Page 29 of The Love of Our Lives
In the very early years, Dad used to get confused between Cat and me.
With our matching red heads and pale skin, you could catch us at a certain angle and find that we looked near identical at times – the way we walked, the way we talked, the way we laughed even.
That’s when he started calling us Big and Small.
Cat wasn’t that much bigger than me really, but I always felt it still fit somehow because when you were around her, the world just felt brighter and lighter and full of possibility.
She would be the first one to try a new flavour, a new activity, the only one to get up and dance in the kitchen at breakfast just because she felt like it.
The names helped him to keep track somehow but it was also just his way of being affectionate, I think, of creating that specific link between him and each of us.
And as I sit here staring at the screen, it finally dawns on me that Emily’s parents had a name for her too, and everything I thought I knew, everything I’ve fallen for in this life, comes crumbling down.
The running in the rain and stomping up hills in the wind, trying new foods and sharing cocktails with friends, meeting the man of my dreams and following where my passion leads me for the first time in my life.
All a set design being pulled apart on stage.
Placing my head in my hands, I let out a shuddering sob.
Stella.
Star in Italian.
Which means I’m living in my heart donor’s life and seven months from now, this body that I’m in – this life I’ve been living – will all be gone.
And I’ll be right back where I started.
The cruelty of it threatens to overwhelm me. There I was thinking the universe was finally helping me out, giving me a second chance at it all, when all it was doing was showing me what I can’t have: health, fun, love.
I walk over to my handbag on the sofa and pull out my wallet.
Taking some scissors from a side table, I cut straight through the leather and finally tear out the mystery card, which wouldn’t budge.
And now here it is in my hands – her donor card, fresh and shiny, her absolute confirmation to the world that, in the case of her death, she wanted to donate her organs.
Because Emily was just like that, always giving, always thinking of others first and she wasn’t going to leave it to anyone else to decide it for her.
‘ No ,’ I cry, a ragged sob coming out of me.
How is this even possible though? I rush to the computer again, start typing in words like heart transplant and phenomenon, and reports from all over the world come up about organ transplant receivers claiming that they’ve inherited memory and experiences – even the emotions of their deceased donors.
The reasons for it are varied, from the ‘little brain in the heart’ theory, where the heart has an intrinsic nervous system that might be responsible for memory transfer, all the way to psychometric theory, where psychics claim that the donor heart is an object imbued with the psychic energy of the person it came from; much as a bracelet or other object could carry the memory.
So, what if some way, somehow, one of these theories has manifested fully after my transplant? What if it’s been stretched to its limit and I’ve gone back into those memories, but it’s real, it’s happening, and it’s me instead of her. I’m actually over-writing her last year.
Slumping to my knees, I put my head in my hands.
Oh god, what am I going to do?
How can I possibly tell Adam the truth? How can I even face him? How can I go back over there and face any of them, all the while knowing what’s going to happen?
Because now I understand the real truth of it all: this life wasn’t going free, Emily didn’t want rid of it, she died unexpectedly – that’s what the letter said.
Not ‘she took her own life’, or didn’t want to be here, or anything like that.
She’d made a new life for herself, and now, for some reason I still can’t even fathom, I’m reliving the last year of it.
Before she dies.
My phone buzzes and I know it will be Adam before I’ve even looked.
Is everything OK? Was that your mum earlier?
What do I say to him? No, everything is not OK, and even though we’ve started to fall for each other, I will have to go soon. I will have to leave you. And so will she.
But how the hell can I do that to him?
How the hell can I do that to me? Because I know deep inside of myself that I will be leaving this life and going back to my old one seven months from now.
There is only one heart between us, after all, and it’s transferred to me in the future.
And if I’m the one here now – walking, talking and moving as Emily – that must mean she’s well and truly gone.
Fate is fate, like it was for Cat, like it is for anyone, and whatever cosmic glitch has happened between us, I can’t start playing God here.
No, it’s certain in my mind: this body I’m currently in will die regardless of what I do on 25 July this year – the day of the heart transplant – and I will go back to the small, limited space that I came from.
Lying back against the hard wooden floor, I stare up at my technicolour wall, at the swirls and loops and splatters of life and light, and I try to work out what to do; what to say to someone I can never have.
In a life I can never keep.
Time passes, Christmas evening rolls on, and I’m still lying on the floor; still trying to ground myself to something solid.
Eventually I hear noises across the hallway, Sven and Charlie and William all talking away.
There is laughter and chatting, calls of Merry Christmas as the snow starts outside my window.
The noise rises up, lowers again as they all head downstairs, and then a moment later, the inevitable knock comes on my door.
For a moment, I think about not answering it, but I know I owe him more than that.
Pulling myself off the cold wood, I walk slowly to the door and it sort of reminds me of that very first night he came over, when I was so scared and alone, but hopeful too; curious about what else might lie out there in this new world.
And I just wish I could take myself back, have it all stretching out before me like that.
Opening the door, I find him standing there like always, his forest-green eyes on mine.
‘Are you OK?’ he says, then pauses. ‘You didn’t reply.’
His voice is full of concern.
‘I’m sorry,’ I start, stop. Because I still don’t know what to say, where to go from here.
‘Is your mum still around?’ he asks hopefully, as though that might explain my radio silence.
I shake my head. ‘No, she left a while ago.’
‘I see,’ he says, a crease forming on his brow.
‘Adam,’ I start finally, unsure how to word this exactly, ‘I . . . have to go back home.’
He looks worried. ‘For how long? Is everyone OK?’
‘Yes, everyone’s OK,’ I say slowly, ‘and I’ll be here for a while longer yet, but I just can’t stay here, long-term, I mean.’
‘Why not? I don’t understand?’
When I don’t say anything back, he reaches for my hand, that crease on his forehead melting again.
‘Look,’ he says, ‘I don’t know exactly what happened with your mum, Emily, and I can’t even begin to pretend to understand your experiences.
But all I do know is that in the past five months, I’ve been happy in a way that even I wasn’t sure was possible.
I’ve felt things I’ve never truthfully felt before . . . and I think I’m in love with you.’
My heart is beating so fast at his words, as other words, my words, chime from just before Emily’s mum came over – that these past five months with Adam have been the most perfect of my life.
They’ve been all I’ve ever wanted, and it’s because I stopped being so afraid all the time.
And in the time I’ve got left – in the seven months I’ve got left – I know already that I have to fit in as much as I possibly can.
Not for me, but for Emily. Because I can feel it in my bones – her bones – that this isn’t an alternate reality.
It’s there in the trees and the grass and the air around me.
This is it.
And even though she’s gone, what I do will affect Emily’s legacy forever.
‘Say something, Emily,’ he says, his eyes trained on mine, his hand gripping mine too. ‘Just please don’t do anything we’ll regret later . . . I can’t lose you now.’
And while all I want to do is throw myself into his arms, and never leave his side ever again, I pull my fingers from his.
Because I can’t drag Adam into this; won’t drag him into this.
It was different when I thought I could stay, that perhaps I could keep living this life as my own, but there is no doubt now about who it belongs to.
And what’s going to happen to it.
I see the love in his eyes, the warmth from his touch. I pull my hand reluctantly from his.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I can’t.’