Things We Know by Heart

by Jessi Kirby

  It’s why, an hour later, when I walk out and find Colton still in the waiting room, I steel myself against the warmth of his smile and ignore the tiny flutter it causes in my chest. It’s why, when he stands without saying anything and looks at my lip and raises his hand again like he might reach out and touch it, I back away fast, put as much distance between us as possible. And it’s why, when we pull up in front of his parents’ shop, I don’t turn off the car and I don’t dare look at him. I focus only on the steering wheel in front of me.

  “So we’re back to where we started,” he says. His words hang there between us, a flash of the morning and a beginning that shouldn’t have been. All I can do now is end it.

  “I’m sorry I took up your whole day with this,” I say. “Thank you. For everything.” I sound stiff, cold. He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his eyes trying to catch mine, and it takes everything in me not to let them. “I need to go,” I say, as firmly as I can. “I’ve been gone for too long, and my parents are going to freak out, and I really just . . .” Don’t look at him, don’t look at him, don’t—

  “You wanna get something to eat?” he asks. “Before you go?”

  I look at him. Wish I didn’t, because his smile is all full of hope and possibility.

  “I . . . no. Thank you, but I need to go.”

  “Oh.” His smile tumbles. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” I echo.

  Neither one of us moves. Or speaks. And then we do, at the same time.

  “So maybe another time?”

  “It was nice to meet you.”

  He sits back in his seat. “I take that as a no.”

  “Yes. I mean, no. I can’t—shouldn’t.”

  I don’t even try to explain, because I know that if I do, I’ll make a bigger mess than I already have. I hate the look on his face, like I’ve just broken his heart. But I’m trying to be careful with it, like that nurse said, and that means ending this feeling before it has a chance to begin.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Of all heart stories, tales of grief are most deeply etched into patients’ psyches. But these losses are often buried—wounds that patients are unwilling to [fully] reveal.”

  —Dr. Mimi Guarneri, The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing

  I’M DISORIENTED WHEN I pull into my driveway, because I don’t remember the drive home. I reach back in my mind for some concrete proof that I actually just drove back, but the only things I can think of are Colton’s face when he bent down to the passenger window and said good-bye one last time, and the way he looked in the rearview mirror, standing in the middle of the empty street, watching my car go, one hand half raised in the air. I must’ve replayed an endless loop of the day all the way home—him walking into the café, his eyes and the way he looked at me. The way he sounded when he said good-bye, like he couldn’t quite believe it.

  The dull ache of my lip is the only thing that keeps me from feeling like the entire day was a dream. And now I’m back. Back where I belong, and where I know my mom will be waiting, anxious and worried about where I’ve been. Angry when she finds out what happened. I turn off the car and sit listening to the engine settle in the otherwise still night until I’m ready to face her.

  “Where have you been?” my mom says, rounding the corner into the entryway as soon as I walk in. “Do you know how many times I called you today?”

  I don’t. I’ve gotten out of the habit of checking my phone, or even turning it on.

  I close the door softly behind me and set my purse on the entry table. “I know; I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes zero in on my swollen lip and the stitches, and she crosses the space between us in two steps, and she’s right there, her hands on my cheeks, tilting my head back to see better, just like the nurse did. It only takes a second for her voice to go from angry to concerned. “My god, Quinn, what happened?”

  I tear up instantly in response to the worry in her voice. “Nothing, I . . .” I take a deep breath, try to keep my voice steady, but the way she’s looking at me does me in. I crumble completely, tears and all. “I ran into a car, and my face hit the steering wheel, and—”

  “You were in an accident?” She pulls me back by my shoulders, eyes scanning the rest of me for damage. “Why on earth didn’t you call me? Was anyone else hurt?”

  “No, nobody else got hurt. It was a parked car, and nobody was there, so I left a note, and—”

  “Where did this happen?”

  I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to have to explain why I was in Shelter Cove. But there’s no way around the truth on this, not between the bus I hit and the trip to the hospital. “Shelter Cove,” I say. I shrug. Teary. Pathetic.

  My mom’s brows crash together, creasing her forehead. “What were you doing there? Why didn’t you at least leave me a note? Or answer your phone when I called? Quinn, you can’t just disappear like that.”

  There’s no way I can answer these questions honestly. Both of my parents have stuck by me since the day of Trent’s accident. They’ve been so, so patient with me. They were even supportive of the idea of me meeting the recipients, though I knew it made them more than a little uncomfortable. I think they hoped as much as I did, or maybe even more, that all of it would help me find some sort of closure. They’ve given me nothing but love and time. Stood by and waited to see what I needed. Understood when I wanted space and when I needed to talk. Didn’t push. But I know that behind all their patience with me there has been both the hope that I will move on and the worry that maybe I won’t. Telling my mom that I was in Shelter Cove searching for the recipient of Trent’s heart isn’t something I can do, so I don’t.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I should’ve told you where I was going. I just . . . had to get away for the day, and I started driving, and I ended up there, at the beach.” I pause and watch her mull over this explanation, and it feels terrible, because I know what the tone of my voice implies—that it was one of “those” days when it’s achingly clear that I haven’t moved on, like a few weeks ago on the 365th day since Trent’s death when I came home from his parents’ house and didn’t leave my room for three days.

