Heartbeat Away (12 page)

‘Me,' he says finally. ‘He was fighting with me.'

As we wander back through the park, it's as if a dark shadow has come between us. There are now three of us walking down this tarmac path. Sam, me and Callum. I fall silent, and it isn't until we reach the boating lake that Sam finally speaks.

‘Becky, why d'you want to know about Callum?' he asks bluntly.

I knew this was coming, but I still feel totally unready to answer him. ‘I . . . he . . . he was your friend . . .' I mutter.

Sam turns and stares at me. I can feel myself blushing. From the way his dark eyes bore into me, I know he isn't satisfied that this is the real reason. My mind is in turmoil. What should I say?

I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. ‘There's something I need to tell you.'

I start to explain how I caught a virus over two years ago and how I was going to die a few months back if I didn't get a heart transplant. I tell him about the night we were
summoned to the hospital, what happened before I'd gone under the anaesthetic, and how I woke up forty-eight hours later with a different heart beating inside me, and the chance of a new life ahead of me. I tell him all this and he listens without saying a single word.

When I finish, we stand side by side at the edge of the lake, staring at the still, calm surface of the water, neither one of us daring to say a thing.

And it's stupid, because I can feel tears welling up, but I can't stop them however hard I try to blink them away.

‘There's more,' I say, forcing my voice to become steady. ‘I know this park. I knew every corner of it, even though I've never been here until that day I first met you.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘I also saw you several times before we met.'

‘What are you saying, Becky?'

‘I'm saying, and I know this doesn't make any sense, but I'm saying, since my transplant – you . . . this park . . . other places . . . other people – I've seen them, known them, as if they've always been in my memory.'

‘But how? It's not possible.'

I take another deep breath. ‘They're Callum's memories.'

‘Callum's?'

‘I've got Callum's heart inside me.'

‘Callum's heart?' Sam stares at me, dumbfounded. He shakes his head and gives a hollow laugh. ‘No. No way!' He backs away from me slightly, his expression now wary.

‘Callum died on October the fifteenth, didn't he?' I ask.

‘How do you know that?'

‘It's the same night I had my transplant.'

Sam runs his fingers through his dark hair then shakes his head in disbelief. ‘No . . . this is just a coincidence. They happen all the time – they've done scientific studies. People think there's something spooky going on, but there isn't. The strange things that happen to them are literally just by chance.' His voice trails off and he falls silent.

‘Sam, what's happened – is happening – to me isn't anything to do with coincidence,' I say. ‘The first time I saw you was when I came round after my operation. I saw you twice more in the hospital, but I just thought you were another patient. Then, back home, I was going upstairs and there you were on the landing in front of me. You scared the pants off me. A few weeks later, I meet you in real life and find you were the best friend of a boy who died the same night I had my transplant. It's not a coincidence. We're connected by Callum.'

‘I need to sit down,' Sam mutters as he sinks down onto a nearby bench. He exhales, long and deep, and then shakes his head.

‘But hang on,' he says eventually, looking up at me with a troubled expression, ‘even if you did have Callum's heart – and I suppose that could just be possible because he carried a donor card – how could you get his memories? A heart's just a heart. What you're telling me is impossible.'

I try to convince him. I can't bring myself to tell him about how I hurt Shannon and my fear that I might be taking on Callum's anger and aggression. So I tell him about me becoming a vegetarian and addicted to peanut butter
sandwiches, painting my room and what happened when I played hockey for the first time last week. ‘Sam, I don't understand it either, but this is the truth. Please believe me.'

He props his hands on his face and stares ahead, his expression darkening as he turns things over and over in his head. Finally, he looks up at me and says starkly, ‘I don't know what's going on, but it's got nothing to do with Callum. It can't have and you're mad to even think it!'

We walk out of the park, barely exchanging a word. Sam has made it plain he doesn't believe me and I don't know what else I can do to convince him, so we say polite but awkward goodbyes and go our separate ways.

Joe's in the kitchen when I get in.

