Page 4 of The Last Kiss

I close my eyes. Henri’s hand brushes through my hair and I focus on the sensation: soothing, reassuring.

He plants a kiss on my mouth. My last kiss.

The last kiss.

On the cusp of nothing, I hold everything as my lips whisper their last word, exhaustion tying me into a final bow I know I can’t undo.

“Henri.”

2

Blind Side

I blink rapidly, like sand has kicked up on a warm summer day and stung my eyes. “I’m sorry.” I shake my head, attempting to disperse the imaginary grains. “I don’t really understand.”

Dr Francis furrows his face into his most concerned frown. I’m sure they make them practice that look in med school. Stand and look concerned in the mirror for ten minutes a day. Final test will be if you can pass the giggle test on week twelve.

I’m not giggling.

My chest is tight.

Too damn tight.

There are dark smudges across my vision.

A buzzing in my ears which I’m not sure is coming from inside me or from the light flickering above my head.

“Julianna.” His voice softens, and he reaches forward to cover my hand with his. There are probably a million different rules against him doing it, but I’m grateful all the same. “Is there no one you could have with you? I’m worried you won’t be able to remember everything.”

Unable to stop my face scrunching, I stare at him, through him, barely seeing him. The words he’s just said, the sentence he has passed, are slowly clicking themselves into place inside my brain.

It’s. Over.

“My sister…” I trail off, empty, barren, but then pick myself up and shake it off. “There isn’t much to remember is there?” Half-heartedly, I huff a small laugh, more for his benefit than mine.

“Well, we need to talk things through,” he pauses, his hand patting mine, “how you want this to go. You’ve got decisions to make: how much medication you want to take, what further procedures you’d like that could,” he tilts his head here—could… but might not, the tilt of his head tells me— “help.”

“So exactly how long are you saying?” Usually, I run from facts with my arms flailing in the air, but I think this is a fact I should know.

Another pause, another tilt of the head, full of unspoken things. Clearing his throat, Dr Francis pulls himself up straight. “Six months,” he shrugs, because shrugging always helps, “a year at the most.”

God. My heart. It’s actually just going to disintegrate in my chest while I’m still sat in his office. We don’t need to worry about the next possible twelve months.

“In a year, I will be dead.” There’s no point icing the cake with fancy frills and flowers. My cake is a plain Victoria sponge and it’s about to become crumbs.

He nods. Simple. “That is the prognosis.”

Prognosis. What a word.

“And there is nothing, simply nothing that you can do?” I ask. How can this be? We live in the twenty-first century. People can do all sorts these days.

“There are. That’s what we’re discussing.” He speaks slowly, like he’s talking to a small child, or a woman who’s about to die. “The first thing to do is to create a medication regime to make things comfortable. We can talk about operating on the valves again.”

Oh, those cranky valves. I rub at my chest, a throwaway bidding that they might just do what the fuck they are meant to do—pump blood around my body. I mean, it’s not that hard is it?

“And…?” Give me more. Give me more.

“And we can get you on the waiting list for another heart.”