Irregular Heartbeat

by B. A. Gabrielle

  “I was right,” he says, finally cracking a genuine smile. “You really are an interesting girl.”

  He’s shown me many expressions in the short time we’ve spent together, but this smile is the one I want him to keep forever. Scrunching the sheets together in my hands, I look down.

  On that day, he took a piece of my heart.

  “You have to be happy with your own company before you try to accompany someone else.”

  — Anonymous

  6

  Revelation

  June 1st, 20XX

  2:14 PM

  It’s the first month of summer.

  The day I left the hospital, I learned his name—Hayden. I’ve been doing my best to leave my mark in his memories, but he forgets everything the next day. It’s been two months. If he could show me even a little bit of recognition when I approach him, I would be overjoyed.

  “Hayden…”

  “It looks like Eliana wants to answer the question.” I snap out my daze. I’m in the middle of class, daydreaming like an idiot. When the bell rings, I run outside and towards the hospital, thankful the school day is over.

  Afternoon

  3:54 PM

  I walk down the familiar sidewalk, turning over the hard-caramel candy in my mouth. It’s ironic—trust me, I know—but after talking to Hayden, I started eating it whenever I felt down.

  “Caramel? I think it’s delicious.”

  Just thinking about it is enough to make me blush. Memories or not, he’s a dangerous one. I spot the bench ahead of me before setting my eyes on him. He’s staring at the ground, his eyes empty.

  “Hello,” I stop in front of him. He stays in his position, his eyes fixated on the concrete floor. “Do you mind if I sit next to you?”

  I don’t wait for his answer before plopping down onto the wooden bench. Even though we’re sitting side-by-side, the distance between us is as wide as ever. I sift through my backpack.

  “It’s summer now, so my school store opened up a candy shop,” I hold out my hand. An oval lay in my palm, wrapped in cellophane. “It’s caramel. Do you want one?”

  As if he’s finally heard me, he lifts his head. He looks from my palm to my hand before setting his eyes on mine. They’re unusually dull compared to the brightness of his personality, but I have no time to think about it when he raises his hand.

  “It’s good,” I say, encouraging him when he stops moving. I let out a breath of relief as his hand grows closer to mine—or at least, that’s what I thought he was reaching for. Slipping past my arm, he grabs my wrist and tugs me towards him until our faces are mere inches apart.

  And then, it happens.

  The heat of his lips, the softness of his tongue, the texture of his mouth—all of it is overwhelming, enough to make my head spin. He opens my lips with his tongue before I feel it snake itself inside my mouth. It’s not until he moves away, a transient string of saliva connecting us, that I realize the caramel in my mouth is gone.

  “You’re right.” Turning over the stolen candy in his mouth, he bites down. “It is good.”

  “You…” I stutter. “What was that?”

  “You were offering, right?” he places his hands on the bench. “All I did was take it.”

  “Th one in my hand!” I hold out my palm. “Not my mouth!”

  “Then you should have said so earlier,” he ends the conversation as easily as that. I scoot over to make space between us.

  “I’ve never seen this one before,” I murmur. His arms crossed against his chest, he turns to me.

  “So, he told you,” he says. “I’m surprised.”

  “He?” I repeat. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Who else?” he sighs, uncrossing his arms and lying them on his lap. “Hayden.”

  “Who are you?” I ask, touching my lips. He’s more direct, while the other is considerate of other’s feelings. “You remember me, don’t you?”

  “That’s right,” he smiles, but I feel malice lurking beneath it. “I remember everything, and all the things he doesn’t want to—including you.”

  Is the reason I’m being erased from his memories have to do with me? If that’s true, then…

  “So?” I mutter. To myself, him or both of us—I don’t know. “What does that matter?”

  “Huh?” he blinks, surprised by my answer.

  The first time I saw him, I already knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I’ve never been so interested in someone with just a glance. I turn to him, my eyes showing my determination, as I inch my face closer to his.

  “I told you before, didn’t I? I’ll keep approaching you until all of you accepts me,” I smile. “That includes you, of course.”

  Even if he doesn’t want to remember me, I’ll be sure to engrave myself in his memories. His eyes widen as he takes in my words, before finally, he closes them and leans away from me.

  “Hayden?” I say his name, but he doesn’t move. He just remains silent with his eyes closed. “Are you taking a nap?”

  I wave my hand in front of his face. He’s so still it’s scary. I’m about to pull my hand away, but he snatches my wrist before I can. He finally turns to me with a bright smile painted across his face.

  “You pass.” That’s all he says before releasing my hand. He looks down at the ground, his eyes narrowing. “…It’s going to take way more than me to push her away.”

  “What?” He whispers something, but it’s so low I can’t hear him. He places a finger on my lips.

  “Now that you’ve got my stamp of approval, all you have left is him. Good luck.”

  Before I can ask him to explain, he stands and walks towards the hospital. I watch his figure disappear into the double doors from my spot on the bench, my mind reeling from our exchange.

  In the end, which Hayden was that?

  “…I guess it doesn’t matter,” I convince myself to believe that before returning home.

