Heartbreakers

by Ali Novak

  She pulled away from me. “It’s not that. I’m afraid…” She trailed off, leaving her fear unfinished.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching out for her again. “Don’t worry. This will work.”

  I was nervous too, but Dr. Mitchell seemed confident about the procedure’s success. First, I would undergo a physical exam to make sure I was healthy enough to donate. Once that was out of the way, the actual surgery could take place. Under normal circumstances, she would have to do human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing—a test to make sure donor stem cells matched the recipient’s—but since we were identical twins, a confirmation was unnecessary.

  My bone marrow would be harvested from both sides of my pelvic bone, which kind of freaked me out, but Dr. Mitchell assured me that I would be under anesthesia and that the surgery would be painless. It was a relatively simple operation, and I could be released from the hospital the very next day.

  Since the transplant was syngeneic, my healthy cells could be given to Cara shortly after being harvested. They would be infused into her bloodstream, much like a blood transfusion, and the process itself would only take a few hours. After the transplant was complete, Dr. Mitchell would monitor Cara for signs of new, blood-forming cells that produced healthy blood cells. The growth was called “engraftment” and was the first sign of a successful treatment.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t…” She trailed off for a second time. I waited for her to collect her thoughts, and finally she took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know if I want you to go through with the donation.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, the word hissing out of my mouth in a breathless manner. “Cara, I have to. If I don’t, then you won’t get better.”

  She shrugged and looked away from me. “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “Your doctors do.” My stomach was clenching with a sudden pain, and I felt like I’d been shot with a bullet of ice. A cold, tingling sensation was spreading through my body. “Besides, why would you be willing to take that kind of chance?”

  Who is this person sitting next to me? It couldn’t be my sister. She’d been a fighter since day one. She would never roll over and let cancer beat her. She was a pro at absorbing punches. I didn’t understand where this white flag was coming from.

  Cara’s eyes were dark, and she sat unmoving for a long stretch of silence. “Stella, I’m scared,” she finally said, and her voice was so quiet that I had to lean in to hear her. “I don’t want to die, but—but I can’t stop thinking that I’m ruining your life, and that scares me so much more.”

  “Look at me, Cara,” I said, shaking her shoulder. “You are not ruining my life. How could you ever think that?”

  When she glanced up, there was a pinched expression on her face. “Oh, come on. Don’t pretend like our world doesn’t revolve around this place and the treatments and the cancer, because it does, Stella. It’s a big, shitty black hole that sucks everyone in.” She was sneering at me now, but her voice trembled and I knew she was more distraught than angry. “Then you got your job, and I was so happy. For a moment I thought you’d done it, you’d escaped, but all it took was a phone call and some bad news, and now you’re stuck here again.”

  My throat lumped up as the tears that had been hanging in her eyes finally fell and streamed down her face. “How can I be stuck in a place if it’s exactly where I want to be?” I asked her. “Black hole or not, you’re still my sister.”

  Cara laughed through her tears, but the sound was bitter. “Because, Stella. There’s this thought that keeps running through my head, and it’s tormenting me because I know it’s true. If I’m not here anymore, then you don’t have to be either.”

  Hearing this, I turned away from Cara. My heart was twisting, and I felt the pain of the past four years like I never had before. I didn’t want her to see any guilt on my face, so I closed my eyes and counted out three deep breaths before clearing my throat. “Fine,” I said, turning back to her. “Let’s make a deal.”

  “I—okay?” she said, her eyes huge and glistening.

  “I’m going through with the donation whether you like it or not, and you’re going to have another transplant,” I told her firmly. “Then, when you get better, we’re both going to walk out of here and I can go to SVA.”

  “SVA?” she repeated, her eyebrows bunching up like a piece of fuzzy pipe cleaner pushed together. “What’s that?”

  “The School of Visual Arts. It’s in New York,” I explained. “I was accepted into the photography program for spring semester.”

  “Oh my God,” Cara said, and a smile broke through her tears. “You’re gonna go to school for photography? I’m so proud of you, Stella.”

  “Thanks, Cara. That means the world to me,” I said and smiled back, “but I’m only going if you help me. We do this together. Otherwise, neither of us is leaving.”

  “Yes, okay,” she said, nodding her head.

  There were still tears running down her cheeks, but these were different. Maybe not tears of joy, but they were happy nonetheless.

  • • •

  Everything was black. It surrounded me like a blanket of cement, and the weight was too heavy for me to move. Before panic could sink in, a dot of red appeared in front of my eyes. As it grew, the weight lifted from my chest and my arms and legs began to tingle. Moving was like trying to swim through syrup, but I kept my gaze focused on the dot and pushed myself forward.

  Then I opened my eyes.

  I was in a hospital room. It was a replica of the one Cara always stayed in, only this time I was the patient. My surgery had taken place early in the afternoon, and judging by the dimness outside my window, it was almost nighttime. The room’s only source of light was a small lamp on my bedside table. Its glow struggled to reach the entire room, casting long shadows that disappeared into the gloomy corners.

