Page 76 of This Darkness Mine

They’ve tried. Severed nerve endings have been cauterized, stumps shortened, entire areas of the brain deadened to stop signals from nowhere. It doesn’t work. Instead of relief, the afflicted receive fresh pain to compound the suffering, scar tissue piled over trauma.

I don’t know how my heart left me, only that it did. Slipping from my fetal body as Shanna’s pushed it aside, the cells broken down and absorbed into Mom to be shed with her skin, contributing to a layer of dust somewhere in our home before I even arrived.

It has tried to reach me since then, sending signals like phantoms through my veins, pulsing toward my brain to tell me what I care for and who I love. It has succeeded, mostly, even what small strength it retained overpowering Shanna’s inadequate organ. She might be pumping our blood, but my wants and needs prevailed, until she knew there was only so much time left for her.

This is why Heath never felt vibrant to me, my feelings for him dulled by space and time, the signals from my rightful heart barely reaching me. This is why Isaac has fallen into me like a meteor, hot and fast, unavoidable, Shanna’s heart making demands as it winks out of existence. And while I can’t deny that my body enjoyed participating in her choices, it will come to an end.

I know I am the stronger of us, have already proven it by simply existing while she is merely clinging to life by my permission and only with the assistance of a machine that penetrated both of us, leaving metal entwined with our soft tissues. I will shed it, rid myself of the cords, the metal, the machines, the needles, the endless cheery faces asking what I need but not able to give me anything.

I will restore Sasha Stone.

I will be me.

twenty-nine

“The nurses tell me you’ve been assisting with the meditation classes?”

I try to look away from Amanda’s double-knotted shoes, wondering if her mother tied them for her before she went out the door to work this morning.

“Assisting is one word,” I say.

“How would you describe your involvement?” Amanda asks.

“I run it. Before I showed up a boom box ran it.”

“So you’ve improved the class?”

I let that one go unanswered. Amanda’s pen fills the silence, scratching across the paper.

“I understand you have a new friend?”

Amanda’s voice is an endless lilt, as if her vocal cords are tipped in a way that makes it impossible for her to make a statement instead of asking a question.

“Yes. Brandy,” I say. “She’s an amputee.”

“And what’s she like?”

“She’s like a regular person with just one foot.”

Amanda’s pen is still moving, but I can’t imagine she’s trying to capture the amazing insight I just imparted.

“And I understand your ex-boyfriend came to visit?”

“That was unexpected,” I say, and she finally stops writing.

“Because?”

“He found out about Isaac.”

“And how did he process that?”

I think about Heath’s finger pointed at me, his face red and hot behind it. “Not well,” I admit. “I tried to explain about Isaac being for Shanna, and her attraction to him not having anything to do with us.”

“He didn’t accept your explanation?”

I remember the muscle ticking in his jaw, anger I didn’t think him capable of filling the space between us.

“No, he didn’t.”