Everything I Thought I Knew

by Shannon Takaoka

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi,” he answers.

  It takes me a second to remember what I’m even supposed to be doing. Giving Kai a lift.

  But instead of asking where we are going, I do something else, something that “Before Chloe” would probably never do: I make the first move. Leaning across the gear shift, I reach my hand behind his neck and pull him close for a kiss. His lips — which are perfect in every possible way — taste like salt. And then he’s leaning in to me and kissing me back, one hand cradling my face, the other buried in my hair. I brush up against the steering wheel and the unexpected blare of the horn makes us both jump, and then laugh, and for a moment there’s an awkward, butterflies-in-your-stomach silence that I break by climbing toward Kai on the passenger side.

  “Is this okay?” I ask.

  His lips are already on mine again as he answers, “Yes. Absolutely. Okay.”

  I almost can’t believe that after all this time thinking about what it would be like to kiss him, to touch him, that this is really happening. Some things are like I imagined, some not. Up close, he does smell like the ocean, a combination of sunscreen, seawater, and that nowhere-but-here essence I notice when I open my car windows on the way to the beach. Like wind, tinged with brine. I expected his black hair to be silky, but it is thick and coarse. I expected his lips to be rough, but they are soft. And Kai, always calm, always seemingly in control, is not his usual chilled-out self. I can feel his entire body vibrating with an energy that’s different . . . more wired and uncontained.

  Moonlight floods the parking lot and the inside of my car. I just want to freeze this moment, drop a pin to mark it on the map of my mind. But then I remember why we left the beach in the first place.

  “Your dog,” I whisper into his ear. “You need to let out your dog.”

  He rests his forehead against mine, catching his breath.

  “Damn it. My dog.”

  Kai calls a neighbor, who has a key and can let out the dog. I silently give thanks for neighbors, for cell phones, for spare keys. His lips are on my earlobe, and my mouth again. I twine my arms around his neck. But then he leans back to look at me.

  “Chloe.”

  “Kai.”

  His eyes, which appear almost gold tonight, seem to glow in the dark.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks.

  Tomorrow. I hadn’t been thinking that far ahead.

  “I have no plans,” I say, smiling and lightly kissing his lips. I can’t get enough of them.

  “There’s this band I’ve been wanting to see . . . maybe we can go together?”

  I think he wants me to know that tonight is more than just tonight. It’s the beginning of something.

  “That sounds great,” I say. “Let’s do that.” Together. I hesitate for a moment. “You know, I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since you told me about the time you caught your first wave when you were six.”

  Kai laughs. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you since the day we met. I win.”

  “You win,” I whisper. “Now, no more talking.”

  Kai moves one hand to my hip, and with the other he traces the pulse along the side of my neck. I slip my hands under his shirt, where heat radiates off his skin. Our kiss deepens, the air around us crackles, and, as he runs a finger over the scar that peeks out of the neckline of my dress, I slide my palm to the center of his chest. Our heartbeats, both hammering hard, so close, are almost indistinguishable.

  And then, so suddenly that it takes my breath away, an icy stab of pain shoots through me. Like a cold, sharp knife, plunged straight into my heart.

  I gasp, clutch the seat behind Kai to keep myself upright. My body breaks out in a clammy sweat. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

  Something is terribly, terribly wrong.

  Kai’s hands are on either side of my face. He’s talking to me, or yelling even, but I can barely hear him. Why can’t I hear him?

  I am underwater.

  I am speeding toward a tunnel.

  I am crashing into pavement.

  I am drowning in the sea.

  “Chloe! Chloe! What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Kai’s voice breaks through but then gets fainter, distorted. His features are falling in and out of focus. He is a shape in the fog, a shadow hovering above the water’s surface. I reach out to grab his hand, but I feel him being pulled away.

  I reach out again, but he is gone.

  And then everything goes dark.

  I wake up in the worst place on earth. The hospital ICU.

