Irregular Heartbeat

by B. A. Gabrielle

  I look down at the ground and watch the ants crawl. “There’s nothing good about being me.”

  “A voice, face, identity, style, life, mind. Those are all unique to one person,” he turns to me with a smile. “Don’t you think that’s amazing?”

  When I open my mouth to answer, I’m interrupted by the crackling sound of thunder. Clouds are gathering in the sky and the sun is slowly being concealed by looming rain clouds.

  “They didn’t forecast rain,” I murmur, holding my hand out. A raindrop hits my palm and chills my warm skin. “Hey, did you—”

  My words melt into the humid atmosphere. The cheerful smile that has remained on his face is somehow twisted. He looks upward, but his eyes aren’t focused on the sky—instead, it appears that he’s staring somewhere that’s not in this world.

  “Clear and sunny, dark and gloomy. I wonder which one I am?”

  “There’s always something coming. Good or bad, it’s gonna help you grow.”

  — Anonymous

  4

  Undisclosed Information

  April 1st, 20XX

  3:31 PM

  Spring time.

  Some say it’s the time for love, but for me it’s the complete opposite. It’s been four weeks since I’ve spoken to the boy in the hospital gown, and we’ve spoken every day since March.

  It’s now April first, April Fool’s Day.

  School’s out, so I’m standing in front of the bench. But there’s a problem—he’s nowhere to be seen. Disappointment seeps into my heart as I sit down. I run my hand across the wood, smooth and cold, and stare down at the bench. We don’t make plans to speak, so what am I getting sad about?

  “Are you waiting for someone?”

  I raise my head at the sudden voice that flows into my ears and meet the eyes of an elderly man. His eyes are a warm brown, crinkled around the corners, and a black fedora covers his salt and pepper colored hair.

  “Yes,” I say. “He always sits here.”

  “Miss,” he tilts his fedora forward with one finger. “Are you sure it’s not a ghost?”

  “That’s impossible!” I yell. A shiver goes down my spine when I think of the possibility.

  “Relax,” he laughs. “That was just one of this old man’s jokes. Don’t pay any mind to it.”

  “Oh,” I sigh, still trying to shake the thought out of my mind. A mischievous smile on his face, he places his arms behind his back.

  “His evaluation is on the first of every month, so you won’t be able to meet today,” he winks. “Try to understand. Even if he wanted to tell you, he probably couldn’t remember.”

  We’ve talked about various things, but never about why he’s in the hospital. I thought he didn’t want to talk about it, so I never brought it up. I look up at the elderly man with a small smile.

  “Could you show me to his room?” I stand and dust my skirt. “Um, Mister…”

  “DiMaggio,” he holds out his hand, and I take it. “Elliot DiMaggio.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. DiMaggio.”

  I haven’t been inside a hospital since the day I was born. He seems to know the way around the hospital well, and we soon reach a door without a nameplate. He takes a key ring out his pocket and unlocks the door.

  The room is pitch-black. I notice slight movement from the corner of my eye and stop, but Mr. DiMaggio keeps walking as if he knows the layout of the room by heart and flips the light switch up.

  The patient moans, showing their displeasure, before raising their head from underneath the covers. The white sheet falls to the bed before bundling around their small frame, and they slowly raise their body from the bed.

  It's the boy in the hospital gown.

  He rubs his eye with his knuckle and yawns before turning to look at us. He looks around the room, ignoring Mr. DiMaggio completely, before locking eyes with me. A shiver runs down my spine as he stares at me, his chocolate eyes somehow more intense than usual. But that thrill soon disappears when he speaks, his tone laced with hostility.

  “Who the hell is she?” he looks over at Mr. DiMaggio. “The new nurse?”

  Seeing my displeasure, Mr. DiMaggio turns from him and places a cold hand on my shoulder.

  “Miss Eliana,” he looks up at me from his fedora, a shadow casted over his green eyes. “It’s up to you whether you want to continue down this path. I’ll leave you to decide.”

