by Tillie Cole
“Bipolar.” I thought of his bright painting when I first arrived. The shouting over the mic in the Barn. The late nights. The drinking. The crazy behavior . . . then the darkness. The way the color around him changed from purples and greens to blacks and grays. His paintings. Him unable to get out of bed.
“He’s good at pretending he’s okay.” I faced Bonnie again and thought of his wide smiles around her, but his moods when he was here. Bonnie’s eyes dropped. I threaded my fingers through hers. She stared at the entwined hands. “He’s tried before.”
I froze. Bonnie held it together, showing the strength she had inside her, even if her eyes screamed out their pain. “His leather cuffs.”
Realization dawned. “He’d slit his wrists before?”
Bonnie nodded. “He gets moments of extreme highs and horrific lows. When the lows hit, it’s the worst. He’s been up and down for years. But he’s been doing so much better lately.” Her shallow inhale was labored. “He’s admitted to being off his meds. He said he found them stifling, creatively. But he’s back on them now. He needs them to keep his moods even.”
We sat in silence for five minutes while she took a break. While she fought harder to breathe. I held her the whole time, just memorizing this moment. What she felt like beside me. Here, right now.
Everything that was her.
“He’s stable.” I relaxed as she spoke those words. Then Bonnie was looking into my eyes. Her lips trembled and her eyes glistened. “You were sent to me.” She smiled, purple lips spread wide. “To get me through this.” My vision blurred at her words. “Or to have shown me . . . how this felt.” I stilled. “Love . . . before it is too late.”
“No.” I pulled her closer. I wanted to pull her so close that the strength of my heart could breathe life into hers. “You’re going to get a heart, Bonnie. I refuse to think otherwise.”
Bonnie’s sad smile ripped my chest in half. “It is . . . getting harder.” She closed her eyes and breathed. Her chest rattled, and the movements were erratic. When her eyes opened again, she said, “I am fighting. I will keep on fighting . . . But if I have to, I can go . . . knowing how this felt.” She stroked my face, ran her finger over my lips. “What it felt like to love you. To know you . . . to hear your soul through your music.”
I shook my head, not wanting to hear it. “I won’t lose you,” I said and kissed her forehead. I inhaled her peach and vanilla scent. I tasted her addictive sweetness on my tongue. “I can’t live without you.”
“Cromwell . . .” I met Bonnie’s eyes. She swallowed. “Even if I get a heart . . . it is not always the answer.”
“What do you mean?”
“My body could reject it.” I shook my head, refusing to believe it. “Then there’s how long I can live beyond the surgery. Some people only live a year . . . some can live between five and ten.” She lifted her chin. “And . . . some can live for twenty-five years or more.” She lowered her eyes. “We won’t know until we know.”
“Then you’ll live beyond twenty-five years. You’ll do it, Bonnie. You’ll sing again. You’ll breathe and run and play your guitar.”
Bonnie tucked her head into me, and I heard her soft cries. So I held her tight. After a while the quiet hum of the oxygen machine and her starved breaths were the soundtrack to the moment. Until her breaths evened out, and she fell asleep in my arms.
But I didn’t sleep.
An opening sonata started playing in my head, keeping me awake. I closed my eyes and listened to the music telling me the story of us. Watched the colors dance like fireworks on the fifth of November. With Bonnie’s scent in my nose and her taste on my tongue, I let the symphony wash over me. I let it keep me warm.
We stayed that way for hours, until sleep claimed me too.
When I woke, it was with Bonnie in my arms . . . exactly where she was forever meant to be.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bonnie
Two weeks later . . .
“I like it . . .” I said as Cromwell played the violin at the end of the bed. I watched his bow work, mesmerized at how somebody could play such an array of instruments so well.
My stomach tensed as I tried to breathe through my tight chest. But it didn’t help. Cromwell closed his eyes and played the passage we had just written again. I said “we,” but in reality it was all him. I couldn’t fool myself when it came to composing with someone like Cromwell. He took the lead. How could he not, when all he had to do was follow his heart?
