The Boy That Stole My Heart Boyxboy

CHAPTER TWENTY

     "Logan has Giant Cell Myocarditis."
     "What does that mean?" I asked my father and the look in his eyes told me that I wouldn't like the answer.
     "Sit down buddy," he said softly, putting a hand on my shoulder and I knocked it away.
     "Dad! What does that mean?"
     He sighed, looking older than I had ever seen him. "It's inflammation of the heart muscle. The cells grow together into giant cells. They attack the heart muscle and cause massive scarring."
     I didn't sit down, so much as collapse onto the couch, fighting back the urge to vomit, the bile sour in the back of my throat. "But he's.. he's going to be okay. He is going to be okay right?"
     "The giant cells affect how well the heart can pump blood causing diffuse fibrosis and will lead to fatal arrhythmias and systolic dysfunction."
     "F-fatal!?" I asked choking on the word. Logan was fine. He was kinda sickly but he wasn't going to fucking die! He was fourteen. "No, you can help him. For God's sake dad you're a fucking heart surgeon!"
     "I'm sorry Ellister.... He will die without a heart transplant."
     Then I was in my dad's arms, five years old again, losing my best friend and expecting a Knight of Nanthom to come to my rescue. But the reality was that I wasn't five, my father was no knight, and Logan wasn't a lost Teddy bear.
     I began to cry, the loud wailing cries of loss, clinging to my father's shirt as the world began to burn around me. My father picked me up and carried me to my room, crossing the threshold for the first time and laying me in my bed.
     "I love him daddy," I confessed, my voice hoarse and cracked from crying.
     " I know," he told me, brushing the hair from my face. "And that's exactly why you won't give up on him."
 
     The car ride was quiet and sullen, a black cloud of sadness hovering above us. Four months... Six if he was lucky. That was the estimated timeline I had with the boy I loved. The boy who saved me. The boy who stole my heart. A heart that he so desperately needed.
     I didn't knock. I never did, shoving the door open to find Logan in his usual spot, fussing with a pudding cup, his moms in the chairs next to the bed, their usual professional demeanors gone, replaced with exactly what they were. Sad, scared, parents.
     He looked up and smiled a smile so sweet. His skin was a sickly white and his eyes were ringed with a deep purple... And he was the most beautiful thing in this entire world.
     "Hey! You didn't have to come," he said, shoulder bumping me as a sat down and taking Mr Mittens from my hands. "I'm coming home tomorrow bro. You always worry-"
     I kissed him then, a childish inexperienced kiss, little more than pressing out mouths together, and he jerked back in surprise, his hands pressing against my chest.
     "No! No Ellie!" He begged, eyes suddenly frantic. "Not now... Not like this."
     I kissed him again, more adult this time, his lips parting with a sigh and his tongue brushed lightly against mine, tasting of a mix between lemonade and boy.
     I held him against me as he began to cry and our parents left to give us privacy, realizing, I think, that we no longer belonged to them. Their children were gone, forced to grow up much too fast.
     "Life's a bitch huh?" He whispered into my chest.
     "Shut up," I told him. "If I wanted to hear you whine then I would put it on Star Trek."
     That did the trick and he shoved me away angrily. "It doesn't make any fucking sense Ellie! How are aliens a trillion light years away speaking English man!?"
I lay with him, listening to him rant, disagreeing with everything just to piss him off and I knew that I wanted this forever... That there was nothing in this world that I wouldn't do to save him.