Black Hearts Red

by Leigh, Anne

  At a young age, she’d held me on her shoulders when I didn’t know how to cry.

  She was very receptive to my emotions and she didn’t back down when I presented her with a challenge.

  “Alright. Don’t go breaking her heart, okay?” He said, Nic loved his sisters but ultimately, he just wanted them to be happy. “By the way, Dad knows.”

  Shit.

  Nic was protective of Ali.

  But Uncle Zander was another story.

  Ali was his baby.

  “He’s looking forward to having you at Christmas dinner.” Nic’s laugh was obnoxious. He knew that his father would do his best to make me so uncomfortable that I’d probably shit in my pants.

  There was a reason that the Zobowski sisters expected a lot from the men in their lives.

  Uncle Zander was very protective of his family, especially his girls.

  He’d hired bodyguards to follow them around when they went to school. He’d signed with the Minnesota Fox’s because Minnesota wasn’t all glamour and glitz like Los Angeles, and his family would be given the privacy away from the media.

  Uncle Kieran was popular, but Uncle Zander, in his prime, had everyone following him around.

  His girls were his treasures; I knew because he’d only said it to us how many times.

  I heard from Nic that Ali had only been allowed to date after Uncle Z had spoken to her date for over an hour in his office.

  His daughters were trained in martial arts because Uncle Z didn’t want them to be unprepared for unwanted advances from men, from anything.

  My dad was the same with Reece. Fathers were extremely possessive of their daughters, and that’s how I knew that I not only had to be on my good behavior the next time I saw Uncle Z…

  I had to be on my goddamned best behavior.

  Alissa

  “Take another deep breath for me,” Dr. Mari Anand said as the stethoscope touched my chest and moved to my back. He was a heart surgeon and was recommended by my personal doctor, Dr. Khamir Parminder, in Minnesota. I wanted to go to school in Berkeley, so when I received the acceptance letter, the first thing Mom did was contact Dr. Parminder to see if she knew of any cardiologists in San Francisco.

  After a few more minutes of listening to my heart and lungs, he signaled that it was okay for me to stand from the exam table.

  “How does it sound?” The voice was coming from my phone.

  My mom wanted to be here today, but she had a last minute appointment at the clinic so she was on the line with me. She would never be fully retired in the truest sense of the word. She still filled in as a nurse consultant in the sports medicine department at the Mayo Clinic. She loved being around patients, and would always love it, plus she said it kept her busy and out of Dad’s hair.

  Dr. Anand, now facing the portable computer, answered, “It’s not worse, but definitely not better. Ali will have to keep taking her meds and let us know if she has any difficulty breathing and more fatigue.”

  I was used to having the doctors address my mom instead of me. I was twenty-years-old, but I would always be my mommy’s little girl. She was my rock and even through the phone, she brought me comfort.

  “The bruising? How long are they lasting?” Dr. Anand’s brown eyes were on me.

  “They still go away after a day or two,” I replied, as I removed the green hospital gown and changed into my yellow shirt. “It depends on how hard I get kicked –“

  Realizing what I just said, I hissed, hoping Mom didn’t hear.

  “Ali!”

  “Mom…”

  Dr. Anand gave me a rueful smile. He knew that this had been an ongoing battle between my mother and I. Mom was happy that I loved martial arts. She and Dad had been there to attend all my tournaments. She’d been the one helping me out through all the punches and kicks that were expected in matches. She never once told me to stop.

  Until…

  Five years ago.

  “Ali, you know you can’t sustain the same injuries that you had before. Your body is different now, sweetheart.” Even in her scolding, she still carried that motherly tone. “You’re not allowed to do the same things anymore.”

  Which was why I was so thankful that Matteo didn’t tell my mom and dad that I fought him inside the cage at his mom’s birthday party. It was an exhibition match, but the bruises and the pain from his hits were real.

