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More Than You Know

Page 24

by Alexandria Rhodes


  I thanked him for letting me know and ran up the stairs, checking her room quickly to make sure she wasn't in there. When I saw she wasn't, I went to the bathroom and knocked. I could hear the shower running and knocked again a little harder.

  “Babe? What's wrong? Ashton said you were upset and that you've been up here for awhile. He wouldn’t tell me what’s going on—are you all right? You're scaring me,” I said.

  I heard her shuffling around, then the door unlocked, and she poked her head out. Despite the water from the shower, I could tell she had been crying. Her eyes were puffy and her lips were swollen. I just wanted to reach out, wrap my arms around her and never let go.

  She opened the door a little wider, and she sat down on the toilet seat with a fluffy white towel wrapped around her wet body. I crouched down in front of her, needing to see her eyes.

  “Baby, what's wrong?”

  She sniffled. “Something with my dad. Something I never thought could happen.”

  I rubbed her arm, wondering what it could quite possibly be.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Bryn nodded. “I do, but can you grab my sweatpants and a t-shirt? I forgot and left them when I came in to shower."

  “Sure, anything, Bryn. I'll be right back, okay?”

  She nodded as I turned to run down the hall to her room. When I got to her room, I found her sweats right away but couldn't find a t-shirt. I looked around and spotted one draped over her desk chair.

  I walked over to grab it when something familiar caught my eye.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I said to myself.

  How did she have this? Did she find it in my mailbox or something? No, she wouldn’t do something like that.

  That was when it hit me.

  The family of the donor would have gotten this letter.

  I clutched my chest.

  The only way Bryn would have gotten this was if she was an immediate family member. She had never mentioned that anyone in her family had been an organ donor. Why wouldn’t she have told me something like that, knowing what I had been through? I looked at the desk where my letter sat, and my eyes fell on a beautifully framed picture. It was of a smiling Bryn in her graduation outfit with her dad’s arms wrapped around her.

  Her dad died around the same time that I had received my heart.

  I had Bryn's father’s heart.

  Suddenly, I couldn't breathe. I sat down and put my head in my hands, looking everywhere except for the desk.

  This couldn't be happening. There was no way this was possible. This had to be a mistake.

  I heard the bathroom door open and Bryn calling my name, her voice more steady than what it had been moments ago.

  “Tyler?” she asked.

  Her voice pulled me out of my panic and I stood up trying to gather myself enough to face her. She couldn't know…there was no way. Not now—especially not now. It would destroy her.

  I took a deep breath and with my back still to her, I swallowed an anxiety pill I had taken out of the packet I kept in my pants pockets.

  She stood in the doorway, watching me. I remembered I was still holding the letter, which was private to her, and I felt scared, not ready to talk about this.

  “Uh, I knocked this off your desk when I grabbed your shirt. Sorry, I was just picking it up,” I lied.

  She wrapped her arms around me, and I froze. I brought my arms around her and breathed in her scent. I knew what I had to do. I needed to be there for her. So I put my shock aside.

  “Tell me what happened, babe. I'm here for you, you know that.”

  She sniffed and then stood back. “When I got home today, something was just off. Carter and Ashton were sitting at the kitchen table, and they were really quiet. When I asked what was wrong, Carter handed me that letter. Supposedly, my dad had opted to donate his organs when he died. The person who wrote the letter was the recipient of his heart. Someone is walking around right now with my dad’s heart. It is so sick to think that a part of him is still living through someone else! I can't believe that they contacted us. I wish they hadn't. Now I know too much,” she sobbed.

  I had done this. I had taken a part of the person she wished were still alive.

  I let her cry a little bit more, trying my best to not throw up. I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted nothing more than to have this heart taken out of me and put back into her dad so that she would never have to feel this pain.

  We decided to not go out that night, and I sent a quick text to Jason, letting him know. I was relieved that Bryn fell asleep quickly. She had fallen asleep with my arm around her. I stood up from the floor and gently carried her to her bed.

  I slipped her covers around her and kissed her forehead.

  She deserved better than this. She didn’t deserve to have to deal with me—the person who had something so precious to her. It wasn't fair, and I knew what I had to do. It wasn't going to be easy, but I loved her enough to let her go.

  Sixteen

  ___________________

  I woke up to a pounding headache, and groaned. This was why I never cried. I always wake up to a headache.

  Why was I even crying? Oh, right—the letter.

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes, trying to remember the events of last night. Pieces of it started coming together.

  The letter about my dad and Tyler who seemed to have left in the middle of the night since he was nowhere to be seen.

  I turned my phone on and waited for any messages that had come in. I looked around my room and didn't see that he'd left a note.

  This is strange, I thought to myself. He usually leaves me a note if he leaves in the middle of the night.

  After only one ring, his voicemail came on. “Hey this is Tyler, leave me a message.”

  That was weird. I sent him a text asking him to call me back and decided to try Charlotte.

  When her phone went straight to voicemail, I started to panic. Charlotte always had her cell phone on her.

  I suddenly had déjà vu.

