Page 39 of Sparrow

I counted them out, heart hammering, and decided I’d better keep them for emergencies only.

This counts as an emergency. My heart feels like it’s trying to beat its way out of my chest and I’m gasping for air, now, my lungs refusing to work around the frantic beating of my heart. I know it’s probably my imagination but I feel like my fingertips are going numb and my legs are getting weak, and I know it’s only a matter of time before I actually faint. There are worse possibilities, too.

Syncope.

Heart attack.

Death.

The problem is, the beta blockers won’t actually work as a quick fix, now. They’re meant to be prophylactics. Take them to keep my heart’s electricity balanced and the organ beating the way it should. Stop taking them and it loses that balance and things like this happen.

And when they do, there’s literally nothing to do except wait it out, try to get my brain to regain control of my body, and hope to fuck that I don’t die in the meantime.

I put my back to the wall and slide down it, then close my eyes and try to reach for the meditation practices my doctor taught me. He said that once I was in the midst of an episode, the medication couldn’t save me.

But my brain could, if I let it.

I take a deep breath in, hold it for four beats, and then let it out for six beats. Then I pause and frown. Is that right? Suddenly I can’t remember. It’s four beats and six, but I can’t remember which one comes first and which one comes second, and that lack starts my panic up again, because if I can’t even remember how to do box breathing, what good am I?

The one thing I’m supposed to be able to do in a situation like this, and the numbers have gotten turned around in my head!

Fuck!

I bang my head against the wall, trying to get my brain to kick into gear, then freeze at the sound it just made. I listen closely to the world outside the bathroom, breath held and lip caught in my teeth, and then I slowly—and quietly—close the door to the bathroom.

The last thing I need is Mars or Orion or any of the other men hearing me up here flailing like a fish caught on a hook. I haven’t told either of the men that I’m sick, because I don’t want them getting involved.

I definitely don’t need them seeing me mid-attack.

I’ve spent most of my life dealing with Long QT Syndrome, learning the ins and outs of it and trying to get a handle on the symptoms. But I don’t tell people about it if I don’t have to. There’s nothing they can do about it, and I can’t stand the looks they suddenly wear when they find out I’m sick.

Like they’re going to try to take care of me or, worse, heal me with some sort of magic or enough love or something.

News flash: They can’t. No amount of love or concern or advice will ever heal this. My heart’s electrical impulses are wrong and there’s no way to fix that. I mean I could get a device implanted into my heart to try to keep it on track, but that comes with a number of other potential problems, and they don’t always work.

Plus I’ve never been a fan of the idea. I don’t want a tiny ticking time bomb sitting in my heart telling it how to beat.

I like my heart the way it is, quirks and all. I like its flawed little impulses and the fact that it’s not like everyone else’s.

I’ve spent my whole life being told to be more like other people. Be brave like Stella. Be clever and flirty like Taryn. Be more glamorous like your mother was. Be more outgoing. Stronger. Funnier.

My heart took one look at that idea and said fuck no. We’re beating the way we want to, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. It’s us against the world. We’re the only ones who know how we feel or what we go through.

And handing that knowledge to other people feels like a betrayal. It feels like giving them access to a secret they have no right to. It’s even worse when they look at me like they can somehow heal me.

I know they can’t.

And I know they’ll stop trying as soon as they get bored of it. They’ll try for long enough that I’ll think they might actually care, and then suddenly they’ll get bored and desert me again. Leave me alone with my broken heart.

Well, I’d prefer they just leave me alone from the start. That way I don’t get my hopes up.

And I don’t have to watch them walk away when they decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth.

Right now… I don’t know how I’d deal with it if Mars or Orion suddenly realized that I’m even more broken than they thought I was. They saved me when they didn’t have to and have been nice enough to let me stay, and I don’t want to cause any more trouble for them. I don’t want them to think I’m even more complicated, or that they have to be even more careful.

I can’t stand the thought of it.

I don’t want to explain it, I don’t want to see the sympathy in their eyes, and I don’t want to have to tell them that I inherited this from my mother, who died from a heart attack when I was very young. I remember her being small, delicate, and all bones. Beautiful in a way that made sense to my three-year-old brain, though now I can’t recall what she looked like. People say I resemble her, and when I look in the mirror, I often try to make my brain see her in my features.