  He didn’t know it was me, and to this day there was recurring vexation about the topic when it was brought up. I hadn’t been allowed to train with the fighters at Supreme Fighting, and Matteo had flipped out when he saw me on the mat with Khalil.

  To my defense, I didn’t know he was going to be at his gym. He had a late meeting, so I’d driven to the office separately. I just needed to crack some knuckles and blow off some steam, so I’d texted Khalil for a meet-up.

  Imagine my surprise when Matteo’s voice boomed through the gym with a, “What the hell are you doing here, Ali?” I’d been about to throw another set of roundhouse kicks when his voice startled me so much I fell on my butt instead. The mat was cushioned, but the impact of my fall still hurt.

  He was livid.

  At me.

  At Khalil.

  I’d actually felt bad for Khalil because like the other fighters, he’d been warned not to engage with me.

  Once Matteo had calmed down, because of me massaging his arms in the locker room and giving him a blow job to let off some steam, he’d conceded that he wasn’t going to have Khalil punished. He actually gave Khalil a handshake before we left the gym because he said that even he had a hard time saying no to me.

  I saw the relief in Khalil’s eyes and the resolve in his promise that he’d never fight me again.

  It was sad. Kind of.

  He was a worthy fighter, but he had to follow his boss’ orders.

  Technically, the son of his boss. Though I wasn’t so sure that Uncle Milo would have a different opinion than Matteo. Or my dad.

  “I’m just sparring, Mom.” My mom wasn’t as easy to pacify as my dad. I batted my eyes at Dad and he’d hand me the moon. It was the same for my sister. We were his precious princesses and we used it to our advantage. “I wear my shin guards and mouth guards. I even wear knee pads.”

  I’d rather not have them, but even I knew the gravity of my situation. I wanted to spar, but I wasn’t going to die because of it.

  “I understand that you want to spar and fight the way that you love to.” A breathy sigh could be heard across the line. “But sweetheart, you have to take these necessary precautions. We want to prevent blood clots and your condition makes you an easy candidate.”

  Dr. Anand hedged, “You’re allowed to do the activities you’d normally partake in, but maybe just a bit more delicately.”

  I nodded my head, “I got it. I knew I was pushing it.”

  “Honey, we want you to enjoy everything you’re doing. We just don’t want to risk your life by doing them with the same intensity you’re used to.” Mom conciliated, “Right, Mari?”

  “Right,” Dr. Anand said with a smile. He was a nice man, and he vouched for me when I was just entertaining the thought of going to India this past spring. He’d reassured my parents that he’d personally been in touch with his friends in Rohini so if anything happened to me, I’d have a medical team to go to.

  Greyson knew about my condition.

  Gen knew about it.

  My brother and sister.

  Last year my heart went berserk while I was participating in a 2K local marathon in Minneapolis for the Children Cares, a charity for childhood cancer that Uncle Kieran and Aunt Brynn started. At that time I’d been living with only two meds.

  After last year, when my heart went into a crazy rhythm, my mom and my sister would know what it was called but I forgot, I was put on two additional medications. Dr. Parminder also concluded, after extensive tests, that I’d have to have surgery if my condition kept worsening. The surgery was inevitable, but the timing on when it woul
d happen depended on how my heart was doing.

  Mom had insisted that I move back to Minnesota, and she knew Dad would definitely say no more to Berkeley and me living my life hundreds of miles away from them if he had an inkling of how my heart pumped harder these days.

  So I’d cried and cried to Mom and Sofia and asked them to tell Dad and Nic, but just not to make them super worried. I don’t know how Mom told them, but so far Dad and my brother seemed at ease with how I’d been doing.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” She only wanted the best for me, and I wasn’t keeping my end of the bargain. “I’ll be more careful and just lay low for now.”

  Dr. Anand was now out of the room after he’d given the orders to the nurse to schedule my blood tests, so I was now alone while I waited for the nurse.