  “I’m so sorry,” I repeat, and the tears flow again. Genuine tears, because I am genuinely sorry—for worrying her, and for using grief as an excuse this way, and for what I did today by going there. I’m sorry for all of it.

  Her eyes search my face. Finally, she takes a deep breath, lets it out in a sigh. “Did you call the insurance company? Or the police?”

  I shake my head, and she takes another deep breath and nods stiffly, and I know I’m pushing the limits of her sympathy.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and get cleaned up, then come down for dinner, and we’ll get this sorted out.”

  I wrap my arms around her in a grateful hug. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  She hugs me back without hesitating. “I know. But you need to be honest with me, Quinn. If you’re having a hard day, and you need to get away or want to be alone, you need to talk to me. Let me know. Just be honest with me, that’s all I ask.”

  “Okay,” I say into her shoulder, and I make a silent promise to myself that I will.

  After my shower and a dinner I push around my plate instead of eat, I am completely honest with her when I say that I’m drained from the day and just want to go to bed. It’s too quiet up in my room, and stuffy with the day’s heat. I open the window all the way and breathe in the cool air and the smell of the hills that drifts in with it. Outside, the crickets break up the silence, and the first few stars twinkle high in the dusky sky.

  I cross the room to my dresser, almost afraid to look at my reflection. I avoided facing myself in the bathroom mirror, but here, alone in my room, I can’t. I step in front of my dresser mirror, and my eyes go straight to my still-swollen lip, where the tiny black stitches stand out in sharp contrast against my pale skin. Proof that today happened. That I found Colton Thomas and that, despite all the rules I’v
e come up with for myself, I met him. Spoke to him. Spent time with him. I bring my fingertips to my three stitches and wonder for a second how many it took to close Trent’s heart into his chest. The thought chokes me up for too many reasons to sort out.

  My eyes drift over the pictures tucked all along the edge of my mirror, silly group photos from dances, shots of us from trips with the friends we used to share. All the people I’ve pushed away trying to hold on to him. It didn’t take long for me to realize that as much as they loved him too, their worlds didn’t stop the way mine did when he died. They slowed momentarily, long enough to mourn the loss of their friend, but gradually, they picked up again. Fell back into the rhythms and routines of life. Took new pictures. Planned their futures.

  A lump forms in my throat, and my eyes fall on my favorite picture of us. It was taken at one of his swim meets last spring. The sun is shining, lighting up the bright aqua patch of the pool in the background. Trent stands behind me, strong, tan arms wrapped around my shoulders, chin tucked into the crook of my neck, smiling right at the camera. I’m leaned back into his chest, laughing. I don’t remember why—if it was something he said or did. And now, as hard as I try to hold on to it, I’ve started to forget the feeling of being wrapped up in his arms like that and the way it could make everything else disappear.

  I run a finger over the glass of the frame and brush the dried sunflower hanging next to it. The very first thing he gave me, on the very first day we met. I cut the stem and put it in a vase when I got home, and after that first week of spending every afternoon together, walking back and forth between each other’s houses so we could keep talking, the petals started to wilt. I hung the flower upside down then, like I’d seen my mom do, and let it dry out until it was preserved, because I knew that flower was the beginning of us. I kept it there, a reminder that I was right.

  The petals are faded now, almost colorless from time and the sun, and so brittle they’ve started to crumble and fall away on their own. It’s barely recognizable as a flower anymore. But I haven’t taken it down because I can’t—I’m afraid of how much I’ll forget if I do.

  I turn, go to my bed, and climb in; but I know I won’t sleep. I don’t bother to close my eyes. I lie there staring at a familiar knot in the wood of my ceiling instead, wishing I could go back to when he was here and we were together. Or that he could just be here with me, even for a moment, to remind me what it felt like, before that slips away too.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “The electromagnetic current of the heart is sixty times higher in amplitude than the field of the brain. It also emits an energy field five thousand times stronger than the brain’s, one that can be measured more than ten feet from the body.”

  —Dr. Mimi Guarneri, The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing

  “The data [from a study entitled ‘The Electricity of Touch’] showed ‘when people touch or are in proximity, a transference of the electromagnetic energy produced by the heart occurs.’”

  —Institute of HeartMath

  I WAKE SO slowly, I can feel the layers of my dream slipping away, and I fight to keep it because I know as soon as I open my eyes, Trent will be gone, and I will be alone. Again.

  Four hundred and one.

  The house is so still, I know I’m alone, and then I realize it’s Saturday, and my parents are probably already out for their weekend walk to the coffee shop in town, followed by their lap around the farmer’s market, before they head home for a Mom-mandated day without phones or email, working in the yard or cooking or reading together.

  It’s part of the campaign she started to overhaul their whole lifestyle after my dad had stumbled into the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon sounding confused, his speech garbled. She raced him to the hospital fearing the worst. After hours of tests, the doctors determined that he hadn’t had a true stroke but something called a transient ischemic attack, or TIA for short. They told us it meant there had been a brief blockage of blood flow to the brain, and though there was no permanent damage, it was a major warning sign. A precursor to the real thing.