  I waited fifteen minutes before deciding I needed to do something, to verify that my past wasn’t happening again. I decided to change and go to Tyler’s house, hoping someone would be home. I knocked on the door and when no one answered, I knocked again. On the third knock I heard footsteps coming to the door, and I held my breath. Now I was nervous.

  Eva answered the door. “Bryn? Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with Ty and Charlotte?” she asked curiously letting me in.

  “Uh, yeah. I mean no. I don’t know where any of them are. I got really freaked out that something was wrong. No one is answering their phones. Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “They didn't ask you to go to Atlanta with them?” she asked sounding shocked.

  Atlanta? I shook my head, bracing myself for what she was about to tell me.

  “Well, Tyler has a doctor's appointment there today, and I guess he wanted Charlotte to go with him but I swore it was because he was going to ask you, too,” she explained.

  Why didn't he tell me? Maybe he didn't want to bother me with anything after last night.

  “Oh, all right,” I muttered.

  “They’ll probably be back soon. If you want to hang here, go for it. I have to meet Jason after he gets off work. We’re going house hunting,” she said as she breezed past me, touching my arm gently.

  I thanked her and made my way up to Tyler's room. I sat down on his bed and smiled when I saw that he put a framed picture of us on his bedside table. I picked it up and thought back to when it was taken. It was the night of the wedding when Marie had insisted on taking our picture. Looking at it now and seeing the look of pure happiness on our faces, I was glad she had.

  I shuffled through his DVDs, thinking it would be a perfect day for a movie. I just wanted to lie there with him, getting lost in someone else’s story.

  There was another stack of them behind the TV. When I picked them up, a piece of paper fell out from behind them. I was
putting it back when I glanced down and saw the words that stopped me in my tracks.

  To whom it may concern:

  I don't know where to start…

  Why would he have taken it from my room? I hadn't checked this morning to see if it was there, so I assumed this had to be it. He must not have wanted me to obsess over it, but I still felt a pinch of anger that he had taken something of mine without saying anything, let alone asking.

  “Bryn, what are you doing?"” I heard Tyler ask from behind me.

  I spun around, the letter still clutched in my hand. I knew I looked confused. Tyler was standing in the doorway, his arms at his side and an empathetic look on his face.

  I didn't know what to say or where to start.

  “I was trying to find something to watch, and it fell out from behind a stack of movies,” I said. “Why did you take this from my room last night? I mean, I understand you don’t want to see me hurt, but this is mine.”

  “Bryn, I can explain,” he said, moving closer. “I sent that a week ago, and I had no idea that it would end up with you. When I saw my letter in your room last night…”

  “Wait a second!” I said, cutting him off. “This is my letter…not yours.” Now I was even more confused.

  He put his hands in his back pockets and looked at the ground. “Bryn, that's not the letter that’s still in your room. It’s a draft of it. The letter you’re holding is mine. I didn't know what to say, and I didn't want to screw it up, so I wrote it out a few times before I sent it.”

  “What do you mean, you wrote it? Is this some kind of sick joke? Why would you send me this letter, Tyler?”

  “I wrote it because I wanted to thank the family of the person who saved my life.”

  That's when it started to sink in as I put the pieces together: Tyler had a heart transplant four years ago. My accident was around the same time. The one that killed my father. How could I not have seen this coming? It all made sense now, and I felt the tears start to well up in my eyes.

  He continued, “Bryn, I only found out last night. I had no idea that it was your dad’s heart. If I had known, I never would have tried to have you back in my life.”

  “How could you not tell me something as important as this?” I asked, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  He walked over and I watched as he reached out to me.

  “Don't!” I said, backing away from him. I felt sick. It was like I no longer knew this person in front of me.

  Charlotte came up to the doorway. “What's going on? Bryn, what’s the matter?” she asked as she started to walk over to me.

  “I have to leave. I can’t be here.”

  I walked out of the room and ran out of the house, not even daring to look back.

  I was in a world full of lies, and I needed to get out.

  I couldn’t believe that my dad’s heart had gone to Tyler. Of all the people in the world who needed a heart, why did it have to be him? I didn’t understand what I was feeling. I hated that my dad’s heart was now Tyler’s, but I was so thankful that he was alive. It was a double standard of the worst kind.

  I went home and ran into my room, slamming the door behind me. I looked around at my surroundings and walked over to my desk, grabbing the letter that had changed my entire life. I crumpled it up and threw it into the trash.

  All I needed now was some sort of release. I needed to not feel the pain that I was in, and I needed a way out. I ran into the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet. Teary-eyed and eager to stop the pain, I found what I was looking for: a little bottle of Vicodin.

  Pouring the pills into my hand, I looked at myself in the mirror. I knew I was being stupid, but I wouldn't take more than three. That wouldn't do anything to hurt me, I thought, trying to convince my conscience that this was okay.

  My glass sat beside the sink and I filled it with water; hot or cold, I didn't give a damn.

  There were some wounds that just couldn’t mend.

  With one pill in my mouth, I took a sip of water and swallowed. That one was for the pain of my father's death.

