Page 62 of The Compass Series

We were close now, so close I was almost sitting on his lap as our foreheads rested against one another. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him, allowing me to fall into his body. I liked the way that felt. I already missed the way that felt.

“I feel bad for whoever it is that gets to love you next,” he whispered, his lips almost brushing against mine. “They will never be worthy of the magnitude of love you’ll give to them.”

I closed my eyes. As he inhaled, I exhaled. Our breaths intermixed as our bodies did the same. I didn’t want to let him go because that meant waking up from the dream I’d been living that night and going back to reality.

I wasn’t certain I wanted to live in a reality where he didn’t exist.

“The sun is up,” he said softly.

“Yeah.”

“It’s time to let go.”

“I know.”

Still, we stayed frozen together for a little bit longer. We allowed the sun to kiss our skin as we both worked hard not to kiss one another. Our lips were close enough, but I knew if I gave in, I wouldn’t walk away.

As we stood, I felt like crying, but I also felt an overwhelming amount of peace.

“For the record, Red, you aren’t the barista,” he said as the sun kept rising behind us. “You’re not the quirky best friend, and you’re not some random woman on page forty-five. You’re the main character. Day in and day out, you are the leading lady. And for me, you’re the one who got away.”

I hugged him. I rushed into him and held on tight because after that moment, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold the stranger who didn’t feel so strange to me anymore.

I held on and felt my eyes filling with tears as he held on tighter.

He held me as if he cared for me more than any other person ever had, as if he’d given me his all, and my goodness, his all was enough.

I’d never known I could need someone I didn’t even know to remind me what it meant to fall in love with myself again.

“Thank you,” I whispered as I lay my head against his chest. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

“Thank you,” he replied. “Can you make me a promise?”

“Yes.”

“Next time you get into a relationship, don’t settle for less than you deserve.”

I smiled. “I promise.”

“I got this weird feeling we’re gonna meet again. Mark my words,” he said, seeming hopeful about the possibility of us crossing paths again.

“You believe that much in fate?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I just believe in us.”

“How about we bet on it. If we meet again, I’ll pay you a dollar. If we don’t…well, I won’t pay you a dollar,” I joked.

“All right. Deal. Each year that passes, though, you add a dollar onto the tab.”

“Spoken like a true businessman.”

“If anything, I’m consistent.”

We parted ways, and the broken parts of my heart were temporarily healed by his kind words. He emptied my sad soul and filled it back up with love.

I took the subway home, holding my hands against my chest to feel my heartbeats.

The heart that seemed so deeply broken was beginning to beat again, and for the first time in a long time, I felt as if I’d be okay.

When I emerged from the subway, I breathed in deeply and exhaled the chilled air as the thoughts of the stranger who’d made me the main character for one night kept crossing my mind.

I knew it seemed ridiculous, and the next morning, I’d likely awaken to reality, but I was almost certain the thought floating around in my head was somewhat true. I’d fallen in love with a man that night, and I hadn’t even known his name. But I knew his touch. His laughter. His heart.

I’d remember the feeling he’d given me as I moved on through life from that day forth.

I’d never forget his flashes of love.

The following week, he stayed on my mind. I moved through my internship with more smiles on my face, and each day I worked at the coffee shop, I felt as if I were floating as I brewed coffee for individuals.

“Excuse me, can I get a few extra sugar cubes for my coffee? And maybe a cinnamon roll, too,” a woman asked me as I stood at the counter of C&C Café. She broke me away from my thoughts of Halloween night, forcing me back to reality.

I smiled at the warm grin she was giving me.

She’d been a regular for the past few weeks, a beautiful Black woman who had the most striking brown eyes I’d ever seen.

When those eyes looked at me, they seemed so welcoming, as if one of the best moments of her day was looking my way—almost the same way Captain had stared at me.

It blew my mind that some people were born with such gentle, caring eyes.

“Of course! Let me ring you up, and I’ll bring it right over to your table,” I told her, punching numbers into the keyboard.

“Thank you, uh”—she looked down at my name tag then back up at me—“Aaliyah. That’s a pretty name.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

She moved back to her corner table and sat down, pulling out a novel. She’d been reading the same book for the past week, The Rule of Magic by Alice Hoffman. Each week, she’d bring in a new book, falling deep into the pages.

As I brought over her chai tea and cinnamon roll, she didn’t tear her eyes away from the page. Sometimes, she seemed somewhat invested in her novels, but she was more than intrigued with this go-around. She was melting into each word that came to her, flipping the pages with speed.

“It must be a good one,” I said, placing her order on the table.

She looked up and laid the book down. “Oh my goodness, it’s such a good one. I’m part of a book club, and this is our current read.”

“Oh, that’s fun! I’m a big reader, too.”

“Are you?” She raised an eyebrow. “What kind of books are you into?”

“Personally, comic books, but I do dive into thrillers from time to time.”

“Comic books?” she asked, surprised. “That’s fun.”

“Well, you know me. I have good taste,” I joked. “Enjoy yourself, and if you need anything?—”

I paused as my chest tightened a bit. Everything came to a rushing stop as my knees began to buckle. My hands flew to my chest as I began gasping for air. My heart was pounding at an irrational speed, and as I fell to the ground, I was quickly surrounded by my coworkers.

Their lips were moving fast, and I saw the fear in their eyes as I tried to control my labored breaths.

I shut my eyes and knew nothing good was going on.

My heart felt as if it were on fire. As if it were shattering right inside my chest and trying to pound its way to freedom from the chains that seemed to be suffocating it.

I passed out at some point, wanting nothing more than the pain in my chest to disappear.

I awakened to bright lights shining down on me. My arms were hooked up to machines, and a nurse stood with her back to me as she was filling out something in her hand.