And I was tired. I was so tired. In the last ten days, I hadn’t left my bed once. I glanced down to my legs. They were thin on the bed. I was unable to move. Yet Cromwell came every day. He kissed me as much as he could, held me against him when I was cold.
I sometimes wondered if my heart felt it too. Felt what my soul felt when he whispered in my ear how much he loved me. How much he adored me. And how I was going to get through this.
I wanted to believe that. I did. But I’d never realized I would get this tired. I’d never realized I would feel so much pain. But when I looked into Cromwell’s eyes, my mama’s and papa’s eyes, and when I thought of Easton, I knew I had to hold on.
I couldn’t lose them.
The sound of a car door opening came from outside. Cromwell paused in jotting down notes on our sheet music. My fingers tingled, knowing who it would be. Easton was coming home today. He had been at a rehab center just outside of Charleston that his therapist recommended. One that could help him get back to a safe place. One that could equip him with the tools he needed to battle his darker thoughts. And I’d missed him. I hadn’t seen him except that first night at the hospital.
Cromwell stood when the front door opened. My heart seemed to pound in my chest, but it must have been a phantom beat. I knew it didn’t have that kind of strength.
Cromwell sat beside me on my bed, holding my hand as the door to my room opened. Easton’s head was bowed, and his wrists were bound in bandages. But he was my brother. And he looked just the same as always.
Tears fell down my cheeks as he stood awkwardly in the doorway. He didn’t look up. Cromwell released my hand and crossed the room. Easton flicked his gaze up at him, and Cromwell pulled him into his arms. I couldn’t help it then. Seeing the two of them there, the victim and his savior, I fell apart. Easton’s back shook as Cromwell held him close.
They stayed that way for a few minutes, until Easton lifted his head and his eyes collided with mine. “Bonn,” he whispered, and his face contorted seeing me in the bed. It was like he couldn’t move. So I lifted my hand and held it out for him to take. He wavered, until Cromwell put a hand on his shoulder.
“She’s missed you, East,” Cromwell said. I loved that boy so much. So impossibly much.
Easton came slowly, but when he sank to the edge of the bed and took my hand, I pulled him close. Easton hugged me, and I held on, just having him back in my arms. In my world.
“I love you, East.”
“Love you, Bonn.”
I held him for as long as I could. Then my IV beeped and Clara came back into the room. She gave Easton a smile and quickly changed my IV bag. I had to get fluids. But on top of that, I also now had a PICC line in my arm. I could no longer eat, so I needed to get nutrition this way. Easton watched, his eyes still sad. When Clara left, Easton sat on the seat beside my bed. And like he did every day, brazen as he was, Cromwell climbed on my bed beside me and took hold of my hand.
“How are you?” I asked, a lump in my throat.
Easton’s eyes shone. His head dropped. “I’m sorry.” He looked at Cromwell. “Sorry, Crom.”
I went to speak, but Easton said, “I just couldn’t do it anymore.” He sucked in a breath. I would have taken one in too if I could. “I’d stopped taking my meds. And it all got on top of me . . .”
I held out my other hand and he took it. “I . . . I need you,” I whispered.
Easton met my eyes and finally nodded his head. “I know you do, Bonn.” He gave me a weak s
mile. “I’ll be here. I promise.”
I exhaled and tried to read his face. He seemed tired, withdrawn. But he was here. Easton leaned forward. “How are you?” His eyes scanned the machines that had been brought into my room.
“Holding on,” I said, and his face fell. Cromwell kissed my shoulder, his hand gripping mine tighter.
I cast my eyes out of the window. “What’s it like . . . out there?” I never knew a person could miss the sun so much. Miss the wind, and even the rain.
“Nice,” Easton said. I smiled to myself at my brother’s one-word answer. I would never have described it that way. I wanted to know what color the leaves on the trees were. If it was cooler than ten days ago. What the lake looked like in the evening now the nights were growing darker.
“Nice,” I said, and Easton smirked.