‘So where's Sam the Man then?' he asks with a grin.

‘Gone home,' I reply, pasting on a fake smile.

‘Oh.' He glances at me as I hurry towards the door to the hallway. I can feel my smile cracking on my face but I no longer care.

‘Everything OK?' he asks casually.

‘I told you, we're just friends.' Or we were until today, I think bitterly.

‘Oh . . . yeah,' he says gently. ‘Want a cup of tea?'

‘No . . . thanks.'

I run up to my room and lie down on my bed. I stare at the blue painted walls, trying to blink away the image of the house with green shutters. Finally it fades and I breathe an
angry sigh of relief. I close my eyes. Although my legs ache and I feel incredibly tired, I can't stop the thoughts racing round my mind. Mum calls me down for dinner but I'm not hungry. To keep her happy I eat something, anything, but as soon as I can, I make my excuses and head back to my room.

At eleven, I switch off my light, but I can't sleep. No matter how hard I try to make sense of everything with logical, rational explanations, my thoughts twist and knot until I feel as if I am going mad.

It starts to get light and I'm still awake, listening to the birds singing outside. I glance round my room and see the sleeve of my tracksuit sticking out of my chest of drawers. Ten minutes later, I pad downstairs in my tracksuit and socks, pull on my trainers, tell Mum I'm just going for a run, then let myself out of the front door.

I first started running when I was nine, after that horrible Christmas when Dad left home and everything fell apart. I'd slip out and run and keep on running until my thoughts untangled and I felt calm again. It was worth the grief Mum gave me when I got back home. Each time, I'd run just a little further.

Then, one snowy February day, I was a couple of miles away from home, totally lost, but didn't care. I was running across a road and nearly got knocked down. The driver called the police. A policewoman took me home and I got the biggest telling off of my life, but a week later, after Mum had been up to school, my teacher put me in for an under-elevens' cross-country race. I still missed Dad, but from then on I started getting medals and
trophies for running, instead of cross words.

I head down the road, walking briskly at first to warm up, then, when I reach the T- junction at the end, turn right and break into a slow jog. I'm trying hard to keep my mind off Callum, but my thoughts keep flying back to him. He'd been in trouble, truanting, fighting with Sam. My stomach churns and I feel a stab of panic. What else had he done?

I force myself to concentrate on my surroundings. Although it's early, there's plenty of traffic about. I count cars to distract myself, but it doesn't work. I'm still thinking about Callum. I increase my pace, taking longer and faster strides, trying to convince myself that any moment I'll begin to feel calm again. But instead of feeling better, I'm aware of a growing sensation of dread. Something horrible is going to happen and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

A woman passes me, staring warily as I suck in a lungful of air. I'm finding it harder and harder to breathe, my heart's thumping like a hammer and I feel I'm wrapped in a tight bandage that's being pulled tighter and tighter, squeezing every molecule of air from my lungs. My chest sears with a stabbing pain. My hands are sweaty and I'm dizzy.

The street, cars, people are becoming an unreal blur. I turn away from the road and start to stagger back along the pavement the way I came, my eyes fixed on a sign ahead. Its bright red lettering proclaims
Open seven days a week
. I've got to get home, I suddenly realise, because my heart's going to stop working any minute and, if I don't make it back, I'm going to die right here on the High Street outside Stacey's Coin-operated Launderette.

Somehow I manage to keep going. I make it back along our street, through the garden gate and up the path. I bang on our front door until Mum opens it.

Alarmed, she helps me inside and sits me down.

I try to speak, but she's grabbed the phone and is punching the keys. I can hear her voice trying to remain calm as she asks for an ambulance.

Three hours later, I'm sitting up on a trolley bed in the casualty department of our local hospital, wired up to a collection of monitors. Over the other side of the room, Mum is talking in hushed tones to one of the doctors who examined me. I strain to hear what they're saying, but I can only pick up fragments. Finally, they both come over. Their expressions are serious and I brace myself for the worst.

