Living off of love

Elijah Medina

There was a 16 year old boy named Tristan. He liked this girl named Breanna. He wanted to ask her to Prom for a while now. So he mustered up his courage and he asked her to Prom one day dressed nice, with flowers and a poster and all. She just apologized to him and said that she already had a date. The onlookers laughed at his effort coming to nothing. He sadly left and started to walk home. He saw a girl, lonely, sitting on a bench. He recognized her from around the school. "I think her name was Shar or something." He thought. He asked her if she would like to come with him to Prom. She just laughed at him and said "Uhh...no." He stood there for a moment, feelings building up, then he just said to her, "Just take the flowers so I can go cry." She stopped laughing and felt her heart break a little bit. He wasn't joking. She took the flowers and was about to say something, but he promptly left, wiping the tears from his eyes. She tried to call out to him, but he was already in his car. He drove off, with the lonely girl watching after him. His flowers in her hand, her sad about what happened. He drove off to his house.

The next day, it was Prom. He decided he would go anyway, for his friends being there. He was dressed nice, and he went to go get a cup of punch, when he was cut off by a couple holding hands. He waited for them to move. After they had moved, he got himself a cup. When he turned around, all he could see was love everywhere. Couples kissing, dancing, laughing. Nobody except him was alone. His friends even had dates and would rather spend time with them than him. He didn't want to look at this, so he left. He went to his car to change to his regular clothes. Once he had done that, he grabbed his skateboard and decided to skate behind the school. He got there, and was skating for not even 5 minutes, before a couple showed up to make out behind the school. He looked for a second, becoming more and more sad, before forcing himself to look away, trying to focus on skating. A minute later, the guy asked him. "Hey, can you, like, leave? We need privacy." He stared at them for a second. He was here first. But he didn't want trouble, so Tristan left. He got in his car. He tried to keep his mind off the feeling. As he drove home, he kept getting distracted by that feeling. He saw a stop sign, then realized his foot wasn't on the brake pedal. The last thing that he saw was a garbage truck coming from his left. He awoke soon, hoping to be in the care of the hospital staff, but to his dismay, he was still in the car. He pushed his way out his car, which was wedged between the truck and a brick wall. He pushed the passenger side door open, which was facing the sky. He got out promptly, before feeling a sharp pain in his chest. Somebody screamed. He looked where it came from and saw a woman, her face twisted in fear and terror, one hand over her mouth, and one hand pointing at him. The garbage truck drivers were looking scared too. Tristan looked down and was shocked to see a windshield wiper sticking out of his chest, where his heart should be. He didn't have time to feel the pain. He fell to the ground, blacking out.

He woke up in a hospital. He felt really different. He had a beard, long hair, and felt like he has been there more than overnight. A doctor saw him and called other doctors. They checked him out and got him up, before one of the doctors told him, "Are you okay, sir? You've been in a coma for 14 months." His heart stopped. "Wait a minute. I have a heart! I'm okay!" He left the hospital as soon as he could, but before he left, he spoke more to his doctor who told him, "Congratulations sir, you are the first man ever to survive a heart injury! You were stabbed by a windshield wiper, but your heart has successfully repaired itself! We did surgery but once we noticed that your heart was repairing itself, we did not put an artificial heart! This is a scientific breakthrough, and you're you are too!!! But, according to the government, you should have died 12 months ago. It was just a coma, and we knew it. We knew you weren't dead." Tristan thanked them with all his HEART. And left to go home.

Once he got home and fixed himself (cut his hair, shaved, etc.), he got ready and left to go skate. Two weeks later, he realized he wasn't going to school anymore. He technically wasn't alive in society. He went to go back to the doctor for his final checkup. As he entered the hospital, he saw a girl, lonely, sad. It reminded him of the girl he asked to Prom that one day a year ago. He didn't remember her name. He just bypassed her and went for his checkup. After that, as he went back, he saw a doctor speaking to the same girl, and she was crying. He came closer to hear. The doctor said to her, "I'm so sorry. There was no other compatible heart. None had a chance to work with you. Again, I'm so sorry. You have the rest of the week to say your goodbyes." At this the doctor walked away, hiding the tears forming in her eyes. Tristan stopped the doctor and asked what was wrong. The doctor was almost in tears, but said to him, "I-I-I'm not supposed to give out patient information." He looked her in the eyes. She broke professionalism and started to explain between sniffs, "She has a heart disease with a rare heart that isn't compatible with any others. We've tried 30 hearts, but they wouldn't work if we did a transplant with any of them." He looked at the girl, who was crying on the bench. He felt sadness towards her. Maybe even love. To a stranger. He looked back at the doctor, who looked like she was going to break down and start crying, and asked her, "What's her name?" To which she replied, " I-it's Charlotte." She didn't hold in her tears very long, and ran to the other room. Tristan looked at the girl in misery, and he started to feel a feeling inside of him that he hasn't felt in over a year. He couldn't quite comprehend what the feeling was. So he left to go ponder on it. Two days later, he came back to the hospital. He asked the doctor where he could go to donate a heart.

After all of the suspense, the doctor gasped and spoke. "You have a compatible heart!! And just in time!" Then he grew grim fast."But...we can't take it out of a live person, and don't even THINK of taking your life for this to work. "It's okay, you can do it. Technically I'm not alive anymore. According to the government." The doctors felt that was reasonable and made sense. "Are you sure you want to do this, man? It'll be too late to change your decision later." Without hesitating, Tristan said, "Yes. I'm sure." And so the operation began.

Tristan woke to a female voice at his doorway. "Tristan?" He didn't open his eyes though. He was too tired to. The voice continued, "Is that you? You? Gave me the heart?" The voice started to break. "Tristan..." She started to cry. He opened his eyes and saw her crying, kneeling on the ground, her head in her hands. Suddenly, he got a vision. He remembered.It was her. The girl he had asked to Prom. Not Breanna, but the other girl. The one that was on the bench, lonely that day. "Shar. Char. Charlotte. Charlotte!!!" He thought. "Charlotte?" He whispered weakly. She instantly stopped sobbing for a second and turned to Tristan. "TRISTAN!!!!!!" She screamed and ran at him, and hugged him as tight as he could. He hugged her back, with all of the remaining strength he had left. She sobbed in his arms, crying to him. "Thank you Tristan... Thank you so much... I love you, Tristan! I love you..." Tristan felt something. He didn't have a heart now, it belonged to her now, but he has managed to stay alive through the whole operation, and also even feel love for her without his heart. "How are you still alive?" She asked him. Tristan smiled and answered weakly, "I don't know, but I won't be for much longer, as he pointed to the monitor which was getting closer and closer to flatlining. She started to sob in fear of losing him. He put his hand on her face and said to her, " Don't you worry now. You're alive." She argued with love, "But I want you to stay with me! Here, alive with me!" She cried and cried. He said to her, "I want to stay with you too, but we both need hearts. You have mine, so a piece of me is staying with you. And I always will be. Don't forget about me, Charlotte." She smiled through her tears and said to him, "I can't." He finally said one last thing to her, "You can live with my heart. Just promise me that all of the love inside of it doesn't go to waste." She wiped her tears away, held his hand and kissed him, "I promise." Tristan had passed. Did he hear her promise?