A Fabrication of the Truth (9 page)

“Oh that poor guy – he’s probably been in agony this whole time.” Caroline crossed her hands over her heart and sighed.

“I told you about all those times where we got kind of close. He wasn’t in agony – he was messing with me.”

“Because he likes you. He was showing you what he has to offer,” Caroline said.

“I think we should squeal now.” Luiz squealed at her own idea.

“I think we’re acting like a bunch of tweens.”

“Squeal, Lexie,” Luiz said.

I sighed.

“Squeal!” Caroline demanded.

“Fine,” I said, smiling and then letting out a squeal.

“Oooh, new love is so exciting!” Luiz sat up and slowly wobbled to the ground with her hand on her forehand. I guess Caroline wasn’t the only dramatic one.

“I just have to see if he’s actually going to talk to me tomorrow.”

“He so totally will,” Caroline said, sitting up and crossing her legs.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.”

“Call me if you need.” Caroline smiled at me.

“I’ll take your word on that.”

I climbed into bed that night feeling all excited and happy. I wouldn’t deny my feelings anymore. Sure, things might get complicated and messy, but I wanted to be with Dalton, so those were risks I was willing to take. I might have acted a little wonky the next day because I seriously awaited a text from Dalton. Part of me hoped he’d be magically cured so he could climb in my window and we could profess our feelings for each other, but he did say he was sick, so my hope was a little farfetched. Maybe I was acting childish, but I got a little down because by mid-afternoon, I still hadn’t received a text. So I texted him a simple,
Hey
. A few minutes later, I got back:
see you in school tomorrow?
I texted back,
sure
. And that ended our communication for the day – not the great start I had hoped for. To help squelch my darkened mood, I went to the front room to watch game shows with my grandma.

“Hey, kiddo,” my grandma said. She sported jeans with fantastic flares and a long sweater vest with pockets.

“Hey.”

“What’s up?” she asked, pulling a lip balm out of a pocket.

“Nothing. Silly, really,” I said, bringing my legs up onto the couch and hugging them.

“Spill.”

“I really, really like somebody and I thought he really liked me, too, but…I don’t know.”

“He’d be a fool not to like you.” She applied her lip balm and snapped the lid back on.

“You have to say that. You’re my grandma.”

“Granted, but it’s also the truth. Just please don’t tell me it’s Dalton Reyes.” She slid the tube back into her pocket and frowned at me.

“Okay, it’s not Dalton Reyes,” I said, grabbing one of the decorative pillows on the couch and hugging it to my knees. I needed a distraction.

“Lexie, what did I say about that boy?”

“I know. I know, Grandma.”

“Marisol saw the two of you outside the house when I went off to bingo.” She shook her head and then glanced at the TV. Somebody was about to win their showcase.

“There’s nothing wrong with us being together, Grandma.”

“It will only lead to trouble.”

“He should be able to date whomever he wants.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?” I asked, dropping the pillow to the floor between the couch and coffee table, only inches from the TV stand. Our big, overstuffed, leather couch took up way too much room.

“He’s nothing but trouble and heartache waiting to happen.”

“Grandma, I talk to him. I know all about his supposed trouble.”

“Was he truthful?” she asked, saying
yes
under her breath. The contestant not only won their showcase, but also the other player’s. That lady would take home quite the haul.

“Grandma, of course he was – and if not, I don’t care. You guys can’t control us.”

“I’m not trying to control you, honey. I’m just trying to spare you pain.”

“How? There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

“It’s not my right to say. There’s just more than what I said about our family going near theirs. That’s all.”

“Well, fine, if you won’t tell, then…”

“Then what, Lexie?” My grandma gave me a stern look.

“Grrr, I don’t know, but something. I just came down here to watch some dumb TV with you, not for you to deny me love.” I had no idea if what Dalton and I had was love. Maybe I hung around Caroline too much, because I pretty much said it for dramatic flair.

“It needs to remain an unrequited love. It’s for the best.”

“You always say that!” My heart pounded in my chest and I balled my fists.

“Lexie…”

“Grandma.”

“Don’t get hurt.”