  Machines beep and hum all around me. A pulse oximeter is clipped to my finger. An arterial line is attached to my wrist. EKG electrodes are taped to my chest. My mom is curled in a chair in the corner, looking tense, even in sleep. An all-too-familiar scene that takes me back to the worst days. The days when I didn’t know if I was ever going to get out. The days when I didn’t know if I was going to live. The days before.

  No. This is not happening. This can’t be happening. It’s a dream. It’s not real. It’s all in my head. Not my heart.

  One of the things Emma used to say about dreaming rises to the surface of my mind. If you became aware that what you were experiencing was a dream, you could control it. You could change the outcome.

  Maybe I can just leave. Switch the scene. Transport myself from the ICU to my bedroom. A park bench. The beach.

  I sit up as quietly as I can and swing my legs to the floor. My plan is to just walk out, but I’m tethered. Wired up to various pieces of hospital equipment.

  I pull off the oximeter and rip away the electrodes attached to my chest. Easy enough. But I’m temporarily stopped by the arterial line. This is more complicated to remove, since it’s embedded into the radial artery at my wrist. I stare at it for a second, then quickly peel off the adhesive that holds the catheter in place, take a deep breath, and yank it out. Bright-red blood spurts across the white sheets, painting them like a grisly Jackson Pollock canvas. I clamp a hand over my wrist to try to stem the flow.

  I’m so focused on stopping the blood that I haven’t realized all hell is breaking loose around me. The machines are going ape-shit, sounding a multitude of warnings and alarms. My mom is up and leaping toward me, grasping me by the shoulders. She holds me steady even as I push against her in my attempts to break free. My dad walks into the room holding two cups of coffee, his face draining of color the moment that he takes in the scene. He reels around and disappears into the hallway, bashing one of the coffees against the door frame so that it spatters all over the walls and floor.

  Maybe this is not a dream.

  Maybe this is real.

  I hear footsteps running in the hall outside my room. Two nurses enter, a man and a woman, followed by my dad, now empty-handed.

  The male nurse, a big guy, takes over for my mom, gently locking me in his grip while the other nurse clamps my wrist with her hand just above the spot where the catheter had been inserted. She wraps the site of the wound in cotton and gauze. While she does this, she makes eye contact with me and smiles.

  “Well, you sure know how to get everyone’s attention, don’t you?”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I thought I was dreaming.”

  “No worries at all. It happens more than you’d think.”

  The other nurse relaxes his grip, and together they steer me to a nearby chair.

  The one who wrapped my wrist turns to my mom. “Mom, why don’t you hang close to her while I grab a clean gown? Anton won’t let her fall.”

  My mom is now by my side, smoothing the hair from my forehead. “My sweet girl,” she says. “Welcome back.”

  How long have I been gone? I wonder.

  I’m about to ask her, but then I notice my dad, still standing close to the doorway, looking like he might pass out.

  The blood. It’s everywhere. The bed looks like a crime scene. Deep-red splatters are all over the front of my gown. My dad is a huge chicken about needles and blood.

&nb
sp; “Is Dad okay?”

  “Davis?” The look on my mom’s face is one that tends to pop up just when she’s nearing the end of her rope: Now what?

  In three swift steps, Anton reaches my dad and catches him by the arm. He gets him to another nearby chair. “Put your head between your knees, sir,” he says. “Try to breathe normally.” My dad complies. My mom stays with me.

  “It happens all the time,” the other nurse says when she comes back with a fresh gown. Her ID badge shows that her name is Kristen. “Especially with the men. They’re such babies about blood.”

  Kristen gets me cleaned up. Then she and Anton change the bed. Once I’m tucked back in, Anton clips the oximeter on my finger again and reattaches the EKG electrodes, but doesn’t reinsert the A-line. Kristen talks to my parents as if I’m not there. “The doctor is on her way. We could sedate her again, but I don’t think it’s really necessary. She was just a little disoriented when she woke up.” And then she turns to me, her voice slower, louder, more cheerful. “All right, hon, I’m just going to put a couple pillows under your arm. We need to keep this wrist elevated for a little while. No more running away, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say. As soon as they depart, I take a good look at my mom and dad. They both appear tired and rumpled, as if they’ve been here overnight. At least.

