Things We Know by Heart

Things We Know by Heart by Jessi Kirby


DEDICATION

For my sisters, whose hearts are brave and beautiful




PROLOGUE




heart (n):

a hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood through the circulatory system by rhythmic contraction and dilation;

the center of the total personality, especially with reference to intuition, feeling, or emotion

the central, innermost, or vital part of something

—definition of the word heart



I DON’T KNOW how I knew, when the sirens woke me just before dawn, that they were for him.

I don’t remember jumping out of bed, or tying the laces of my shoes. I don’t remember my legs carrying me down the driveway, onto the winding stretch of road between our houses. I don’t remember the feel of my feet hitting the ground, or my lungs taking in air, or my body racing to catch up with what I already knew in my heart was true.

But I remember every detail after that.

I can see the blue and red lights, swirling garishly against the pale sunrise sky. Hear the clipped voices of the medics. The words head trauma repeated over the loud jumble of their radios in the background.

I remember the deep, choking sobs of a woman I didn’t know and still don’t, even now. The odd angle of her white SUV, its hood hidden by the broken stalks and scattered blooms of the sunflowers that grew along the side of the road. The fence, splintered and broken.

I remember glass like gravel, all over the asphalt.

Blood. Too much.

And his sneaker, lying on its side in the middle of it all. The heart I’d drawn in black Sharpie on the bottom.

I can still feel the emptiness of his shoe when I picked it up, and the way the absence of weight brought me to my knees. I can feel the strong grip of the gloved hands that lifted me and then held me back when I tried to run to him.

They wouldn’t let me. Didn’t want me to see him. And so what I remember most about that morning is standing on the side of the road, alone, darkness closing in around me as the day was unfolding. Morning sunlight on the vibrant gold petals, scattered where he lay dying.





CHAPTER ONE




“Communicating with the transplant recipients may help donor families in their grief. . . . Overall, donor families and recipients, as well as their relatives and friends, may benefit from exchanging thoughts and emotions about their experiences with donation . . . the gift of life. . . . It may take months and even years before someone is ready to send and/or receive correspondence, or you may never hear from them.”

—Life Alliance Donor Family Services Program

FOUR HUNDRED DAYS.

I repeat the number in my head. Let it take over the hollow feeling as I grip the steering wheel. I can’t let it go by like any other day without doing this. Four hundred deserves something, some sort of acknowledgment. Like 365, when I brought flowers to his mom but not to his grave because I knew he would’ve wanted her to have them. Or like his birthday, when it passed. That was four months, three weeks, and one day after. Day 142.

I’d spent it alone, because I couldn’t handle seeing his parents that day, and because a tiny, secret part of me actually believed that if I was alone, then maybe somehow there was still a chance he could come back, turn eighteen, and pick up where we’d left off. Be a senior with me, apply to the same colleges, go to our last homecoming and prom, throw our caps into the sky at graduation and kiss in the sunshine before they hit the ground.

When he hadn’t come back, I’d wrapped myself in the sweatshirt that still held the faintest hint of his smell, or maybe it was my imagination. I pulled it tight around me, and I made a wish. I wished, so hard, that I didn’t have to do any of those things without him. And my wish came true. Senior year became a fog. I didn’t mail my college applications. Didn’t go dress shopping. Forgot there was even a sky or sunlight to kiss under.

The days passed, one after another, measured out in an unbroken, never-ending rhythm. Seemingly infinite, but gone in the blink of an eye—like waves crashing on the shore, or the seasons passing.

Or the beating of a heart.

Trent had an athlete’s heart: strong, steady, ten beats slower than mine. Before, we’d lie there chest to chest, and I’d slow my breathing to match his, try to trick my pulse into doing the same; but it never worked. Even after three years, my pulse sped up just being near him. But we found our own synchronicity together, his heart thumping out a slow, steady beat and mine filling in the spaces between.

Four hundred days and too many heartbeats to count.

Four hundred days and too many places and moments where Trent no longer exists. And still no answer from one of the only places he does.

A horn blares from behind, yanking me from my thoughts and the nervous-sick feeling in my stomach. In the rearview mirror I can see the driver cursing as he swerves around me—angry hand raised in the air, lips spitting a question through his windshield: What the hell are you doing?

I asked myself the same thing when I got in the car. I’m not sure of what I’m doing, only that I have to do it because I have to see him for myself. Because of the way it felt to see the others.

Norah Walker was the first recipient to make contact with Trent’s family, though they didn’t learn her name until later. Recipients can reach out to the families of their donors at any time through the transplant coordinator and vice versa, but the letter still came as a surprise to us all. Trent’s mom called the day after she got it and asked me to come over; and we sat there in the bright living room together, in the house that held so many memories, beginning with the day I’d run past it for the fifth time, hoping he’d notice me.

The sound of his footsteps trying to catch mine had slowed me down just enough to let them. His voice, unfamiliar to me then, worked to fit his words between breaths.

“Hey!”

Breath.

“Wait!”

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