That happy, excited, I-think-I’m–in-love feeling had burned out. I didn’t watch game shows with my grandma – instead, I stomped up to my room and pouted in the dark, then did my homework.

***

“Okay, what happened to that squealy, excited girl?” Caroline asked the next morning.

I glanced around the school hallway. The usual hustle and bustle – everybody going off to class, a teacher stapling something to a bulletin board, something being said over the intercom. “She went away.”

“Oh, no, she needs to come back,” Caroline said with a nod. She threw her hair over her shoulder, adjusted the large purse on her shoulder that she used as a school bag, and nodded again.

“My grandma’s not telling me something. There’s something about Dalton,” I said, dropping my shoulders and grabbing the lock on my locker.

“What?”

“I don’t know, and she won’t tell me.” I popped the lock open and looked into the void. It was such a mess inside.

“Dalton Reyes becomes even more mysterious. Sexy.”

“She tried to forbid me from seeing him,” I said, turning toward Caroline, ignoring my locker and the fact that we had to get to class.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you say?”

“Said I won’t listen, pretty much.” I shrugged. “She says she doesn’t want me to get hurt. At first, she didn’t want me to see him because she said we might get sued, but it’s not that.”

“Sued?”

“Never mind.”

“Hey, there he is. Talk to him and tell me how it goes.”

“Okay,” I said as Caroline waved and walked away down the hall.

“Hey, Dalton,” I said. He didn’t seem to hear me and kept walking, looking at the ground. “Dalton,” I said once more.

“Huh?” He stopped, scratched his neck, and looked at me.

“You all right?”

“What?”

“Are you okay?” I asked as the bell rang, the few left in the hall hurrying off to class.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Just thinking about something. I’m fine.”

“Over your ailment?” I asked. I wanted to stand close to him, touch him, something – but I wasn’t sure exactly what the two of us together were.

“Yeah, just a thing,” he said, his voice tired.

“A thing?”

“Yep,” he said, looking into my eyes, a smile nowhere near.

“Okay,” I said. I sucked on my bottom lip and inhaled through my nose, slowly letting it out. “Want to crawl in my basement window tonight?”

“More than anything,” he said, his face still serious.

“Okay, see you tonight then – but if you still don’t feel well, it’s okay.”

“I’ll be there.” He reached out to grab my hand, but pulled away.

“Tonight,” I said.

“Tonight.”

Dalton squatted down outside, using his hands to look in the window at me, leaving a steamy breath mark on the glass. I stood on the couch and opened the window for him, coughing as I did so.

“Are you sick?” he asked, looking a little panicked. “I should go.” He scrambled to his feet.

“Dalton,” I called.

He squatted down again.

“It’s nothing.” Cold air flowed in, and I really wanted him inside. The days were just taking on a chill, but the nights were already cold.

“I don’t want to catch anything.”

“You won’t.”

“Would you be offended if I came back with a surgical mask?”

“What?” I was totally confused.

“I’m totally serious,” he said, biting the corner of his lip, his eyes a little wide.

“Are you a germaphobe?” I asked.

“No.”

“Okay, listen, this is going to be embarrassing and gross,” I said, still standing on the couch with him outside.

“Okay.”

“I had something in my throat.”

“Phlegm?”

“No, you ever get those little hard things in your throat that you sometimes cough up?”

“No.”

Needless to say, it was an embarrassing moment. “See, I’m gross.”

“No you’re not,” he said, pulling down his knit hat and blowing out a breath.

“You better get inside,” I said, jumping off the couch so he could climb in. He dropped himself down and stepped off the couch near me. “But why were you so eager to run away if you’re not a germaphobe?” I asked, feeling the cold that still clung to him. A shiver traveled down my spine.

Dalton sat down, put his elbows on his knees, and put his hands over his face. “I haven’t been totally truthful with you,” he said, looking up and pulling off his hat and gloves.

“You mean, you lied to the liar?”

“You don’t lie to me,” he said.

He was wrong on that part because all along, I lied about my feelings for him.