“So?” Easton asked, a hint of my happy brother shining through his voice. “What have you been composing?” I didn’t think he actually cared, but I loved him for trying.
Cromwell reached into his pocket and pulled out his audio recorder. He always recorded what we played and then transferred it to my cell so I could listen to it. He played the parts we’d created, and even the rough mixes of how all the instrument sections would flow together.
Easton’s mouth hung open. “Was that you playing all those instruments?” he asked Cromwell.
Cromwell’s face burst into flames. “Yes,” I answered for him.
Easton frowned. “Who wrote the music?”
“Both—”
“Cromwell,” I interrupted. Cromwell looked at me, eyes narrowed. I couldn’t help but smile. “It’s true . . .” This was his work. This was all him.
Easton sat back in his seat and shook his head. “So the EDM star is into classical music.”
Cromwell’s mouth twitched. “It’s all right.”
Easton laughed, taking Cromwell’s lips from hooked to a full smile. The sound and sight of the happiness lit up my world.
It wasn’t long before I fell asleep. When I woke, it was to Clara checking my heartbeat with her stethoscope. “Still beating?” I asked, our usual joke slipping from my lips.
Clara smiled. “Still holding on.”
Cromwell and Easton sat across the room. They were talking in low voices, heads close together. Cromwell turned, as if he’d sensed I was awake.
He came over and kissed me. Clara laughed and left the room. He sat on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling, baby?”
Baby. He’d just started calling me that. I loved it about as much as I loved him.
“Okay.” I rubbed my hand across my chest.
Cromwell lifted the stethoscope from the side table. “Can I listen?”
I nodded. Cromwell put the cold stethoscope against my chest and closed his eyes. I watched as they flickered underneath his closed lids. I wondered what he was seeing. What colors and shapes. Then he reached into his pocket and put the small microphone attached to the recorder under the edge of the stethoscope. He stayed that way for a few minutes, then he opened his eyes, moving his head back. Without my having to ask, he played the recording. I breathed in through my nose, taking in a deep lungful of oxygen as the stuttered, labored sound of my failing heart echoed around the room.
It was practically singing that it was giving up.
“Do Easton’s,” I said. Cromwell looked confused, but he did as I asked. The beat was strong. I knew it would be.
“Now yours. I want to hear yours.”
Cromwell put the stethoscope over his heart, but this time he gave me the earbuds. The sound of his beating heart pounded into my ears. And I smiled.
This was the music of his heart.
“Beautiful,” I said.
I could have listened to it all day.
*****
Three days later . . .
“Where are we going?” I asked as Cromwell helped me into my wheelchair. Clara had come into my room an hour ago and had taken me off my food bag from my PICC line. She had attached the small oxygen tank onto my pipe and helped me get dressed.
Cromwell pushed me to the door. My pulse seemed to build up speed as I passed my mama and papa. “Not too long, okay?” Mama told Cromwell.
“I know. I won’t push it.”
“What’s happening?”
Cromwell bent down in front of me and laid his palm softly on my cheek. “We’re getting you some fresh air.”
My lips parted as the door opened, revealing a sunny day. I was wrapped up in Cromwell’s thick black sweater, a coat, and blankets. But I didn’t care if I looked ridiculous. I was going outside. I didn’t care where.
I was going outside.
Cromwell pushed me out onto the path. He paused. I wondered if he knew I just wanted to feel the light breeze on my face. That I wanted to hear the birds singing in the trees.
His mouth came to my ear. “You ready?”
“Mmm.”
Cromwell led me to his truck and settled me into the passenger seat. As his face moved past mine, he paused and pressed a single gentle kiss to my lips.
They tingled as he shut the door and got into the driver’s seat. He threaded his hand through mine. He never let go as he drove slowly out of my street and onto the country roads.
I stared out of the window, watching the world pass us by. I loved this world. I loved my life. I wasn’t sure many people thought that on a day-to-day basis. But it was often my most poignant thought.
I wanted to live. I wanted the possibilities that lay ahead. I wanted to see the countries I’d only ever dreamed of visiting. Cromwell squeezed my hand. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. I wanted to hear the music Cromwell would create. I wanted to be beside him, seeing his work come to life.
