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He cleared his throat. “You’re getting a new heart.”
“Yes.”
“That’s amazing.”
I stayed quiet.
He moved in closer.
The machines beeped more.
He took a step back.
“Listen, I don’t want to add any more stress to your life, Aaliyah. I get it, you hate me. I don’t blame you. For the past few weeks, I’ve hated myself more than ever before, but please, Aaliyah…let me stay tonight. You’re going into surgery soon, and I can’t be anywhere else but here. I don’t even have to talk to you. I won’t even look at you if you don’t want me to. If you tell me to stare into that corner, I’ll stare all fucking night, but I can’t leave you, okay?
“I can’t leave you in case something goes wrong, in case the surgery doesn’t work, and, God forbid, in case you end up leaving me…so please, Aaliyah. Please? Please let me stay tonight, because the idea of walking away now burns my entire being. Please, Red…please…” He closed his eyes for a moment and when he reopened them tears began streaming down his cheeks. He pushed his tongue into his cheek as his body began to tremble. As his whole existence began to crumble right there before my eyes. “Please let me stay.”
He stood there completely broken. He showed me his hurts and laid them there to bleed in the open. I saw his fear, I saw his panic, but mostly I saw his love. Love didn’t only show its face during happiness. It didn’t skip by only during the sunshine. No. Sometimes—most of the time—love was a storm at war.
Love explored the world during the darkness. It crawled through pain, fought through combats, and hit rock bottom with a million battle scars. Love wasn’t only the rainbows. Love sparked in the lightning and screamed during the thunder. In that very moment, love rained down over Connor, and his love was being directed straight toward me. Raw. Unleashed. True.
I shifted around in my hospital bed and stared down at my hands.
I thought about it, too. If I didn’t make it out of the surgery. If the heart transplant didn’t work. If the sand of my life ran out. If I never saw him again. If our last exchange was one filled with me asking him to leave.
When all I ever wanted was for him to stay.
“Will you read?” I spoke softly, looking his way. “Will you read the comic book to me?”
He followed my glance to the side table where a stack of comic books sat that Damian had dropped off for me.
“Yes,” he said without a second of hesitation. “Can I pull my chair up close to you?”
“Yes,” I said without a second of hesitation.
I wanted him close.
I needed him close.
I missed his closeness.
He grabbed one of the comic books, and dragged a chair over to me. He began reading to me, and I fell asleep to his words. When I awakened during the night, I found his head resting against the edge of the bed as he slept. His hand was wrapped around something as he rested his arm in his lap. I reached down to unwrap whatever it was that he had in his grip, and my emotions overtook me as I stared down at a handful of quarters.
Before long, I fell back asleep. I was awakened again, this time by a nurse. Connor was no longer beside me, but the quarters rested against my lap. I glanced around the room and I was stunned when I woke up to my room being covered in Post-it Notes. They covered all the walls, and the railings of the bed. The television had them all over, leaving me floored.
I picked up one next to me, and I recognized Connor’s handwriting right away.
I wish for more time with Aaliyah.
I read another.
More time with Red.
I wish I could marry her.
I wish I could kiss her.
I wish for one more minute with her.