  From a chair in the corner of my dad’s hospital room, I watched as my mom stood next to his bed, holding his hand while the doctor listed all the risk factors: his blood pressure, cholesterol, poor eating habits, stress level, and on and on. It wasn’t anything my mom hadn’t already tried to tell him, but I guess it was different coming from the doctor after his attack. Changing all these things was no longer a smart recommendation but a matter of life and death.

  When we got home, Dad was still shaken, but Mom had a purpose and a plan. Along with the medications the doctors prescribed, she was going to change every risk factor that could be changed. Around me, she tried to focus less on the health benefits of this “lifestyle change,” but I knew what she was doing. She was fighting for my dad’s life. Both of my grandpas had died before they were sixty—one from a heart attack, the other from a stroke—and she wasn’t about to let history repeat itself and become a widow like her own mother. Or her daughter.

  First, she hired an assistant at their accounting office and took on most of Dad’s workload herself. Next, she insisted he be home each night by dinner—a healthy dinner that she cooked, rather than stay late at work and grab something on the way home like he always had. I expected him to resist and say there was too much work to be done for him to make that change, but he didn’t; and that’s how I knew he must be scared too. We all were. It was nine months since Trent’s death, and I think even my parents were still reeling from the realization that life can be gone in an instant, without any warning at all. In a heartbeat.

  Luckily, my dad had gotten a warning, loud and clear. He hadn’t been at the dinner table my whole childhood, but suddenly he was there every night, obediently eating grilled fish and veggies and grains we’d never heard of. Next, Mom moved on to the weekends, which, in the last few years, he’d generally spent in his home office on the computer, answering work email and going over reports and spreadsheets, grumbling about how no one else could do any of their jobs properly. It hadn’t always been like that. He used to be the one who got my sister and me up at the crack of dawn and had us out the door for a run along the rolling country roads around our house.

  Now it’s my mom who has him up and out early on weekend mornings. They make the long walk into town, talking and laughing together, just the two of them. Reconnecting, I guess you could say, after so many years devoted to getting a business off the ground, and getting Ryan and me to school, and practices, and meets. It’s good for them both to have that connection again, and I’m glad they have that to focus on, because it takes a little bit off me. To a certain extent.

  Downstairs in the kitchen my mom has left a note reminding me that Gran will be stopping by after brunch with her Red Hat ladies because she wants to spend some time with me (or because Mom asked her to babysit after my accident), and Gran needs help with a “project.” Also that there’s a pitcher of wheatgrass-kale morning something in the refrigerator for me. Juicing has become a part of the regimen too.

  I head to the coffeemaker instead, pop in a little plastic cup, and put a mug underneath the spout. My phone buzzes from the counter, and when I pick it up, I don’t recognize the number. I hesitate for a moment, think about letting it go to voicemail and then calling back later when I haven’t just gotten out of bed, but I pick it up instead. “Hello?”

  “Hi, may I please speak to Quinn Sullivan?” The voice is male, formal.

  “This is me—she.” I roll my eyes at myself. “This is Quinn.”

  “Oh.” He clears his throat. “Hi. You, um . . . I think you hit my bus yesterday? You left a note with this number?”

  “I did,” I say, taking my coffee to the island. “I’m so sorry. I know I should’ve stayed and waited for you to get back, but I cut my lip and ended up needing stitches, and—” The doorbell rings. “I’m sorry; there’s someone at the door. Can I call you right back?”

&n
bsp; “Of course,” the guy says, and I hang up without saying good-bye.

  I set the phone down on the counter and head down the hallway to the front door, wishing I’d gotten dressed, because Gran’s first reaction to seeing me still in my pj’s when I’m supposed to be ready will be to say something about the importance of “carrying on,” as she puts it, which is what she’s been doing every day for the last sixteen years since my grandpa died. I pause in the entryway, smooth my hair as best as I can, and get ready for her to make a big fuss over my lip and the accident, which my mom has undoubtedly already told her about. Then I take a deep breath and open the door.

  And all the air rushes right out of me.

  Colton Thomas is standing on my doorstep with his phone in one hand and the other behind his back. “Hi,” he says. He shifts on his feet. Gives me a tentative smile. “Soooo, like I was saying, you left me a note, and your number, and—”

  Too many things race through my mind at once, too much to form a sentence; but I look over his shoulder, and there it is, the blue VW bus I smashed into, dented bumper and all.

  He follows my eyes and glances over his shoulder at it. “Don’t worry about that.” He looks back at me. “And please don’t freak out. I just . . .” He pauses and looks at his feet for a moment, then back up at me, at my lip. “I just wanted to—make sure you were okay. And to tell you not to worry about the bus. Gives me an excuse to work on it.”

  Finally, I find my voice, but it comes out sounding sharp. “Why didn’t you tell me it was your car?”

  You can’t be here is all I can think.

  “You were so freaked out, and I didn’t wanna make you feel worse, and— I’m sorry. I should’ve said something.”

  “But how did you know where I—” You can’t be here.

  He opens his mouth to answer but hesitates. Clears his throat. “I know some people.”