  I’m afraid to ask. But knowing is better than not knowing. “The heart,” I say. “My body’s rejecting it, isn’t it?”

  They glance at each other, then my mom speaks. “We don’t know,” she says. “They did a tissue biopsy last night, but we’re still waiting on the results. The doctor on call was due about an hour ago, but she’s running late.”

  The people who say “no news is good news” have no idea what they are talking about. When your life is in limbo, waiting to hear what’s going on is excruciating. You need to know.

  My dad tries to break the tension, even though he still looks a little like a reanimated corpse. “In the meantime, please don’t go all American Horror Story on us again. I don’t think I can take it.”

  We don’t have to wait long. The doctor arrives, a bit breathless, a few minutes later. Guess she must have hustled up after getting the report that her patient was awake and ripping out arterial caths.

  “Hello, Chloe. I’m Dr. Lee,” she says. “I have your heart biopsy results.”

  We all freeze. Each, in our own way, steeling ourselves for bad news. Signs of rejection, at this stage in the game, are no joke. It could mean that heart failure, rather than just an immune response, is the cause. And if this heart is crapping out, what, really, are my chances of getting another? Technically speaking, a re-transplant can be done, but it involves going back on that awful list, more waiting, more days in the ICU. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I’d want to.

  “You are a very lucky girl,” she says.

  I hear my mom exhale and watch the color return to my dad’s face. Dr. Lee, on the other hand, seems a bit bewildered.

  “The biopsy was negative,” she says, and then gestures to the monitor next to my bed. “Your EKG readings are normal. The echocardiogram that we did is also normal. Which is unexpected, to put it mildly, because when you were admitted to the ER last night, you were clearly showing signs of a sudden cardiac arrest. We shocked your heart.”

  My mom takes another deep breath. Dr. Lee continues, “A cardiac incident of that nature always causes some tissue damage. Damage that we can see. Damage that we can read on an EKG. However, it not only appears that you’ve made a complete recovery in less than twenty-four hours, but our tests also show a heart as healthy as any seventeen-year-old’s. It’s like what happened last night never happened at all. Which, medically speaking, is nothing short of a miracle.”

  The doctor seems as if she still doesn’t even understand the words coming out of her mouth. My mom starts to cry in relief. My dad puts his hand on her shoulder.

  The room is spinning around me. My brain is reeling in my skull. Sudden cardiac arrest. Admitted to the ER. And then one thought interrupts all the others: Where is Kai? He must have brought me here. He wouldn’t have just left. Would he?

  “We are going to keep you one more day just to make sure that everything is okay, but by tomorrow you should be free to go,” says Dr. Lee. “Dr. Ahmadi will want you to come in to see him for a follow-up, of course. Maybe run a few more tests. But for now, let’s focus on getting you out of here, okay?”

  Always the optimist, my dad claps his hands. “Sounds good to me!”

  After the doctor leaves, I question my parents.

  “How did I get here? Did someone bring me?”

  My mom looks perplexed. “You don’t remember the ambulance?”

  I do not remember an ambulance.

  “Apparently someone called nine-one-one from the parking lot of North Point Beach. The paramedics found you in your car.”

  I remember nothing after those final seconds with Kai, when he was with me. We were practically glued to each other. He must have called for the ambulance. But then where did he go? Why wasn’t he there when the paramedics arrived?

  “Who called nine-one-one?” I ask.

  “We don’t know,” my mom says. “They didn’t leave a name.”

  “Did anyone come to the hospital? Has anyone been looking for me?”

  My parents eye me suspiciously. “No, no one,” my mom says.