  I don’t have time to think because he walks out the hospital room as soon as he does. When I look over at the boy, he’s writing in a notebook.

  “What are you writing?” I ask before sitting in the visitor’s chair beside his hospital bed.

  “Nothing,” he doesn’t look up from the paper. “Just trying to figure out who you are.”

  “You can just ask.” When I reach out my hand towards the notebook, he slaps my hand away. His eyes look nothing like the warm ones that welcomed me before.

  “Don’t touch it.” After spitting out those sharp words, he glares at me. Swallowing my trepidation, I stare at him, refusing to back down.

  “You’re acting weird,” I say, my voice trembling. This isn’t good. I must keep my composure. “Did something happen?”

  Without answering me, he turns the pages. I catch a glimpse of the date written at the top of the page—March 19th, the day we first met. He begins reading aloud, his tone detached.

  “March 2nd, 20XX. 4:55 PM. I sat on the bench alone again, today. I didn’t feel like doing anything, but a ray of hope appeared before my me. I wonder if this is what they call living? But for some reason, she seemed completely void of life.”

  “March 3rd, 20XX. 7:58 AM. I sat on the bench alone again, today. I wonder why I’m even alive. Humans can’t live alone, right? Then I should just die. I thought that, but suddenly, I wasn’t alone. An angel—a little rough around the edges—came and spoke to me. We spoke about various things, and she smiled at me as if we know each other. But that can’t be possible, because I’ve always been alone.”

  I tune out the rest of what he reads, my thoughts circulating in my head. I’ve sat with him every day since the first of March. So why does every entry begin with “I sat on the bench alone again, today”?

  “Hey,” I whisper. “What is that?”

  “It’s a notebook,” he answers, stating the obvious before closing it. This isn’t the person I’ve been talking to for the past four weeks. The person I’m look at right now is void of any emotion—he’s like a shell. “Memories are a tricky thing. If I don’t write them down, I won’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?” He turns to me in the bed, his eyes scrolling over my face.

  “Based on that reaction,” he says, his eyes narrowing, “you’re not the new nurse, after all.”

  His eyes look too serious for it to be a joke.

  “Then, let me give you a word of advice,” without care for my current state, he continues to stare at me with unfamiliar eyes. “No matter how many times you come and speak to me, I won’t remember who you are. Because… I don’t care to remember things that are insignificant to me.”

  His words wash over me, chilling me to the bone. The shock of his revelation and harsh words crash into another, causing my brain to overheat. I want to pinch myself, but I already know this is reality. The last thing I remember is his dark gaze as I fall into the depths of darkness.

  “Damaged people are dangerous because they know they can survive.”

  — Josephine Hart

  5

  Forgotten Feelings

  I saw a dream.

  A dream of a girl with short black hair, dark-brown eyes, and skin as light as milk chocolate. She was sitting in a field of dandelions. However, she was weeping. Just like a dandelion, with just a single blow, she would be taken away in the wind. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and when she looked behind her, there was a boy standing there. With a smile, he asked her why she was crying in a field of flowers all alone.

  “The flowers are pretty, so w
hy’re you crying?”

  Her mom recently announced her father and baby brother were moving far away. Because of that, she couldn’t do anything but run out of the house and find somewhere to release her emotions.

  “Daddy’s going far away…” she sniffs as she explains, and he listens to her without interrupting her sad tirade. “What do I do if he forgets about me?”

  She begins to cry again. Looking calm, he reaches his hand out and picks the dandelion in front of her from the dirt. Watching him twirl the stem between his fingers, her crying ceases at the sight.

  “Then all you have to do is send him your thoughts,” he says, as if it’s the simplest solution.

  “My… thoughts?” she sniffs, staring up at him with doe eyes.