  “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

  — Edith Wharton

  7

  Uncertain Past

  June 7th, 20XX

  2:50 PM

  I don’t have to check my phone vibrating in my pocket to know it’s my mom. She’s staying late again. The harsh summer heat shines down on me as I lean against a nearby tree and I close my eyes for a quick rest. When I open them, they latch on to a familiar figure. Target name: Hayden.

  I’m on an important mission—operation: find out more about him. I turn my head and glance at him from behind the tree, but our eyes meet. Flustered, I look away, but not before tripping on a rock.

  “Are you okay?” Hayden yells, running towards me. I watch him kneel in front of me. He reaches out to touch my ankle, but I yelp when I feel a sharp pain run up my leg. “I think it’s sprained. You need to put ice on it right away.”

  “I’m fine. I’ve been hurt worse than this—”

  “No,” he says, shutting me down. “You need to treat it quickly or the pain will get worse.”

  I can’t say anything back when he sounds so serious. I notice he’s wearing a yellow gown instead of the usual white and there’s a red band around his wrist. He turns so his back is facing me.

  “…You want to play leap-frog?”

  “Hop on,” he says. “I’ll carry you.”

  “That’s dangerous,” I look down at the ground. “I’m a stranger. What if I harmed you?”

  “But you’re not a stranger, right?” he turns around. “That’s why you were staring at me.”

  “I wasn’t staring at you,” I say, my face burning. “I was staring… at the bench!”

  “It’s just like I thought,” he laughs. “You must be Eliana. You’re as interesting as I read.”

  “You read the notebook?” I mumble. “I see. So that’s how you remembered me.”

  Even after four months, I’m still not very memorable.

  “It’s true I read then notebook, but that’s not how I rem
embered you, you know?”

  “Then how—”

  “You’re scars,” he touches my wrist with his finger, right where my pulse is. He traces the scar gently as if he’s afraid it’ll hurt me, leaving a trail of warmth behind. “Every time we meet, you have this scar to remind me of who you are.”

  “It’s faded over the years,” I wrap my arms around his neck and lean forward, pushing my chest against his back. “You barely notice it.”

  “You’re right,” he stands. His gown is light and airy, enabling me to feel the warmth of his body. “But even if it fades away, I can tell. Because it’s still a part of you that I like.”

  Like. He uses that word a lot. I need to say something before I take his words the wrong way.

  “The last time someone carried me like this, I was five,” I murmur, basking in the thoughts of my happy childhood. “I fell from a tree. My dad yelled at me so much I cried, but in the end, carried me on his back all the way home from the park.”

  “He sounds like a good dad.”

  “Yeah,” I lean closer to him. “He was.”

  “Was?” I tighten my arms around his neck.

  “He left,” I murmur. “I haven’t seen him in years. It’s been me and my mom ever since.”

  I would love to say I’m over it, but I know I’d only be lying to myself. If I were really over my dad leaving us, I wouldn’t have had that dream. My mom never told me why, and that did nothing but deepen the wound and distrust I have for people.

  “But there was one good thing that came out of him leaving.”

  He stops to hike me up higher on his back before I can slip off. “And what was that?”

  I smile. “A new meeting.”

  The dandelion boy. If not for the panic attack I had, I never would have remembered him. He helped lessen the pain when I most needed it and was always there when I wished for it.

  “Hmm,” Hayden hums, sounding somewhat disgruntled. “So, it was a boy.”

  “What—” I fumble over my words before clearing my throat. “All I said was a new meeting. I didn’t say whether it was a boy or a girl!”

  “Would you be denying it that much if it were a girl?” he turns his head. “I don’t think so.”

  He’s a sharp one. “…It was a boy.”

  “And?” he asks, facing forward again. “In the end, what happened to the boy?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember much about him besides the fact he was nice,” I smile, my eyes narrowing, “and how sad I was when he disappeared from my life.”

  “…I’m kind of jealous.”

  Our conversation ends on his short whisper, and the automatic hospital doors open. We walk past the front desk lady flipping through a teen magazine, her paying us no attention. He carries me through the hallway, and I examine each door. There’s a nameplate plastered next to each patient’s door with their name and condition.

  “The doctors and nurses call this section The Irregular Ward,” Hayden says. “Everyone in Section 2-D has conditions normal patients don’t.”

  “Conditions?” he looks towards a nameplate.

  “For example, look over there,” his eyes point me to a black and white nameplate. “Do you know what Cotard’s Delusion is?”

  “No,” I frown. “What is it?”

  “It’s a mental disorder when you think you’re missing body parts, or dead,” he stops. “It also makes the person detached from feeling anything. It’s… a complicated thing to live with.”

  I look towards the nameplate, this time with more information. It’s amazing how different something looks when you know all the details. The black and white color of the nameplate now brings nothing but sadness to my heart. I step down from him and lean against the wall, taking care not to put any pressure on my other foot.

  “Once we put ice on it, you’ll feel much better,” he smiles. I wait for him to open the door, but he stops mid-way. Frowning, I look inside.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Miss Eliana.”

