Wes

Being nervous hadn’t really occurred to me—not until Gabe mentioned a text from Kiersten where she used lots of exclamations points and enough emoji to illustrate her own graphic novel. By the time we’d gotten to the location and I saw the decorations—I started freaking out. Probably not to the level that Kiersten was freaking out, but my hands were shaking and I was pretty sure that if Gabe offered me a shot of tequila I’d toss it back like water. I wasn’t nervous about the marriage—I was nervous about everything before that point.

I sucked in a nervous breath as Gabe slapped my back. Either Kiersten was going to flip in a bad way, or she was going to think it was the coolest thing I could do.

Yeah, the very fact that Gabe flipped should have given me a hint. After all, the guy had just visited hell and back. To say his life had been an emotional roller coaster for the last few months would be a huge understatement. It probably didn’t help that in the process I’d given him, what? Two black eyes? Hey, that’s what friends do. They punch you in the face when you act like a jackass.

“It’s creepy.” Gabe sniffed and looked around the white room. “You know those movies where people go to heaven and everything’s white?”

“Yeah?” I touched some of the flowers sitting on the table. “What about them?”

“We are freaking in that movie dude, I’m a bit worried the door’s going to close on me and then a trapdoor on the floor’s going to open revealing the fires of hell and a booming voice is going to come on the loud speaker and say ‘MAKE YOUR CHOICE!’”

“Paging Doctor Smith,” boomed a voice over the loud speaker in the ceiling

With a giant-assed start, Gabe grabbed my arm and let out a streak of curses.

I burst out laughing as I lifted his hand and dropped it. “You still worried they don’t want you upstairs?”

“Cautious.” Gabe pointed at me and rolled his eyes. “Just cautious.”

“Everything ready?” My dad came barreling in, JoBob and Sandy in tow. Even though we were loaded, we’d had a hell of a time actually getting all the big shots at the hospital to agree to this. But honestly? Any other way and it wouldn’t make sense.

I hoped Kiersten would realize that.

Saylor popped into the room and shut the door behind her. “Okay Lisa has Kiersten in the car and they’re driving in this direction, so everyone?” She waved her hands into the air.

“She dancing?” I asked Gabe.

He tilted his head and squinted at her then shook his head. “Not sure.”

Saylor sighed in irritation. “Just get in your places like we practiced last night.”

“That was fun.” Gabe smirked. “Last night.”

“Can we not?” I smacked him on the shoulder. “Wedding day? Hello?”

“Sorry.” He licked his lips and winked at Saylor who in turn blushed so red that I was convinced she was going to stop breathing altogether and pass out on the table. Hey, at least we were close to the hospital.

I tugged at my tie again and told myself to calm down.

But instead of calming down, my heart slammed against my chest. Funny, how I’d come so close to never having that feeling ever again. Yet there it was, slamming in perfect cadence. Announcing to the rest of my body that I was nervous, that I was excited. It’s funny, we all have hearts, but do we ever truly listen to them?

Its’ true, death had made me all kinds of philosophical, swear it made Gabe want to strangle me most the time.

But the question remained. How often do we hear our hearts and stop to appreciate the fact that it’s been beating solid, strong, for our entire lives? God willing, your heart never stops until you finally die. It beats harder when you’re sick, it beats softer when you sleep, it beats harder again when you’re excited, and sometimes it physically hurts when you’re in pain.

Your heart isn’t just a muscle.

Though I’m sure people would disagree with me.

Your heart is everything. Why else would God ask for it first? I mean, why not ask for your mind? Your soul? Instead, God asks for our hearts. Our significant others ask for our hearts. Family…they ask for our hearts. Friends ask for our hearts.

It’s not just a muscle.

I truly believed that the heart stored the essence of everything a person possessed. The human body didn’t start with the brain or the legs…no…when we were conceived…the first thing doctors searched for?

The heartbeat.

When you get married…you don’t just ask for your wife’s hand. The first thing you search for? Her heart.

When you’re sick. The doctor doesn’t ask about your heart—he listens to it.

Seems to me like we’ve had it wrong all these years.

If you have a heart—I guarantee—there’s someone out there who wants it. Who’s searching for it. Who dreams about it.

“Wes?” Gabe knocked me in the shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just thinking about…things,” I lied.

“Well,” he said, sighing. “Pretty sure all thinking will cease the minute that girl walks through that door.”

“Oh yeah?” I smirked. “Why?”

Gabe gave me a knowing grin.

Kiersten walked through the door, her eyes already pouring tears down her cheeks.

And then I looked at the bouquet she was holding.

Red roses. In the shape of a heart.

She was holding my heart.

He’d given me his heart a long time ago—and now I was giving it back, not because I didn’t want it. But because I wanted to share it. With him. Forever.—Kiersten

Kiersten

When Lisa drove me up to the hospital, my first thought was something had happened to Wes. Funny, how you think you can be totally over something. And then one tiny little thing happens and immediately you’re back to that place. I wondered if PTSD was like that.

You live your life every day, going through the motions, and then BOOM! Something suddenly happens to throw you off kilter and the only thing you want to do is go sit in a corner and rock back and forth.

When she parked and didn’t start crying or saying that we were there because the man I loved was dying—again. I lost it.

Too close to home.

I wanted to leave.

Actually, I wanted to smack Wes and then I wanted to leave. How dare he scare me like that!

“Hey!” Lisa grabbed my hand. “You need to do this.”

“I don’t want to.” I knew I sounded like a whiny child, and Wes had probably gone to a lot of trouble to use the little chapel at the hospital. But I didn’t…I couldn’t. My throat felt thick as I tried to swallow.

I hadn’t had a panic attack in a really long time.

But being back in that hospital, even in the parking garage, was doing some serious damage to my nervous system.

I didn’t want to stay and fight. I wanted to run away. I wanted to run in the opposite direction of the memories of Wes lying in that hospital bed. Of the look on his face when he said goodbye. My breath hitched in my chest as my stomach clenched with fear.

Of the tears in his eyes when he wasn’t sure if it was going to be for a few hours—or forever.

I sniffled.

Lisa handed me a tissue and started slowly rubbing my back. “Talk to me, Kiersten.”

“It feels like yesterday,” I whispered. “I’m terrified that when I walk in that door, he’s going to be back in that hospital bed, or worse, something’s going to happen. I just—I know it’s not logical but I don’t feel very logical right now.”

“It’s your wedding day.” Lisa shrugged. “Who says you have to be logical?”

I smiled through my tears.

“If it makes you feel better.” She continued rubbing my back, totally something my mom would have done. I loved that girl, I would seriously die for Lisa, and I think she knew that. “I haven’t gone back either.”

“To the hospital?”

“No.” She stopped rubbing for a minute. “Home. I haven’t faced my demons at all. It doesn’t make it easier you know.”