  “Yeah,” he wipes a tear from her cheek. “You see, if you blow the seeds off a dandelion, then you can send your thoughts to your daddy. You can tell him ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you’ in a flash.”

  Confused, she plucks a dandelion up herself. She stares at the white puff, the boy sucking in a huge breath beside her. He blows off the seeds and turns to her with a smile, goading her to try the peculiar task.

  “So…” sniffing, she wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. “If I blow a hundred dandelions and tell him not to go, will Daddy stay?”

  Instead of answering her, he plucks another dandelion and blows the seeds off. With renewed determination, the girl blows another one as well.

  “My mommy and daddy aren’t here anymore, but I know they’re watching me from the sky,” he stares upwards, a sorrowful tinge to his brown eyes. “So, I blow dandelions to send them my thoughts. The seeds are blown into the wind and disappear up into the sky, so I’m sure they can hear me.”

  “Even though they’re up in the sky?” The girl’s gaze full of childlike curiosity, she tilts her head back and stares at the sky with him.

  “That’s right. That’s why I blow as much dandelions as I can. To tell them ‘I love you’ a hundred times. To tell them ‘I’m okay’ two hundred times. And to tell them…” his words dejected, the smile on his face turns fragile. “’I miss you’ a thousand times.”

  The boy blows another dandelion into the air, leaving his words hanging in the atmosphere. Sitting side-by-side, the girl watches the seeds float into the light blue sky and dissolve, melting into the damp air.

  Night

  7:30 PM

  When I open my eyes, brown eyes are staring down at me. I’m lying in the bed he was just occupying, him in the visitor chair. The room is dark, the only light source the orange tinge from the lamp on the bedside table. When I realize my situation, I begin to laugh—hard enough the whole room is filled with my pitiful laughter. Why?

  Because if I stop, the tears will flow.

  Embarrassment, shame, anger, confusion. Every damned emotion is seeping into my already blackened heart, giving me no time to think. I don’t want to feel anything. I would do anything to get these feelings. I need a bigger pain to release me from this situation. Right then, an unfamiliar yet nostalgic flits through my mind, it’s words sweet.

  “There’s an easy way to be rid of pain.”

  “Don’t hurt yourself.” A hand placed over my wrist breaks me out of my haze. The boy is staring at me, his face wracked with worry. But instead of comfort, all it does is bring me anger.

  “Why should I listen to you?” I shake off his hand, my eyebrows knitting together. “It’s not like you really care about me, anyway.”

  “Don’t decide that on your own,” he leans forward, brining his chair closer to the bed.

  “You’re the one who said I was insignificant,” I shrug, turning my face away. “It’s alright. I understand.”

  “You’re not listening to me at all.”

  “You’ll just forget about me tomorrow—”

  Something blocks the rest of my words. When I feel a rough texture inside my mouth, that’s when I realize it. I’m being kissed. It’s a gentle kiss tinged with melancholy, but there’s something exhilarating about it. Something that doesn’t allow me to push him away. Before I can push him away, it’s over. I don’t even have the energy to move.

  “Have I caught your attention?” he says, smiling when he sees the surprise on my face. I manage to nod. “Well, I wanted to say that… I don’t think I dislike you.”

  “You don’t sound so sure of that,” still reeling from the kiss, I respond in a weak tone.

  “I know,” he smiles, it not reaching his eyes, “but that’s the only thing I can be sure of. I must.”

  The way he says it sounds as if he has nothing else to believe in. I move my eyes around the room, examining it thoroughly this time, and realize there isn’t a single thing in here that defines him. No pictures, no video games, no poster—nothing. The only thing he has is the notebook he was so defensive about before. Multi-colored sticky notes stick out from between the pages, showing how much things he writes down daily.

  “That notebook must be very important to you,” I say, staring at it on the table. “Do you write other things in it, too?”

  “This?” he slides it off the table. “I also use it to review things about you.”