  “I love you, baby girl. I know how much you want to do the same things. I get it.” She’d always been there for me. I may have been an accident baby, but I never received the feeling of being unwanted from Mom and Dad. “It’s just not the same as it was, but you’ll be okay. We’re here for you, and we’ll get through this.”

  “Thanks Mom.” She wasn’t just Mom, she was always my confidante, my biggest supporter.

  “Okay” she said, I heard some noises in the background, someone asking if she could have a minute with my mom. Mom asked the person to give her another five minutes and she’d be out.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” She was busy, but she made time for me. She always did. “I can text you later.”

  “No, it’s okay. It’s nothing they can’t handle without me.” She said before asking, “How are classes?”

  I gave her a quick rundown of how my classes were going. Mostly great, just tons of paper and group work as usual. “Ahuhs” and “I’m glad I didn’t go into business” came out of Mom and it made me laugh.

  She was one of the smartest women I knew.

  I didn’t have her genius mind, and I didn’t inherit her love for Science like Sofia did, but she did have a knack for gossip when it came to me.

  “How are things with you and Matteo?” I was wondering when it was going to come up.

  “I’m actually surprised you held off asking for this long,” I laughed, I was betting all of my chips that Aunt Ava and her and the rest of the women talked about Matteo and I a lot. “Tsk tsk, Mom. It took you thirty-eight minutes before finally asking.”

  “Hey, your sister’s love life is boring. And your brother’s is exhausting.” She expelled a loud breath that was loud inside the four walls of the room.

  Sofia didn’t have time to date. Nic had all the time to date, and I wasn’t privy to my brother’s exploits. He never brought women around our house, and I wasn’t into social media, so I wasn’t sure if he was dating or not.

  “Are you following Nic on Instagram?” I had Snapchat and that was it. I never deferred to people liking, commenting, retweeting, or hearting my stuff. I grew up shielded from fame, but my dad’s popularity still managed to leak into our lives. When boys approached me, it was usually because Mighty Z was my dad and they asked if they could meet up with him. The guys I went out with were the ones who didn’t ask who my father was or if they did, they didn’t say it to my face. I loved being my dad’s daughter, but I also liked to just be me.

  “Yes, but I might unfollow him. He does nothing but post about women in bikinis and drinks.” Mom sounded pained and I laughed.

  “It would be nice if he took pictures of food, but he doesn’t.”

  My brother traveled a lot for football, and during the off-season he went to places that were off-the-grid. He and his best friends, Matteo and Kassius, had a standing tradition on their birthdays where they went out to specific destinations.

  I didn’t stalk them on any social media, but now that I was with Matteo, maybe I should.

  I knew he posted on Insta sometimes, but with how busy he was these days, I’d be surprised if he actually updated it.

  “Before I get off track and I know what you’re trying to do young lady,” Mom stated, I could just see her wringing her eyebrows and shaking her head, “How are things with you and Matteo?”

  “They’re great, Mom. Really great.” We’d been officially dating for over two months, and he’d been a great boyfriend. “He’s been super busy, but he’s also visited me a couple of times.”

  “He makes you happy?” My happiness would always trump everything else for Mom. I’d gone out with boys and my mom never asked who their families were. Sure she knew of their names, but she’s always asked me the most important thing, how the boy made me feel, if I was happy with them.

  Just this morning, I received a delivery of white lilies and yellow iris. I’d woken up to a knock on my apartment door and when I’d opened it, a young delivery guy was standing on the rubber welcome mat holding the bouquet of flowers.

  The sight of those beauties made my morning brighter.

  I’d texted Matty right away and he’d responded with “Have a great day, beautiful. Miss you.”

  He was in Austria right now, miles away from me, but he never let me forget that I was in his thoughts.

  “I’m very happy, Mom.” I felt the smile grow on my face. Not only was my boyfriend thoughtful, he was also a kick-ass mathematician. He helped me solve the math problem I was having a problem with. He could have just left me in the dark or had me ask the TA for help, but he’d spent the time to explain the problem and the solution to me. I’d seen the tons of documents he had to pour through when we FaceTimed, and I knew just how limited his hours were for personal calls like mine, but he never made me feel like I was wasting his time.