“I just omitted some things, something pretty major about myself,” he continued. He stood up and started pacing back and forth, playing with the zipper on his jacket. He stopped pacing for a moment and looked up at the ceiling. “Ah.”

“Ah, what?” I asked. His obvious nervousness made me anxious.

He closed his eyes and took in a breath. “Give me a sec, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” Oh my word, what in the heck would he tell me? Was he a stalker? Were the speculations at school actually true? Or maybe he really hated me all along.

He started talking, which thankfully helped soften my anxiety. “Okay, so, okay,” he said, shaking his hands like he was air-drying them. “I’m going to sit down, okay?”

“Of course, yeah.”

He sat down in his usual corner with his feet flat on the ground and his palms on his knees. He then rethought his position and crisscrossed his legs, facing me, and took his jacket off, sitting there in a gray sweatshirt and blue plaid pajama bottoms. He blew raspberries with his lips. “So after I got shot…”

“Yeah?” Just those few words made my heart thump in my chest.

“Well, the surgeries went okay.”

“That’s good.” Maybe my heart could calm down – it didn’t sound too bad so far.

“But then I caught an infection – a lung infection. I guess that happens sometimes after heart surgery.”

“Oh, I bet that sucked.”

He laughed. “Yeah, and well, it all went downhill from there.”

“What do you mean?” The thumping in my chest picked back up. My heart calming down didn’t seem to be on the horizon.

“The infection spread to my heart and lots of people get over viral heart infections, right? Yeah, so, my heart was already weakened, so it didn’t get over it. They thought they could keep it under control, which they did for a bit, but then I went into congestive heart failure.” He looked down at the couch cushion between us.

I had no words. I thought he was okay afterward. That’s what my grandma kept telling me. I shook my head and licked my lips. It couldn’t be true. No. He was supposed to be okay. I scooted closer, closing the gap between us, our knees touching.

“Yeah, um, so I had a heart transplant.”

“You had a heart transplant?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my god. How did that…I mean if you had heart failure…” I reached out and touched his knee. It was like I had to check that he was there with me – that it was Dalton, not some other boy who climbed in my window and told me something awful. Unfortunately, it was him. Not a ghost or a stranger, just Dalton who made my heart ache.

“They maintained it for a while just with medication, and I wasn’t horribly sick at first, but then it got harder to breathe or do anything – I was so tired all the time. My fingers, toes, and lips started turning blue because of lack of blood flow to them. I started going south, so they put in this device to keep me going, and I got another infection because I’m really good at catching those. We all thought my time had come. I ended up staying in the hospital until I got a new heart.”

“Oh my god, Dalton.” Even the truth that I thought I knew was a lie.

“So that’s why I was concerned about you having a cold, because my meds suppress my immune system and I’m pretty susceptible to stuff.”

I had to force myself to speak. If I didn’t, I would have turned into a big, crying mess. “What if I did have a cold and gave it to you? What if I have one and don’t realize it?”

“No, don’t worry about that,” he said, taking my hand off his knee and holding it, squeezing it to reassure me. “If I caught it, I’d just get a bit sicker than your average person with a cold. Just have to make sure I get checked out – blood tests, so rejection doesn’t occur. Same with the flu.
I get my flu shot every year, even if it might not be effective for me, but I haven’t gotten the flu yet – just colds
.
Got strep once and that landed me in the hospital, a respiratory infection…” Dalton laughed. “That sucked, but I’ve been very fortunate.”

I didn’t know how he could laugh when all I wanted to do was cry. “Oh my god, that does not sound fortunate.”

“Infection is my enemy.” He looked down at our hands.

I put my other hand on his opposite knee. “So are you okay?”

“For the most part. I’m still alive for now,” he said with a nonchalant shrug, taking my other hand and interlacing our fingers before resting them back on his knee.

“Oh god, why do you say for now?” I asked, leaning in over my lap.

“I made it past the first year – that’s a big deal – and the second, and we’ll see in around eight years.”

“What happens in eight years?”

“Only around fifty percent of heart transplant recipients make it to twelve years after transplant, so I might die.”

“Oh, no, don’t say that.” I swore I felt my heart leap up into my throat.