  Mr. DiMaggio is sitting on his bed, his arms crossed over another, and giving me a polite smile. Hayden looks as surprised as I do that he’s here, and I can’t help but feel like he planned this. It all feels calculated—too calculated. He stands, taking his cane in his hand and placing it on the floor.

  “Why don’t you come inside?” he says, beckoning us over to the bed. Hayden helps me walk inside and elevates my ankle on pillow. Once I’m comfortable, he looks at Mr. DiMaggio.

  “Grandfather,” he walks to him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Ice,” he says the one word in a detached voice before moving towards the curtains. “Go.”

  Hayden looks at me before walking out the room, leaving me and Mr. DiMaggio in the room.

  He opens the curtains to let light into the room.

  “I’m sure you were busy,” I break the ice first. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “No, you saved me,” he chuckles. “Running a hospital isn’t the most enjoyable job in the world.”

  “Really?” I say, my tone clipped.

  “Enough about me,” he leans forward, his hands placed on his walking stick. “How are you?”

  “Is that a roundabout way to ask me about me and Hayden?”

  “You’re quite sharp, Miss Eliana,” he says, smiling. “Have you had a lot of problems lately?”

  “Mr. DiMaggio, may I ask you something?”

  “Call me Elliot.”

  “Mr. DiMaggio, may I ask you something?”

  “I see you’re not going to budge.”

  “I want you to tell me more about Hayden,” I continue like he didn’t say anything, earning me a sigh. “Since you’re his Grandfather, I was hoping to gain some more information from you.”

  “Well,” he leans back. “I’m sure you’re already aware of his condition—dissociative identity disorder, correct?”

  “Yes,” I nod. “Has he always had it?”

  He tips his head downward, and a shadow falls over his eyes from his fedora. “No. It probably… came from trauma.”

  “Trauma?” I find myself leaning closer to him as my interest grows. “What do you mean?”

  “He was six,” he starts, his eyes growing hazy as he reminisces. “His parents worked oversees as interpreters, so they didn’t spend that much time together. On his sixth birthday, they scheduled a flight home to celebrate. But,” his eyes grow dark. “The flight attendant was drunk.”

  Having such a small child deal with the death of his parents is cruel. I can only imagine the hope he had waiting for them all day to find out they were never coming—that they never would.

  “And that’s what caused it?” I thought I guessed right, but Mr. DiMaggio shakes his head.

  “That was but the catalyst,” he says. “After learning the news, he ran out the house. When he came back after a few hours, we felt there was something off about him. He looked the same, but acted different. He would say spiteful things, so no one wanted him. In the end, he was handed off to me when the psychological evaluation stated he had dissociative identity disorder.”

  I grasp the sheets. “I want to help him. If there’s something I can do, I’d do anything.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “…Mr. DiMaggio?” I lift my head. His eyes darken as he smiles at me. When he responds, his voice is void of any previous emotion it held.

  “He deserves to stay that way forever.”

  Fear. That’s the feeling that permeates my blood when his words reach my ears. This old man—as his own grandfather and the one who is supposed to be taking care of his grandchild, wants to make Hayden suffer for the rest of his life.

  When I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, I jump. I check the screen and am surprised to see a message from my mother. When I check it, it’s enough to drain the color from my face.

  “Your dad is here.”

  “Can you remember who you were before people told you who you ought to be?”

  �
�� Anonymous

  8

  Boiling Point

  June 7th, 20XX

  6:32 PM

  If this was the way I was supposed to be reunited with my dad, I never expected it to be with Hayden. Because of my sprained ankle, Mr. DiMaggio told Hayden to carry me to my house. The hospital, my school, and my house are all in walking distance of each other, so at best it should be a thirty-minute trek. He’s been eerily quiet.

  “Um, Hayden?” I say. “Are you upset?”

  The clouds cover the full moon in the sky, making the evening ear chillier than usual. It’s a welcome change from the blazing summer sun.

  “Hell yeah,” he sighs. “Damn it. Why is that old bastard making me do this?”

  I’ve heard that sharp tone before. It’s the rude Hayden I met in the hospital. I haven’t gotten used to him switching between personalities yet, but I manage to speak back this time.

  “You could have just said no.”

  “You don’t know anything,” he snaps. “If I could deny him, I wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  His words take me back to the exchange I had with Mr. DiMaggio. We were interrupted in the middle of our conversation, but from what I heard, I don’t feel like talking to him ever again.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, my breath melting into the humid air. “It’s my fault.”

  “What are you apologizing for?” he sighs, shaking his head. “This is why I don’t like you. You have no self-esteem.”

  It hurts, but he’s right. I lift my head when I see the porch light. He walks up the steps and presses the doorbell, looking unfazed. He said he’s been in the hospital for all his life, but he doesn’t look nervous in the least to meet a stranger.

  “Eliana, where have you—” My mom freezes when she opens the door. She’s still in her work clothes, including her red-hot heels and tight bun. She adjusts her glasses as she stares at Hayden.