This Old Heart of Mine

by A. J. Compton

  My whole body stiffens. I remember that day. It was not long after Finn and Gia threw me the surprise taste ‘n’ try party. Finn and I went to the beach, and it was the first time I’d ever swam in the ocean. Feeling the sun and saltwater on my skin was incredible. But I also remember feeling watched, and Finn telling me how paranoid I was. The memory of that day is one of my most treasured, and now it’s been violated in hindsight.

  “So that’s why you decided to meet me? Because I was enjoying my life?” My voice sounds as skeptical as I feel. The hesitance in his eyes lets me know I’m right. There’s more. I will him to speak with my eyes.

  “It wasn’t just that, no.”

  “Why else?”

  “Because Charlotte didn’t live with her lungs, or her liver, or her kidneys. She lived with her heart. With her soul. It’s not possible to have a soul transplant; so I knew if any part of her would still be alive, it would be in the person who had her heart. That’s where traces of her might still be found.”

  “And did you find them?” I ask.

  “You can’t ask me that. It isn’t fair.”

  “Nothing about this situation is fair, Gabriel,” I tell him.

  “No, it isn’t,” he whispers.

  I look away and change the subject. “So that day in the park when we first met, when you caught me, was that set up?”

  “No. I had no way of knowing you were going to fall.”

  “But you were following me? It can’t be coincidence that we were in the same place.”

  “You’re right. It wasn’t. I had been watching you run in the park for a week before that day.”

  I cross my arms. “Do you know how creepy that is?”

  He nods, grimacing. “I know. I didn’t mean to frighten you or stalk you. I was trying to build up the courage to approach you. I just didn’t know how. Every time I would try, I would end up talking myself out of it. That day was no different. But then you fell, and I acted without thinking.”

  “Why didn’t you introduce yourself then?”

  “I had every intention of doing so. When I decided I wanted to meet you, I did not plan to deceive you. But I just couldn’t find the right words. What would I have said? ‘Hello, clumsy girl. I’ve been following you because you have my wife’s heart.’”

  “I’m not clumsy.”

  He smiles. “That’s what you would have focused on?”

  I sigh. “I don’t know how I would have reacted.”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you, Ava. I didn’t have any expectations beyond meeting you. I just thought it would be the first and only time. You took me by surprise. You were nothing like I expected.”

  “What did you expect?” I ask, inclining my head.

  “I don’t know,” he admits. “Not for you to be so vibrant. You didn’t tolerate my behavior. You challenged me. I know you don’t want to hear it, but the only other person who did that was Charlotte. It felt familiar.”

  My smile slips away. “This is what I mean. How do I know that was me talking that day, or her? There have been almost a hundred cases of transplant patients taking on personality traits of their donors. It sounds crazy, but it’s more than possible.”

  “Did you not have spirit before the transplant? I find that hard to believe. You fought to live, mariposa. You were strong long before you ever received Charlotte’s heart.”

  I want to believe him so much, but doubt lingers like cigarette smoke.

  “So once you spoke to me, why did you come back?”

  “Because I wanted to know more. I couldn’t stay away. Believe me, I fought with myself. I tried so hard, but that pull I felt to you only got stronger. Even when I wasn’t with you.” I think back to those early days. The times when he would just disappear for weeks suddenly make sense.

  “Okay, I can kind of understand why you didn’t say anything at first, but why not later? We’ve been together for almost a year, Gabriel. You’ve had a whole year to tell me the truth. If I hadn’t found out by accident, would you have ever told me?” He avoids my eyes. “The level of deception is just unbelievable. I mean, it took me nine months to even find out that you used to be married.”

  He lowers his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to lie to you. I just never expected to feel the way I do for you. I never thought I’d fall in love again. It all happened so quickly and the harder I fell, the harder it became to tell you. You became so necessary to me so fast. I didn’t want to do anything that might cause you to leave, when I was finally starting to feel something again.”

  “That wasn’t your choice to make. You should have told me,” I tell him, raising my voice.

  His head lifts. “If you had known who I was from the beginning, would you have fallen in love with me? Would you have given us a chance?” he asks, his voice dripping with doubt. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for the past week. I have no way of knowing.

  “I don’t know. I think I would have fallen, but I wouldn’t have acted on it. The guilt is devastating. It’s crushing me.” I rub at the persistent pain in my chest.

  He frowns. “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

  “Of course I do. Guilt is all I’m feeling. I stole her life.”

  “No. She lost her life, you didn’t steal it.”

  “Gabriel, I’m in love with her husband. We’ve been practically living together over the last few months, and making plans for the future. I have her heart inside of me. What else do you call that? I’m a thief of the worst kind.”

  “I don’t see it like that.”

  I look out at the park. “Well, I do.” Nothing anyone can say can change my mind on this. Finn has tried. But he’s not connected to his donor like I am.

  “You have every right to be angry at me,” he says.

  The wind leaves my sails. I sigh. “That’s the thing. I’m not angry. Not anymore. I’m just sad. This whole situation is just so heartbreaking for all of us. It’s toxic. It’s killing me.”

  Gabriel goes rigid. “What are you saying?”