“I’m a fun friend to have.”

“But that won’t happen to you, right?”

He shrugged. “Fifty-fifty. I could always die before then, or after then. If everything goes well, my life expectancy is twenty to twenty-two years post-transplant.”

“You’ll only be….” I wanted to barf.

“Thirty-four, maybe?”

“But that’s so young.”

Dalton looked up into my eyes. “A few people have made it longer. I found this one guy online and he’s doing fine after twenty-five, maybe twenty-seven years, so yeah. It’s all so uncertain.”

“Dalton, I…”

“There are new advances in medicine every day.” He leaned in over his lap so our foreheads touched.

I nodded my head because if I spoke I would cry.

“I’m fine, okay?”

I nodded.

“As long as I always take all my medicine, I’m okay.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

Ever so quietly he said, “I die.”

Tears escaped my eyes. I was so lucky my grandma slept like a brick. If she heard me crying – and she probably could have if she was awake because I didn’t have the TV on – she most definitely would have come running downstairs.

“No, I take my meds, so it’s okay. I’ve got my immunosuppressants, my anti-rejection drugs. They help keep my heart and body at peace, even though they like to go to war. Sometimes my meds have to be adjusted because my body likes to act out.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I felt worse then or when I saw him get shot – both were beyond horrible. No matter what he said, or how much he reassured me, it was still so awful, to have to go through all of that and then know you might not make it to old age.     

“My body has tried to reject my heart several times.”

“All because you knocked on my front door.”

“No, no, no, come here,” Dalton said. “It has nothing to do with that. I’m okay.” He wrapped his arms around me and scooted himself by my side, holding me tight.

“But you’re only going to live to be thirty-four, thirty-seven.”

“It could be longer, much longer. But if not…”

“You have to live your life.”

“Exactly. So, I’m sorry if I’m pushy with my liking you. Sometimes I think it’s like I have to try to get everything in. I want to experience love, just in case, you know…”

“Oh my god, Dalton, don’t say stuff like that to me,” I said, burying my face into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said even though he had absolutely no reason to be.

I officially wanted to spend every last minute of the next twenty to twenty five years with Dalton Reyes. Jesus Christ. “No, I was wrong. You have every right to say stuff like that.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” he said, resting his chin on my head.

“No, if anything you should have told me earlier. What if I got you sick?”

“I’m a big boy. I know what to do around sick people.”

“Dalton…”

He ran his hand over my hair. “I’m alive. That’s what counts.”

I took in a deep breath and sat up. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to kiss him. I put my hand on the back of his neck and pulled him in, our lips brushing together. As soon as our kiss was about to turn into something more than just a light touching of the lips, he pulled away.

“I don’t want you kissing me just because of what I said, because you feel sorry for me or something,” he said, wiping tears off my cheek with his thumb.

“I told you to come over tonight because I was planning on kissing you.”

“Are you sure? What if I never told you about my heart?”

“I would have kissed you anyway.”

“It looks like you’re not lying,” he said, looking into my eyes.

“That’s because I’m not.” It was the most honest I had been in my whole life.

“I don’t want you to regret this.”

“I would never regret kissing you.”

“Even though you know…”

“Dalton, you’re going to live a long wonderful life, and I’m going to be a part of it.”

“You have been for a while.”

“Well, let’s not stop that then.”

We both leaned in – his lips were so warm and soft on mine, and it all felt perfect. If I regretted anything, it was not kissing him sooner. His hands were in my hair, one of mine on his chest in an awkward lean. My fingers touched his jaw. I had never been kissed like that before. I was certain our kiss aligned all the planets, made the stars twinkle brighter, and even though it was nighttime, woke all the birds who started chirping a happy tune – and I knew I was falling hard for Dalton Reyes.

***

I went to bed that night filled with joy, but still a sadness lingered – a sadness that we had to go through what we did when we were younger, a sadness for Dalton and his heart, a sadness that we were kept apart for so long. As I drifted off to sleep I tried to think only happy thoughts about Dalton – how he felt in my arms, how my lips still tingled from our kiss, how he reserved his smiles for me.