  “Review?” I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

  “Your favorite food is lasagna, your favorite color is red, and you’re in your final year of high school. You live with your mom who always comes home late, so that’s why you get lonely easily. You don’t like candy, but you love chocolate. You also have a stalker ex-boyfriend—”

  “You’re the one that sounds like a stalker!” I snatch the notebook out his hand, my face burning with heat. From the surprise kiss to knowing all sorts of personal things about me, he’s bound to give me a heart attack. “Isn’t there something more interesting than me to write about? Like your favorite candy, or the person you like…”

  “My favorite candy is caramel, and the person I like is you,” he answers without a lick of shame. His eyes shine with innocence, making his words more effective. “Isn’t that interesting?”

  …I can’t let my guard down around him.

  Trying to hide my embarrassment, I flip through the white pages. In-between each line of 2B paper, he writes the date, time, and location. The handwriting on each page changes from beautiful to horrid, but there’s one consistent thing about it. At the bottom of each page, my name is written in underlined letters—“Eliana Harper.”

  “Hm?” He looks down at my hands, wondering why they suddenly stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  “How do you know my name?” I ask, turning the notebook around so he can see. “I never told you what it was.”

  “My grandfather told me. He’s the owner of this hospital.”

  When I turn to look outside the window, “DiMaggio Hospital” is written on a spinning sign. I thought that he knew his way around the hospital, but I never would have guessed that old man would be the owner, much less his grandfather.

  But something still doesn’t sit right with me. How does his grandfather know my full name? I’ve never met him before, and yet he acted as if we’ve known each other for ages. The more I think about, the less I understand.

  “Enough about me,” he takes the notebook from my lap and stares at me in concern. “How are you feeling? The nurses told me you had a panic attack, but they wouldn’t tell me why.”

  “It was…” I stop, trying to find a way to put this gently.

  “What?” he panics, checking my forehead with his hand. “I hurt you, didn’t I? I’m sorry—”

  “You didn’t hurt me,” I say, before thinking about it more. “Well, not physically.”

  “It was him, wasn’t it?” his eyes turn dull. “He always does that. Whenever I make progress with someone, he pushes them away from me.”

  “Hey,” I place my hand on his. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Remember when I told you I’ve been in the hospital all my life?” I nod. He continues, his eyes staring into the blank space behind me. “I know
I said that, but I can only remember up to when I first got admitted. I can remember that I was eight, but anything before that is a blank in my mind.”

  After listening without interrupting, I speak. “So, you have amnesia?”

  He shakes his head. The hand covering his clenches into a fist, revealing how hard this is to talk about. Nonetheless, I wait until he’s ready. Smiling, the look somehow sad, he answers.

  “I have dissociative identity disorder.”

  Dissociative identity disorder—otherwise known as multiple-personality disorder. I don’t know much about it besides the fact that some people are not aware of the other personality residing within them.

  “One half would hurt the people closest to me, and the other half would forget everything. As time went on, more people began to disappear from my side. Before I knew it, I was all alone,” he stares down at his lap, playing with his fingers. “And in the end, I hurt you, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if you choose to leave me either—”

  “Who said that?” I say, interrupting his pity party. “I’m going to keep speaking to you, dissociative identity disorder or not.”

  “But… didn’t you hear me?” he says, his face smeared with confusion. “I said horrible things to you, and I might say even worse things the more we spend time together.”

  “I can handle a little name calling,” I raise my arm before placing my hand over it. “I’m bullied at school all the time.”

  “Is that something to be proud of?”

  “Anyway,” I lower my arm, a sheepish smile on my face. “Just because one side of you doesn’t like me, it won’t stop me from talking to you. I’ll keep approaching you until all of you accepts me.”

  There may be a lot of problems ahead of us, but if we can accept each other, it’ll work out. He’s the one who made me think if what I was doing was wrong, so I want to help him in any way I can. Even if it means I must visit him every day, I will make sure he remembers me by the time I’m gone.