Cromwell took a right down a country road. The lake was this way. As his truck entered the parking area, I saw a small wooden boat, two oars ready at its side, waiting at the end of the wooden dock.
My blood warmed with affection. I turned to Cromwell. “A boat . . .”
Cromwell nodded, putting his hooded leather jacket on over his thick black sweater. He looked so handsome like this. “You said you like to be on the lake.” Half of me melted at the sweetness this gesture held. But the other stilled. Cromwell had said we would do this after my heart came. When I was better.
I wasn’t a fool. And nor was he.
The days kept passing. And with every fading minute, I grew weaker and weaker.
The heart may never come. Which meant that this ride would never come. My lip trembled as he looked at me, a sudden rush of fear taking me in its grip.
Cromwell quickly leaned in and pressed his forehead to mine. “I still believe you’ll get the heart, baby. I just wanted to give you this now. Get you out of the house. I’m not giving up.”
The tension in me drained away on hearing the sincerity in his voice. “Okay,” I whispered back. Cromwell kissed me again and got out of the truck. I was sure I’d never get sick of his kisses. When he opened my door and the cool breeze drifted through, I closed my eyes and just breathed. I could smell the green of the leaves. The freshness of the lake.
And of course I could smell Cromwell. His leather jacket. The musk of the cologne he wore, and the faint smell of cigarette smoke.
“You ready?”
I smiled and nodded my head. Cromwell lifted me out of the truck and picked up my oxygen tank. As we walked slowly down the dock, I neglected looking at the lake for just a few minutes. Instead I stared at Cromwell. At his olive skin. At the stubble on his cheeks. At the blue of his eyes and the long black lashes that framed their unique color.
Despite its weakness, in this moment my heart felt strong. And I was sure that if you were to look into its depths, Cromwell was who you would see. Cromwell must have felt me looking, as he peeked down at me. I wasn’t even embarrassed about it. “You’re so handsome . . .” I said, my voice swept away by the breeze.
Cromwell stopped dead. His eyes closed for a moment. Then he leaned down a
nd kissed me again. Butterfly wings fluttered in my chest. When he pulled back, I slipped my hand from around his neck and placed it on his cheek. Telling him without words how I felt.
After all, love was beyond words.
Cromwell stepped into the boat. It rocked slightly as he lowered me onto the seat. I leaned back and took a deep breath. Cromwell laid a blanket around me then took the oars in his hands. “Do . . . do you know what you’re doing?” I asked.
His wide smile took away the small amount of breath I had in my lungs. “Just thought I’d wing it.” We pulled off onto the lake, and Cromwell quickly got the hang of using the oars. I smiled as we glided along the still water, the oars rippling the water around us. Cromwell met my eyes and winked. I couldn’t help but laugh. The sound came out as a wheeze, but even that didn’t stop me from cherishing the moment.
I decided I liked this side of Cromwell best. The one where he was free. Where he was funny, no walls guarding his heart. He looked off to the side of the lake, where the trees were thicker, as if they were cocooning us into a private world just for us. And I was struck. Struck that this boy from England, the prince of EDM, was here with me right now. The boy who was born with a melody in his heart and a symphony in his soul was on this, my favorite lake, rowing us along the water like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I hadn’t wanted anyone else in my life for fear of what would happen if I lost this fight. But now I was here, with Cromwell, him becoming my oar, helping me sail down this lake, I knew it could never have been any other way.
We moved in silence, just the birds singing and the rustling of the leaves as our soundtrack. As a bird sang, I looked up and then at Cromwell. “Mustard yellow,” he said. I smiled, then looked at the rustling leaves almost touching the lake from an overhanging branch. “Bronze.”
I pulled the blanket higher over me when a chill started building at my toes. I closed my eyes and listened to the mustard-yellow and bronze notes.
I opened my eyes when I heard the sound of Mozart’s Fourth Symphony. Cromwell had stopped rowing and had placed his cell next to him.