  At first, I thought I was alone, but then I spotted him in the armchair next to my bed. His long legs were sprawled out in front of him, and his head lolled to the side as he slept. He looked uncomfortable, and the circles under his eyes suggested that this was the only sleep he’d received in quite some time.

  What the heck is he doing here?

  “Oliver?” I called out softly. He stirred in the chair momentarily, but then continued to snore. “Oliver!” I said again, this time louder.

  He woke with a start. “Huh—wha?” he mumbled, his voice still filled with sleep. When he saw me awake in bed, the effect was immediate. He scrambled out of the chair. “Stella! You’re awake!”

  I nodded as I pushed myself up. “What are you doing here?” I said and winced. My hips and entire backside ached like I’d fallen down a flight of stairs and landed on my tailbone. “Where’s my family?”

  “They’re down in the cafeteria eating dinner.”

  “Okay?” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for him to answer my first question.

  Oliver moved into the light, and that’s when I noticed his wrinkled clothes and limp hair. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now,” he said and shuffled a bit closer, “but I had to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, holding up a hand to ward him off. I didn’t want him to get any closer, because even in his unkempt state, Oliver was achingly handsome. Just looking at him made me want to reach out and touch him, to feel him and have him hold me. But seeing him also reminded me of what he’d done, and my heart and stomach both became painfully tight.

  Oliver pressed a fist to his lips and took a step back. He stood there momentarily, his chest heaving, but then he dropped his hand and sighed. “I came to explain, you know, why I did what I did.” I opened my mouth to argue—he already wasted his chance to explain—but he cut me off. “You don’t have to say anything. Please, I just nee
d you to listen.”

  I pinched my bottom lip, not sure what to say. Stuck in my hospital bed, I felt unable to escape what Oliver was going to say, whether I wanted to hear him out or not. At the same time, if he’d flown all this way to see me, would it really hurt to listen? Maybe it was best if he said his piece and left, because then we could both get on with our lives. After a few more moments of silent debate, I gave him a hesitant nod.

  “Okay,” he said, swallowing and nodding. “I don’t really know where to begin, so I guess I’ll start with my family.”

  My head snapped up as I sucked in a sharp breath. I knew there was something going on with his family. I watched him intently, waiting to hear what he would say, and it took Oliver a few minutes to work up the courage to continue.

  “I never knew my parents,” he said eventually, and I bit down hard on my lip to keep from gasping. “My mom died giving birth to me, and she never told my grandparents who my father was. They were the ones who raised me, so it never occurred to me that they weren’t my parents until my grandpa died when I was six. I mean, I called them Gramps and Nanny, but I never paid attention to the fact that they were older than all the other kids’ parents. It was just the way things had always been.

  “After his funeral, Nanny sat me down and explained what had happened to my real mom. To be completely honest, I was more upset about losing my grandpa than someone I never knew, so my grandma gave me this to remember him by.” Oliver fingered the chain around his neck and lifted the dog tag out from underneath his shirt. “He was a veteran from the Vietnam War.”

  “Oh, Oliver.” I was going to tell him how sorry I was, but then I remembered the silver music note he’d given me, and something occurred to me. “Your mom’s charm bracelet?”

  “Besides a few pictures,” he said, barely meeting my gaze, “that’s all I have of her.”

  I was quiet as I processed this, but then another horrible thought came to mind. “What about your grandma?”

  My question made Oliver go quiet, and he stood unmoving for an unbearably long time. “She passed away when I was twelve,” he said eventually, his tone bleak. “Some kind of heart complication.”

  From his initial reaction, I’d had a bad feeling about what he would say, but I was still unable to contain my gasp. “Oliver, I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. “That’s life. She lived a good one,” he said. “After she died, I was sent to live with her brother, my great-uncle Steven.”

  I could tell by the way he said the name that Oliver didn’t have the same fondness for his uncle as he did for his grandparents. “The one who taught you about constellations?”

  “Yeah, that was about the only cool thing we ever did together. My uncle’s a historian, so he spends more time reading books than anything else. Didn’t really have time for a kid.”

  “That’s horrible.” I never imagined Oliver’s story would be so…tragic.

  “It was pretty lonely,” he admitted, “but my uncle only lived a town over from my grandparents, so I was allowed to stay in the same school and be with my friends. That’s why JJ, Xander, and I got so close. They became my family.”

  “So then what happened?” I asked. I was glad that Oliver was telling me all of this, but I didn’t understand what it had to do with us.

  “Then we signed our record deal, and everything changed,” he said. “You already know most of the story: Mongo made us change our name and our music so we would be more marketable, and we went with it because it was such a great opportunity and probably our only shot. When we made it big, we thought we could transition back into our old music, but Alec’s dad wouldn’t let us. JJ tried fighting him on it, but I—I didn’t have his back.”

  “Why not?”