  I take a deep breath. “I-I don’t think…”

  “No.”

  I place my hands flat on the grass. “Gabriel. Please. I’ve been thinking about this for the past few days. I’ve thought about nothing but this.”

  “I can’t lose you. I can’t go through this again.” I hate the crack in his voice. It speaks of painful memories only he can see.

  “It’s not the same thing,” I say in a gentle voice.

  His fist pounds the earth. “It is to me. Loss is loss.”

  “You’re not losing me—”

  He scowls. “No?”

  “No. It’s just… I need to decide if you ever really had me, you know? Is it me you were in a relationship with, or her? Did I ever really love you? Or was it her loving you from beyond the grave?”

  “That doesn’t even make sense!”

  “Yes, it does. Or at least, it does in my head. This whole situation is a mess. I’m questioning everything. I can’t work out where I start and she ends. I have no idea who I really am, who we are as a couple. It was okay when she was some nameless, faceless stranger, but she isn’t anymore. She’s your wife. And I need to work out what that means for me. What that means for us.”

  “Nothing has to change. I’m still the same as I was before.” He thumps his chest.

  “Gabriel.” I exhale my frustration. “Everything has changed. You’re not the same. Not to me. Before, you were just my boyfriend. Now, you’re the husband of the woman whose heart I have inside me. Why can’t you see how screwed up that is? It’s only natural that I’m struggling with this.”

  “Sí. I’m struggling, too. But we need to struggle together, Ava, not apart.” Gabriel reaches for me, but I pull away. He watches me with growing despair. I receive no pleasure in seeing his pain. Only more heartbreak.

  I fold my hands in my lap to stop them seeking Gabriel’s. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “Ava, please. Don’t do this. I’m s
orry. I’m so sorry.” The torture in his voice reflects my own agony. I don’t even bother trying to stop the tears cascading from my eyes.

  “I believe you’re sorry. But it’s just so complicated. I mean, I’ve fallen asleep every night, reading your love letters to another woman.”

  He pauses for a moment, pursing his lips. “I do not wish to upset you, querida, but you knew they were about someone else anyway.”

  “I know,” I tell him. “But I didn’t know I had a piece of that woman inside me. Especially the part that all those poems were written about.”

  “I…”

  “Go on.” He shakes his head. I place my hand on top of his. “Please. I know it’s hard. God, this is what I mean. You can’t even talk about her. I want you to talk about her to me. I do. I want to know all about her.”

  He blows out a long breath. “I was going to say that I didn’t only love her heart. I loved everything about her. Just as I love everything about you. The poems, some of them were written about her heart, yes. But others were written about her soul, her smile, her body.” He shrugs. “You may have one part of her, but the rest of it is all you, Ava. We’re not defined by our hearts.”

  “Aren’t we?” I ask.

  His smile is sad. “I’d like to think we define our hearts, not the other way around.”

  I massage my temples. My voice is watery when I speak. “I need space. I think we both do. Time and space to decide what this means.” Pointing against my chest, I flick my finger between Gabriel and my heart. “It’s too much. My heart can’t deal with it. Neither can my head. It’s tearing me apart.”

  “I can’t live without you, Ava,” Gabriel says in a low voice, looking down.

  “You can. You will.”

  He tears out blades of grass with his fists. “No.”

  “Not forever,” I tell him, watching his eyes fill with water. “At least I hope not, I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  “How long?” he asks through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t know. However long it takes for me to untangle this mess of people and emotions.”

  “And what am I supposed to do in that time?”

  “This isn’t just for me. I want you to have the opportunity to sort out your own feelings about everything. We’ve been around each other almost every day since we met. You need some space away from me, too.”

  “I don’t need space or time. I already know how I feel,” he says.

  “Do you? Can you say for certain that the parts of me that you love aren’t ones that belong to her? That the biggest reason you love me isn’t because I have the most important part of your wife inside me?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Gabriel, I don’t believe you. And that’s the problem. Even if I stay, I can’t trust anything anymore. I can’t trust the things you say. And I can’t trust the way I feel.”

  “How do we get that trust back?” he asks, fixing his eyes on mine.

  “Time.”

  “Time is not guaranteed,” he tells me in a tight voice.

  He’s right. As amazing as I feel now, the statistics aren’t on my side. And even without that, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow. “No, it isn’t. But if we’re going to have any chance, it’s the only thing we have left.”

  “We have each other. Don’t look at me like that. We do. You have me,” he insists.

  “I know. I just need to sort out which bits of me you have.”

  “I love all of you,” he says, frowning.

  “That’s part of the problem,” I whisper.

  He growls, gripping his hair. “We’re going round in circles. This is solving nothing.”

  “Which is exactly why we need space. If I stay, we’ll spin in circles until we can no longer see each other. Please, Gabriel. I’m trying to be mature about this. I want to do what’s best for everyone.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening again.”

  Unable to resist any longer, I go to him. Wrapping my arms around the man I love, I cry into his shoulder as he cries silent tears into mine.

  After a while, he leans back and stares into my eyes, as if trying to memorize everything about me. “I’m going to miss you, Ava.”