  “Were you expecting someone?” my dad asks.

  “I just thought . . . maybe Jane . . .” Immediately, I feel guilty for using Jane as an alibi again. I probably shouldn’t be bringing her into this.

  “No, sweetie,” my mom says more gently. “No one’s been by.”

  And now it’s my parents’ turn for questions. A lot of them.

  Why was I all the way out at the beach and not at the movies with Jane as I had told them? Why wasn’t I picking up my phone when they called? Who was I with? And where did the surfboard on the car come from?

  “Have you been surfing?” asks my mom, incredulous.

  “Yes,” I say, trying to sound as if I haven’t been hiding this from them all summer. “I’ve been taking lessons.”

  And I’m damn good at it too, I think.

  “Why didn’t you just tell us that?” asks my mom. “Why were you lying about it?”

  I shrug. “I didn’t want you to worry.” It’s the truth, but only part of it.

  Mostly, though, I wanted something that was just mine, that I didn’t have to filter through any analysis of “What does this mean for someone recovering from a heart transplant?” I didn’t want anyone to tell me that I couldn’t or that I should be careful or that I should stop because it was too dangerous.

  “Well, now that you mention it,” my mom says, “it seems like something we should have cleared with Dr. Ahmadi, don’t you think? I mean, I know he said you could exercise, but surfing seems a little extreme for someone whose sternum is still healing.”

  She looks to my dad for backup. “Davis?”

  I look at my dad too, hoping he will back me up instead, as he usually does.

  “With who?” my dad asks.

  “With who, what?” I reply.

  “Who were you surfing with?” It doesn’t seem like he’s going to be backing me up.

  “Just this guy. He’s . . . he teaches people to surf.”

  I feel my cheeks burning.

  He was underneath me in the passenger seat of my car the last time I saw him . . .

  “Well, how old is he?” my dad asks, starting to pace. “How did you meet him? Please don’t tell me Tinder or I might have a goddamn heart attack.”

  One disadvantage of having a father who is a teacher: he knows about all the stuff that kids try to hide from their parents.

  My hands were sliding under his shirt. He was tracing the line of my scar.

  I force myself not to think of where I was and what I was doing with Kai. It’s not that I don’t want to think about it. In fact, under normal circumstan
ces, I’d probably be replaying every kiss in my brain, on repeat. I just don’t want to discuss it with my dad.

  “Dad. God. No.”

  My mom puts a hand on his arm. “Davis. Ease up. We can talk about this later.”

  This is interesting. Add a boy to the mix and it’s like my parents have switched personalities. My mom is trying to stay calm while my dad freaks out. Despite my confusion about what happened to Kai, it almost makes me feel, for half a second, like a normal girl.

  “All right,” my dad says. “But this conversation is to be continued. When you didn’t let us know where you were and you didn’t pick up the phone, we didn’t know what to think. Your mom was frantic. Especially when we got the call from the hospital.”

  Hearing their version of last night makes me feel even more terrible. Of course they were frantic. Why do I keep doing this to them? I don’t want them to worry. I don’t want to cause them any more stress than they’ve already been through over this last year. But there’s something about being out in the ocean with Kai that makes me forget that I’m also this other girl who should check with her cardiologist before she takes surfing lessons. Who should make sure that somebody knows where she is at all times, just in case there’s an emergency. Who needs to question every skipped beat of her heart.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I should have told you where I was.”

  And then everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours hits me: Kai. My heart. The hospital. My parents. I can feel the tears welling up like a wave about to explode on the shore. I shudder once, and then cry so hard that I start to hiccup, so hard that I can barely breathe, so hard that it makes my throat swell up and the blood vessels in my temples throb in pain.

  My mom climbs into the bed and puts her arms around me.

  “Chloe, Chloe, calm down, please calm down,” she whispers into my hair. “It’s okay.”

  And holding on to her like a life preserver, I pretend that I’m a little girl again and that everything is going to be okay.