  Oliver sighed and his shoulders slouched. “I suppose I was afraid of what would happen if we pissed off Alec’s dad. There was this image in my head of my life falling apart: Xander going off to college, Alec starting a solo career, JJ becoming an actor, and there I’d be, all alone.” He looked back up at me, and I could see the fear still reflected in his eyes. “The band—that’s all I have, Stella. They’re my family. I wasn’t going to chance losing them.”

  His fear was understandable, but the reasoning? Not so much. “But isn’t that kind of what you did?” I asked. “You and JJ were fighting all the time, and then there were the rumors.”

  “God, I know,” he said, hanging his head. “It’s not like I knew that was going to happen. It wasn’t my goal. I was just too scared to see that JJ was right, and then you happened. I never would have played that song if it weren’t for you.”

  “And?” I said, my tone sharp. I just wanted to hear the punch line. “That doesn’t explain why you did what you did, Oliver.”

  He grimaced, and then his whole upper body—head, shoulders, arms, hands—went limp. “I’m not allowed to date,” he told me. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out. “It was one of the rules that Alec’s dad made me agree too. He thought it would make me more appealing to fans or some bullshit like that.”

  My heart began to race as all the little details, the hints and glimpses I’d seen over the past weeks, finally fell into place. “That’s why you asked to keep us a secret,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yeah, but our fans loved our old Infinity and Beyond song, and I thought we could finally show Alec’s dad that we didn’t need all his rules. I was wrong. When he found out you and I were together, he called me in for a meeting and told me I had to stop seeing you.”

  I remembered Oliver going to Mongo’s headquarters the day of the movie premiere—he’d kissed me before he left, and the next time I saw him, everything was different. All my questions had finally been answered, but that only left me with new ones.

  “Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” I exclaimed even though I knew my question was unfair. Oliver had let his fear control him, and that was something I had experience with myself. Fear made you do stupid, irrational things.

  “I don’t know, Stella,” he said, tugging on the chain around his neck. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “I’m sorry,” I responded, surprising both of us. “I understand that you couldn’t risk your family.” If I were put in the same position, I’d make the same decision as him. Of course, I never would’ve gone about it the way he did, but that wasn’t the point.

  Oliver took a hesitant step forward. “You do?” He stared at me, his face shining as he held his breath.

  “Yes,” I said, nodding my head. “But just because I understand why you did it doesn’t mean I forgive the how. What you did sucked, Oliver.”

  “Okay, I deserve that,” he said, a flush creeping across his cheeks. “I was terrible, but I figured if you hated me, then it would be easier for you to move on and be happy.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “You thought standing me up would make me happy?”

  “When you say it like that, I sound like the world’s biggest idiot.”

  “You are the world’s biggest idiot,” I said with a small smile. “Although JJ and Drew are close runners-up.” The more time I spent talking with Oliver, the more I realized that I was past being mad at him.

  A tiny smile appeared on his face too. It was there for a moment, but then it slipped away. “You’re still not going to forgive me, are you?”

  “I appreciate you taking the time to tell me the truth, so yes, I do forgive you,” I said carefully, and the uncertain look on his face turned into a grin. “But that doesn’t mean anything has changed between us.”

  His smile wavered. “Meaning what?”

  “I called Paul yesterday,” I said slowly. I didn’t know why I suddenly felt nervous about telling him this, but I could feel my pulse in the back of my throat. “I’m not coming back to work. I have enough material to keep the blog running until the end of the tour. After Cara gets better
, I’m going to college and—I don’t think I can handle seeing you again.”

  Neither of us spoke. Out in the hall I heard a woman’s voice, probably one of the nurses, followed by a response from what sounded liked my brother.

  Oliver cleared his throat. “So this is it then.” It wasn’t a question; he understood that we were really, truly over.

  “Yeah,” I said, my chin trembling. “This is it.”

  He was silent for a long time before finally nodding his head. Then he leaned over the side of the bed and placed a soft kiss on my forehead. “Good-bye, Stella,” he said in a thick voice. “Thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of your life.”

  Chapter 23

  I was right about hearing my brother out in the hall. A few minutes after Oliver left, Drew pushed open my door. “Knock, knock,” he said, rapping his knuckles against the frame. “How you feeling, Rocket?”

  “Not as bad as I thought I would,” I said. “Come in.”

  Drew hesitated for a second, lingering in the space between the hall and my room, but then stepped inside. He was quiet as he moved toward the chair where Oliver had been minutes before, and when he reached it, he smoothed out his shirt before sitting down.

  “What’s up?” I asked. Something about the way he was holding himself was strange.

  Drew shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, crossing my arms. “Clearly.”

  “Well”—he paused and fidgeted in his seat—“I guess I was wondering about Oliver.”

  “What about him?” I asked, trying my best not to sigh. If Drew was outside my room when Oliver left, the two had obviously seen each other, and although I’d known he’d ask sooner or later, I’d hoped my brother would forget to interrogate me.

  “He flew all the way out here?”

  I shrugged, trying to look casual. “Yeah. He wanted to make sure I was okay.”

  My response made him frown. “And he’s already left? That wasn’t a very long visit.”