  “That’s great to hear, baby girl,” Mom said, her voice soft. “I’m looking forward to having you and Matteo over for Christmas.”

  We hadn’t really talked about the holidays, but I’d seen Matty’s schedule. “He might be traveling around that time, Mom.”

  “Well, tell him to cancel.” She said briskly, “The holidays are for family.”

  “I’m sure he knows that, Mom. But there’s something going on with the Asian Stock Markets that T & T’s been watching closely.” I understood what Matty was trying to do. I might be a novice in the large-scale business world, but from what he’s been telling me, he was closing in on a really important deal. One that would open up doors to the tightly sealed Asian markets. Europe was already peppered with T & T businesses so it would make sense that he’d want to move on to the bigger fishes.

  “Honey, I understand what busy is.” Dad had been gone on holidays because of football games. “But just try, okay?”

  Matty was close to his Mom and Dad and I knew how important family was to him. He loved to spend the holidays with them and my parents would love to have all of them over. “Okay, I will.”

  A knock sounded from my Mom’s end. “Honey, I’m sorry I have to go.”

  “No problem, Mom. I’ll talk to you later,” I said as I turned my arm to look at the time on my watch. What was taking the nurse so long? She should have been here by now. But then again, there were lots of people in the waiting room today. They probably had a backlog of patients. I was lucky I was checked in and saw the doctor within half an hour of my arrival time.

  “Before I forget – have you told Matteo about your heart?” She was talking about my literal heart. The one that was failing to pump as efficiently as a normal twenty-year-old’s heart should.

  “No, I haven’t.” Matteo was already protective of me. Imagine how he would be if he knew about what was going on? Right now he treated me as normal as possible. Who was to say that he wasn’t going to change when he learned of what was happening with my body.

  “Don’t hide this from him, Ali,” Mom said and as much as I wanted to let her words sink in, I had a feeling that Matteo was going to change the way he saw me when I told him.

  “I will.” I wasn’t going to hide it from him. I just wanted a little bit more time. More time to make me feel healthy Ali instead of Ali with the heart problem. “In
time, Mom.”

  She said, “Okay honey,” but she didn’t sound so convinced.

  “It’s hard for us to hurt the people we care for.” Mom said in a gentle voice, “But we hurt them more if we hide things from them. Truth is always better than secrets.”

  Then slowly she added, “I have to go, baby girl.”

  “Love you, Mom,” I said over the speaker. “Bye.”

  I was going to tell Matteo.

  Later.

  After my appointment, I had three hours to spare before I had to head in to Koffee Kream to meet up with my groupmates.

  We had to work on a class project on how the social sector affects the world of finance.

  I’d already done my research so I had everything ready to go. I did a lot of homework and papers on the weekdays so I had time to spend with Matty on the weekends. When he was overseas, I tried to finish work that I could do in advance.

  I looked down on my phone as another text came in.

  I’m here. Where are you?

  He was usually late so the first time he was actually early; he was already bombarding me with texts.

  Be there in 20. Traffic.

  San Francisco didn’t hold the country’s worst road number one ranking for no reason. 71 percent of the streets in the Bay Area were graded a healthy D minus to an F. This fact I knew from my environmentalist BFF, Geneva, who hopefully hadn’t arrived yet before Greyson or she’d have left.

  On their own, they were great individuals.

  Together, they were the worst brother-sister combo.

  Greyson annoyed Gen at every turn, and I was suddenly wondering if this was a great idea.

  Gen had informed me two nights ago that she was going to be in San Francisco for three days. I was so excited to spend time with her, but I had deflated as soon as my scream left my mouth because she was there for research and her days were filled with the conference and today was the only day she could be with me.

  A few hours to be exact.