With This Heart(9)

“ I usually have a hard time getting to sleep.”

“ Maybe it’s because you’re watching zombies,” I suggested.

He chuckled. “Correction: people killing zombies.”

“ I used to watch that show, but the medical inaccuracies pissed me off.” This aloof thing wasn’t really working. I just sounded bitchy and constipated.

“ Yeah, I watch zombie shows because of their strict adherence to reality, too.”

Even I had to laugh at that.

“ I get your point, but c’mon. Not even in a TV show can you have zombie guts spread all over your face and NOT get the virus. If someone coughs two apartments down from me, I catch a cold.”

He laughed then, and I smiled wide into the darkness of my room. It felt important that he thought I was funny, or at least interesting. He seemed like the coolest person ever to grace my life and I didn’t want to be a disappointment to him.

“ Why are you awake, Abby?”

“ For reasons unexplained. My brain doesn’t want to shut off,” I said.

“ I wish I could help you,” he said, and my heart leapt.

“ You are…sort of,” I admitted, only because his voice sounded so sincere.

“ Did you know that no one knows why our bodies demand sleep?” he offered, and I sat up against my pillows.


“ What? I thought that was decided ages ago?”

“ Nope. There’s a ton of stuff that happens while we sleep, but there’s not one main reason.”

“ What if it’s for some really strange reason?”

“ Like what?” he asked with amusement.

Silence hung on the phone line, amplifying each of our shallow breaths until I finally cut it off.

“ Like… I don’t know.” I tried really hard to come up with a reason, but I couldn’t because I was already wondering about something else. “What if you could pick what would happen to you while you slept? Like if you had a really bad day, you could erase it. Or if you had cancer, you could ask your body to get rid of it. Or if you were really fat, you could wake up skinny.”

Beck was quiet after that, and I thought for a moment he had fallen asleep.

“ I don’t think we should erase the bad days,” he finally announced.

“ Hmm.”

“ What if the only way it worked is if you transferred those things— your shitty day or cancer— to other people while you slept?” he asked.

“ Conservation of energy. Or maybe collectivism in practice,” I said.

“ Exactly,” he said.

I rolled over to face my window so I could look out into the wild nature surrounding me. No, that’s not true. I stared outside and my view was cut off by the apartment building that sat three feet from mine. I could see a sloping brown roof and layers of white siding.

“ When you point it out like that, I don’t have an answer. But I do know that we do things everyday that affect people almost as implicitly as what you’re suggesting. I’ve caused people to have bad days. I’m a bitchy teenager to my parents 50% of the time. Companies that make junk-food aid in America’s quest to be the fattest-country-ever, while their CEOs stay skinny and rich.” I was sort of rambling. The topic was interesting and Beck was easy to talk to.

“ Nah, I bet they’re fat, too,” he laughed.

I smiled. “Me too.”

“ Fat cats ,” he quipped.

“ Fat cats ,” I repeated for emphasis.

“ So, what about when you cause people to have good days?” Beck mentioned.

I nodded into the darkness and thought about that idea for a little while.

“ One time, when I was young, I was in the hospital for some check-up or something. I was walking down the hallway with a teddy bear in my arm that was pretty much my best friend and sole confidant at that age.”

I made sure to leave out any details about my old disease while describing my visit.

“ Seems like a respectable type of bear,” he said.

“ He was. The best kind,” I said. “Anyway, I was in the hospital and a little girl was being carted down the hallway next to me on a hospital bed that swallowed her up— it was so big. I thought she was the same age as me because she looked about my size. I didn’t know where they were taking her, but for this really long expanse of hallway, our eyes locked and we just stared at each other. I can’t remember what I saw in her eyes, but even as a kid I knew she had it worse than I did. I was walking, holding onto my teddy bear and my mom’s hand, and she was being carted by some nurse to god knows where.”

“ You gave her that bear didn’t you?”

“ Yes. Right before she was pushed into the elevator. I remember sort of half tossing, half tripping in my journey to get to her.”

“ Were you sad that you gave up your best friend? Or just happy that you made someone’s day less worse?”

“ Probably neither. I was too young to even realize what I was actually doing.”

“ I wonder what that bear is doing now...”

“ He’s probably a fat cat,” I quipped.

He laughed a deep rumbling laugh that was too good for this earth.

“ What’s your full name, Abby?” he asked out of the blue.