‘You're fine, Becky,' says Mum, her whole body relaxing in pure relief as she reaches out and carefully hugs me through the tangle of wires.

I stare at her dumbly.

‘You're OK,' she repeats, her voice cracking.

‘But – I don't understand . . .'

‘There's absolutely nothing wrong with your heart, Becky,' says the doctor with a smile, as she starts to detach me from one of the monitors. ‘We've run the tests and all the results so far show it's working perfectly. There's no sign of rejection either.'

‘Then what happened?'

She pauses for a moment then shrugs. ‘We think maybe you had a panic attack. But you've no need to be anxious about your new heart. It's extremely healthy.'

‘But things have been happening to me . . .' I say.

‘What sort of things?' asks the doctor, peering at me over her glasses.

‘I've seen things, places I've never been, people I've never met . . .' I say.

‘Panic attacks are frightening. They can induce all sorts of strange symptoms. As well as the physical – your heart pounding, sweating, a choking feeling, chest pain – some people have dreamlike sensations. It's called de-realisation. It's like being in a trance; an altered state of consciousness.'

‘Don't worry, Becky. You're all right,' says Mum, taking my hand in hers.

The doctor checks her notes. ‘Your immunosuppressant drugs might explain a great deal about how emotional you're feeling,' she says. ‘But I'm telling you again, Becky. Your heart is healthy.'

‘But is it . . . a good heart?' I ask desperately.

‘A good heart?' She stares at me curiously, as if the
question is out of her remit. She shrugs. ‘It's a very good heart. It's strong and it's pumping well. You're incredibly lucky to have had a successful transplant. So many organs are needed and so few people sign up for the donor scheme. Every week I see people, just like you, dying for the want of a new heart. Go home, live your life and be grateful.'

Over the next couple of days I think long and hard about what the doctor said and realise that what she told me makes sense. I need to do what she says. I
want
to do what she says. Really I do. But somehow I just can't.

Mum talks to me about getting out and about again, seeing Leah, Jodie and Alesha. I listen and nod, but I don't tell her the real situation. Even if I still had friends, I'm not sure I'm ready to go anywhere or see anyone at the moment. So I stay in my room with just my visions for company, trying to persuade myself that I'm still me, whoever's heart I've got inside me.

Finally, I decide to text Alice. Although nothing like this has happened to her, she has been through a transplant. There's no reply to my text, so I wait an hour then ring her, but her mobile goes straight to answerphone. When my phone rings later, it's not her, it's Sam. He wants to see me. I'm confused. I don't know what to do. Part of me desperately wants to see him but I'm frightened too.

* * *

We meet at the park. Mum drops me off outside and waves to Sam, who's waiting there for me. I promise her I'll keep my phone on all the time and come home with him.

Being half-term, it's packed with kids and families out for the day in the warm spring weather. We walk up to the bandstand, neither of us speaking. I feel jittery just being outside and I wonder whether I'm doing the right thing.

‘Are you OK?' he asks finally.

I nod. ‘I'm fine. I'm sorry I upset you.' I say.

We sit down together and watch a bunch of small boys about Danny's age chase a ball around, and I start feeling guilty about how I treat him, always yelling and shouting at him.

Sam keeps his eyes fixed on the game, avoiding mine. ‘You've got nothing to be sorry about,' Sam tells me, but I know it's not true. ‘Let's walk,' he says finally, pulling me up.

We head across the park down to the boating lake, then up the path past the squishy-floored play area, avoiding the swarm of pint-sized kids playing on the swings, slides and climbing frames.

We're almost at the opposite edge of the park now. Ahead of us, I can see the iron railings and a narrow open gate.

The street on the other side is lined with tall terraced houses, three storeys high. We walk through the gate and along the street to the crossroads at the end, where there's a small corner shop.

As we approach, I see the door's open, and a tantalisingly familiar smell of spices and soap powder comes wafting out.
I drink it in, and for one moment, a sudden, inexplicable wave of happiness overwhelms all my fears.