  I popped the second pill. That one was for the letter. How dare he contact me after I was finally feeling as though I was healed? The letter was basically tearing open my wound and making me bleed again.

  The third pill went into my mouth, and it was bitter. I quickly swallowed it with the rest of the water, and I shuddered.

  That one was for Tyler, and it went down the hardest.

  ---

  That night after taking the pills, I completely crashed out. Though it had been a stupid thing, taking the pills had done what I needed them to do, and I was thankful to not feel anything for awhile, even if it was only temporary.

  I decided that I needed to get out of Savannah for awhile. I was pretty much ready to pack up and leave, considering just going back to New York City, but Ashton convinced me to stay, promising to help me through it.

  Tyler had my dad’s heart. I had laid my head on his chest and listened to his heart beating. And all that time, it had been my dad’s. That didn't seem right. It didn’t seem real.

  Ashton ended up finding out what happened with Tyler the day after I did. He didn’t have much to say, and I was relieved that he had never known anything about it. I couldn’t imagine being the last to know.

  I had convinced him, and even myself, that I just needed to leave for a day or so. Charlotte had tried texting me, mostly supporting my decision to get out of town for awhile but also to ask me to give Tyler a chance to explain. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to him; it was that I didn't know how. I wasn't sure of the boundaries I needed to put up.

  Since that dreadful afternoon, I hadn't really talked to Tyler. He called me the night I took my pills, leaving me a voicemail to make sure that I was okay, and when I didn't answer, he came over worried. Ashton had told him that I was sleeping and would most likely get in contact with him later. Thank God Ashton didn't know I had taken the pills, or he would’ve flipped. I was mad at myself for taking the risk. It wasn’t what I wanted.

  It was a week after receiving the letter when I knew what I needed to do for myself.

  “I know it's a far drive, but I really need to see my dad," I told Ashton, who was sitting at the kitchen table, a bowl of cereal in front of him. “The cemetery is only a few hours away. I’ll be home sometime tomorrow.”

  He got up and hugged me. “Go, Bryn. Do whatever you need to do.”

  I went upstairs and grabbed the few items I needed—a sweatshirt, my phone charger and some extra money. I threw everything into an overnight bag and drove away from the mess I was in.

  I welcomed the change from the humid air as I hit the outskirts of Atlanta.

  Ashton called ahead to book a hotel for me, just in case my trip took longer than I thought.

  When I arrived at the hotel, I quickly unpacked my bag with what I needed and made my way to the cemetery.

  It felt kind of weird, going to see my dad. I knew he wasn't really there and that I would just be talking to the ground, but there was something calming about the fact that this was his place now.

  When I got out of my car, I quickly decided it was too hot for a sweatshirt and tossed it on the front seat. I made my way across the small cemetery to my dad’s grave, and sat on the ground in front of his plaque.

  I crossed my legs and put my chin in my hand.

  “Hey, Daddy, sorry I’m just now making it to see you,” I said, feeling my guilt resurface. “I moved back to Savannah a couple of months ago, not wanting to give up our house.” I paused and looked around to see if anyone was there. I was alone.

  “Everything’s a train wreck. When I moved back home, I met up with Tyler and Charlotte thinking everything could go back to normal. One thing led to another, and I started to fall for Tyler all over again. Everything was working out, seeming to go back to a semi-normal when I received an anonymous letter from someone who received your heart. My world almost collapsed as I became aware that there was
still a part of you out in this world. You helped a lot of people because of your job. You even saved me. Even after you died, you saved someone’s life. After comprehending that someone was alive, carrying a part of you, I couldn’t help but think how amazing it would be to know them. It could be a connection that I didn’t know could exist between you and me. It would be a connection that would carry on for many years, and I wouldn’t have to live without you in a way. But I found out it was Tyler. Of all people, the love of my life had something that meant the world to me. I couldn’t imagine being with someone in that way knowing they had such a special part of someone who meant so much to me. Now it feels as though Tyler had been the one to take you away from me.

  “So I ran. I packed my bags and ran out, feeling suffocated in that house and town. But Tyler had been like a breath of fresh air, and without him, it felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

  Then I realized something that I hadn't allowed myself to think of before. My dad wasn't gone; throughout this whole thing, he had never really left me. The best part of him was still alive, and it was inside the only other person who I truly loved with everything I had: Tyler.

  It suddenly didn’t matter Tyler had my dad’s heart—ironically, it was the best part of it all. It was as though Dad had given me someone who could love me as much as he had, so I wouldn’t be alone when he was gone.

  I smiled, and I looked up to the blue sky and closed my eyes, breathing in deeply. Sitting there with my dad, I was overcome with a feeling of happiness and warmth. I wasn't much of a religious person, but at that moment, I knew my dad was there. I laughed out loud in the silence and wrapped my arms around myself.

  “I love you, Dad, and I miss you, but I’m going to be okay.”

  Seventeen: Tyler

  ____________________

  I spent the entire morning driving around Savannah looking for Bryn. I started at her house, but Ashton said he swore to her he wouldn’t tell anyone where she was.

 

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