my father refused every time, no matter how much I insisted. It had been the cause of a few fights over the years. My parents were scared that the stress of a job might make my situation worse. If I hadn’t qualified for disability, I would’ve gone behind their backs to find some sort of way to help.
Unable to get a job to escape the confines of my apartment, I needed to get out somehow, or I would’ve lost my mind. It was only a year ago that I’d gathered enough courage to sign up for college classes. Being able to get out of the house, to do something in a different environment, had been one of the biggest godsends.
Regret had crept its way into me over the years at the thought of going through my life missing out on something. But I’d suffered enough run-ins with depression, and I refused to go down that road again. What it was that I was missing out on, I didn’t know. I couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that there might be something out there for me, at least something more than waking up another morning, wishing that I hadn’t.