“What happened?” I asked, dazed and confused with cotton mouth. Nothing was making any kind of sense as I tried to get a grip on the situation. Everything seemed so fuzzy in my mind as I tried to connect the dots.

Flashes.

I remembered flashes that took place before my arrival at the hospital, yet none of them were flashes of love. No…

I had flashes of pain, flashes of fear, flashes of death.

The nurse turned my way with a big, bright smile. “There you are. It’s good to hear you talking. You’re at St. Peter’s Hospital. Do you have any family you’d like me to call?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s just me. What happened?”

She smiled, walked over to me, and took my hand in hers, squeezing it lightly. “You’re going to be okay. You had complications with your heart and?—”

“Complications?!” I asked, panicked about her word choice, and the worry that hit her eyes made it clear she wasn’t the right one to deliver the news.

“Let me go get your doctor so he can explain everything to you, okay? I’ll be back with answers for you.”

“How long have I been here?” I asked, moving only slightly but feeling intense pain shoot down my spine.

“About twelve hours.”

“What?!” I spat out, sitting up straighter, terrified. Had I been out for that long? What was happening?

“The doctor will be in shortly.”

She left me to sit by myself, scared about what was happening to me. I looked at the numbers on the screen, my vitals. My hands were clammy, and my mind spun as I tried to figure out what exactly was going on. The last thing I recalled was being at work, and then everything went black.

It took over forty-five minutes for the doctor to arrive, leaving me with nothing but anxiety-packed thoughts.

“Hi, Aaliyah. I’m Dr. Brown. It’s nice to meet you.” The doctor walked in with a half-grin, and a few others followed, including the nurse who greeted me before. “I hear you are a bit confused about everything going on.”

I wrapped my arms around my body in a protective stance because I felt emotionally exposed and needed the tight hug I’d given myself. “Yes. I don’t understand why I’m here.”

“Do you recall what happened?”

“I remember being at work and then blacking out. I woke up here. That’s all I know.”

He pulled up a chair next to my bedside and clasped his hands. The somber look on his face worried me.

“What is it?” I asked, panic clenching my insides.

“It’s your heart.”

“What do you mean? What do you mean it’s my heart?”

He grimaced and nodded once as if he was preparing for his next words.

“Your heart is failing at this time. Your blood has backed up in the pulmonary veins, which transports the oxygenated blood from your lungs to your heart. This means your heart cannot keep up with the supply, causing fluid to leak into your lungs. This is diagnosed as congestive heart failure.”

“Oh, my goodness.” I placed my hands against my chest, terrified of what he was saying.

My mind began to spin as he spoke those words to me.

Had he said my heart was failing? “What does that mean? How do we fix it? I’m only twenty-two.

This doesn’t make any sense. I’m healthy.

I’ve always been healthy. Oh, my goodness, am I dying? What do I do? How do I?—”

“Calm down…it’s okay,” the doctor told me, placing a comforting hand on my forearm.

I ripped my arm out of his grip as tears formed in my eyes. “You can’t say calm down after telling me my heart is failing! Oh, my gosh. This can’t be happening. What do we do? What do I do?”

“I understand this can be a scary diagnosis, but we will come up with a plan to help manage your condition. There are different medications we can?—”

“Manage or reverse?” I cut in.

His eyes looked heavier than his frown, and I knew nothing good was coming next. “With the stage you are at, managing the condition and making sure it doesn’t worsen are our best bets.”

Which meant there was no reversing what’d happened to me.

It was all adding up.

The swollen ankles. The exhaustion. The shortness of breath…

How long had my heart been struggling to beat?

The doctor kept speaking, using words I couldn’t understand and also tossing in words I should’ve comprehended.

But none of it was sticking because I was stuck on one main fact: my heart, the heart I’d carried inside my chest since the day I was born, the one that moved me through life and made it possible for me to exist, was breaking.

My heart was breaking, and I feared there was no way to put it back together.

One moment.

It only took one moment for my whole world to change.

A diagnosis that would live with me for the remainder of my life.

How long was that? How much time was left for me?

And would I be able to achieve all the things I wanted to achieve now that I had this impending doomsday clock ticking in my chest?

I went home, and I pulled out my laptop and began searching for more information on heart failure. I dived deep, and by the end of my searches, I felt a level of fear I wasn’t certain how to face.

Five years.

Only half of the individuals who’d been diagnosed with congestive heart failure survived past five years. Ten percent made it ten years.

Ten years.

I’d only be thirty-two in ten years.

Time.

It would have been almost comical how time worked if it hadn’t been so tragic.

Six weeks earlier, I had been heartbroken over a man who never truly loved me. One week earlier, a stranger had reminded me how to love myself. Then that afternoon, I’d found out my heart was truly broken.

Funny how a real broken heart hurts more than any pain a boy could cause me.

I grieved that night. I grieved for all the life I’d miss out on. I grieved the loss of my future goals and dreams. I grieved the idea that I might never celebrate my thirtieth birthday. I allowed myself all the time I needed to truly sit with my grief, and I let it swallow me whole for a bit.

I stayed sad and depressed for a good while.

Sofia couldn’t stand my mood, she said I was bringing down her energy, so shortly after I found out about my heart, she moved out.

Never in my life had I felt more alone. During the silence, my anxiety hit new heights.

Still, each day I woke up. If only I could’ve realized what a blessing that had been.

After some terrible nights and harsher days, I pulled myself together the best I could.

I took a deep breath and tried to find a way to be grateful for the sunlight that poured onto my skin to wake me up each day.

I returned to a place I’d told Captain I wouldn’t visit to avoid us crossing paths, but I needed to go back to Wish Alley to write down another wish upon a Post-it. This time my wish was simple.

I wished for more time.