Beep-beep-beep.
I open my eyes. The blue is gone, replaced with dingy white walls and a scratchy blanket over my very human legs, the familiar tug of a needle in my arm.
I’m in the hospital again.
Kate’s right next to me, snuggled by my side in the bed just like she was right before I was wheeled down for my heart transplant over two months ago.
Beep-beep-beep.
I turn my head and watch my heart rate flashing on the monitor.
65… 64… 66…
“Hi, sweetie,” Kate says. She lifts up on her elbow and rubs her eyes, which means she’s been lying here for a long time and probably fell asleep. Her arm is around my waist and she hugs me a little tighter. “How are you feeling?”
70… 72… 75…
I keep waiting for the numbers to start falling, for alarms to blare and nurses to rush in to try to save me.
“Is my heart bad again?” I ask. I grip the blanket and pull it up to my chin.
“What?”
My body feels tired. And achy. And sick. Wait, do I feel sick? Or do I just feel tired? I definitely feel tired, like I just ran around the island a few times without stopping. I press my palms to my chest, both of them, and feel the thunk-thunk-thunk going on under there.
“Sunny, you’re okay,” Kate says.
“But I’m back. I’m in the hospital. Is my heart bad again? Did I ruin it?”
“No, sweetheart. Ruin what?”
“My heart. My new heart. I ruined it. I—”
“Sweetie, breathe.”
“I… am… breathing.”
Kate sits up and turns so she’s facing me; then she takes my face in her hands and rubs my temples. “Look at me.”
I try, but I think I’m starting to cry.
83… 84… 86…
“Sunshine, look at me.”
I finally get a big gulp of air and look at her.
My Kate.
Blond hair, blue eyes, the total opposite of me. She’s always worried, always tired, always overreacting about my every little move, but she’s mine. She’s here and she’s never left me and she’s never laughed at me and she’s never, ever lied to me.
I grab her wrists and she keeps massaging my temples, nice and slow, the way she knows will always eventually calm me down.
“You had a panic attack, sweetie,” she says.
“A panic attack?”
She nods. “Trouble breathing, tight feeling in your chest?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what it felt like.”
“Your heart is fine, I promise. Dr. Ahmed checked you out and your heart is doing exactly what it should.”
“So why am I still here?”
“Well, you’re a heart transplantee and you did pass out, so Dr. Ahmed wanted to keep you here for observation. Just for tonight. We’ll be back home tomorrow, okay?”
75… 77… 76…
I relax into the bed, but only a little. Because now I’m thinking about my new heart pumping in my chest, but even though it’s healthy and new and perfect, it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough. Not for Quinn and not for Lena. Never for Lena.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” Kate says, reading my mind. She does that sometimes. When I get all quiet, she knows I’m thinking and usually about not great stuff. She lies back down and tucks her chin onto my shoulder, her thumb stroking my face.
“Did you know?” I ask.
“No. I didn’t, I promise. But when Lena came to the hospital with the ambulance, she told me about it. Three years ago, she started giving private guitar and voice lessons in Montauk and Janesh wanted to learn guitar. That’s how they met. And then—”
“Stop. I don’t want to know any more.”
“Honey, I know this is a shock, but—”
“You should be happy. Lena’s gone, poof, out of my life.”
“Sunny. That is not what I wanted. Nothing about this makes me happy.”
I shake my head. “She has a baby. Like, a whole person. A girl.”
“Yeah,” Kate says, all quiet. “Lena told me about her too. Your sister.”
The word echoes through the room like she yelled it.
A sister.
I have a sister.
I don’t even know what to say about that. It doesn’t feel real and whenever I think about it, it makes my chest ache with all sorts of anger and sadness and… something else that feels softer and lighter, but I don’t want to feel soft and light right now.
For a while, Kate and I just lie in silence. I’m glad. I don’t want to talk about it. No way, nohow, but I can’t seem to stop thinking about it either. I can’t stop thinking about how Lena’s a mom. She’s just not my mom. Not in any way that counts.
Kate’s who counts. She always did and I was so stupid to think I needed anyone else. I snuggle in closer to her and I think Kate and I fall asleep, because when I hear a knock on the door, the room is dimmer, the light outside the window a silvery blue. Kate sits up and I open my gluey eyes to see Dave in the doorway. He and Kate glance at each other, their faces glow-y. I want to tell them that I saw them kissing, that it’s okay with me, but then Dave’s face gets real serious.
“Hey, Sunshine,” he says. “You feeling better?”
I shrug. I’m not sure what I’m feeling, honestly.
“Um… Lena’s outside,” he says, dragging his hand down his face, all nervous. “She wants to—”
“No,” I say. “No way.”
Kate smooths her hand over my hair. “Sunny—”
“I said no.”
Then I turn onto my side so I can’t see the way they look at me, the girl who’ll never be good enough. Not for Margot, not for Quinn. Not even for her own mom.
Later, while Kate’s getting some coffee with Dave and probably making out in a stairwell or something, I sit up in my bed and try to write a poem on a napkin left over from my rubbery-chicken dinner.
You left
You didn’t want
You lied
Moms are supposed to
Why don’t you love
But I can’t even get a full sentence out. I ball up the napkin and throw it across the room. I’m done with this New Life. It’s too hard and too messy. I’m going back to Old Life Sunny. Old Life Sunny who only likes boys and doesn’t need a best friend and whose mom is a mermaid lost at sea.