  “I’m going to miss you, too.”

  “Will I ever see you again?”

  “I hope so. I want to be able to work my way back to you.”

  “I love you so much, Ava. I don’t want to let you go.”

  I unravel at the sound of surrender in his voice. “I don’t know if it’s her that loves you, or me, but this heart will always belong to you, Gabriel Cruz. I’m leaving a part of it, a part of both of us, with you.” My lips tremble as I press them against his. He lets out an anguished sound and crushes me to his chest. My broken heart pounds, desperate to escape into his arms. Gabriel breathes every ounce of his love into my body through his kiss, tying me to him forever.

  “I’m going to go, okay? I don’t want to make this harder.” I start to move back. Gabriel’s grip tightens.

  “Gabriel…”

  “Just give me a moment, mi corazón. Let me hold you. This may be the last time.” He presses his head against my chest. My shirt grows wet while he listens to my heartbeat. I can’t help but wonder if I’m the only one he’s saying good-bye to. I realize I don’t mind. In a way, he’s losing Charlotte all over again. I feel so selfish, but I’m doing this for us. If there’s ever going to be an us again, I need to sort out me. I thread my fingers through his hair, memorizing the feeling of the strands against my skin until they can be reunited.

  Gabriel rubs his face against my chest, wiping his tears. “Okay.”

  Cupping his cheeks, I press one final good-bye against his lips, then pull away. This time, he lets me go.

  I stand up and wipe away my own tears, only for them to be replaced by a fresh batch. I start walking forward, but then I stop and look back. Of course, I look back.

  Pressing a hand against my heart, I bring it up to my lips and blow Gabriel a kiss, smiling when he repeats the gesture.

  Then I really do walk away; my heart breaking, but still beating.

  One year later

  I think I’m going to be sick. My deep breaths aren’t helping my churning stomach. Reaching my destination, I pause, preparing for my life to change yet again. I’d been so foolish to think that being a butterfly was the final and biggest transformation I’d go through. I realize now that life is a constant state of metamorphosis and growth, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Glancing up at the sky for strength, I smile when I see two birds swooping and soaring through the air above me. I lift my hand to my lips and raise it in their direction before heading inside.

  The place is packed. My mood lifts when I take in the lack of space. This is exactly how it should be. Trying not to draw attention to myself, I weave between the thick crowd. People shift and grumble as I brush past them, heading toward the source of sound. My heart thumps against my ribs as it grows louder. From somewhere deep within, my soul stirs from its long sleep.

  Tears spring to my eyes when the voice I’d kept safe in my heart washes over me. I locate a tiny corner away from view and rest my back against the bookcase. Ignoring the strange glance of the man next to me, I close my eyes and drown in the sound.

  As Gabriel continues to address the crowd, I tremble with love and pride. My eyes are drawn to the sight of him, just as my ears are addicted to the sound of his voice. Unable to resist a second longer, I peek around the bookcase. My breathing stops when I catch a glimpse of him.

  He looks just like the dark angel of my dreams every night. But just like me, he’s changed. Maybe in ways I can’t see, too. The lines on his face are deeper. More stories have been engraved into his cinnamon skin. He looks tired and older, but every bit as beautiful as I remembered.

  Gabriel breaks off mid-sentence and straightens his posture. His eyes swing in my direction. Pulse spiking, I pull my head back out of view. I don’t know if h
e saw me but I’m not ready yet, and I don’t want to distract him.

  “Mr. Cruz? Are you okay?” someone asks.

  “Uh, yes. I just—” He clears his throat. “Sorry. As I was saying…” He continues his speech, his voice less strong than it was moments before.

  When he begins to read a poem from his new collection, I lose the fight. I slide down the bookcase until I’m sitting on the floor. Closing my eyes once more, I lean my head back against the cool wood. I’m sure I’m gaining even more strange looks, but Gabriel taught me that there’s no right or wrong way to consume art.

  Tears slide out from the first word. I cuddle my knees closer to my chest. My body’s reaction to Gabriel’s smooth, deep voice is just as immediate and overwhelming as it’s always been.

  “I loved you,

  And lost you.

  Not all at once,

  But in stages.

  “First, I lost myself,

  As I stared into the pale blue light of your eyes.

  It beckoned me like a suicidal moth to a flame,

  Tempting me toward my bright, burning bliss,

  And promising me oblivion.

  “Then, I lost my mind,

  When I heard the sound of your voice,

  Challenging me to come out of the shadows,

  And luring me, patiently and peacefully,

  Into your light.

  “Next, love, I lost my heart,

  To the delicate softness of your lips,

  As they brushed against my own like a butterfly’s wings,

  Breathing life into my failing lungs,

  While your gentle hand in mine,

  Pressed power into my soul.

  “And then,

  I lost you,

  In an inevitable flood of broken hearts,

  Pasts unspoken,

  And painful truths untold.

  “I lost you like I loved you, love;

  Deeply, endlessly, irrevocably,

  And in stages.”

  A polite smatter of applause ripples through the crowd. These people don’t understand the story behind his words, or the deep cracks in his voice as he spoke them.