This Heart, It Beats, Beats for Only You

“Wow, didn’t you wear that yesterday?” Joe asked when Casey entered the room and walked to his bedside. He was lying there hooked up to the machine. He voice was strained. Color was barely visible in his face, and yet he was smirking.

She wanted to punch him. “Yes, Joseph, because I have been here at this fucking hospital worried sick about my boyfriend who out of nowhere collapsed after punching a guy in the face. What the hell happened?”

“I was protecting your honor,” he insisted, wincing, but ignoring the rest of her statement. “I’m your knight in shining armor. Shouldn’t you be thanking me right now? Kissing me for being your hero? Doing all those things a girl does for her amazing, loving, and totally hot boyfriend?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not that hot.”

He pretended to look offended. “Please, you know I’m hot.”

She sighed and took his hand, putting it on her chest. “Do you feel that, Joe?”

He looked at her for a moment before nodding. “Your heart?”

“I thought it was going to stop beating when you hit the floor,” her voice was quiet, pained. “I thought I was going to die, Joe.”

He grimaced. “Casey, please--.”

“What the hell happened, Joe? And don’t tell me it was nothing because I saw you fucking fall on the ground, not a scratch on you. Something happened. What’s wrong? And please don’t lie to me.”

He sighed, and looked at her for a long time. Then he closed his eyes, leaned back, and let out a deep breath. “You were wearing a blue dress?”

“What?”

“The day I met you,” he said, his eyes still closed. “You had on a blue dress, but you changed before we went to that party. Your hair was out, it was just below your shoulders, and it was wavy. You smelled like a flower. I don’t know remember which one it was, but it was definitely a flower.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Her vision grew blurry as tears gathered in her eyes.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, his eyes holding hers. “Because in the end, you start thinking of the beginning. You are my beginning.”

Now she couldn’t hold the tears back. They were pouring down her face now. Her hand flew to her mouth. She didn’t believe this was happening. She couldn’t believe what he was saying. She was shaking her head as she started slowly backing away. She couldn’t deal with this. She shouldn’t have to.

“Casey,” he called out to her as she edged towards the door. His voice was pained, his expression even more so.

She just shook her head and turned, running out of the room. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t face what he was saying. She couldn’t lose him.

---

“Hey,” Nick said, coming into the room. “Was that Casey I just saw running from here?”

Joe sighed and leaned his head back, staring at the white ceiling. “You know, when they were wheeling me before, I noticed that the walls of some of the rooms are made of glass. What if the ceilings were made of glass too? There would be no privacy. There would be nothing shielding someone from another’s pain.”

Nick smiled sadly at his brother’s words. “You told her?”

“I started to,” he sighed. “But I think she knows the gist of it now. She knows I’m dying. You saw that she didn’t take it well.”

“She’ll be back.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Joe, she loves you. She loves you as much as you love her. She’ll be back.”

“Maybe I don’t want her to.”

“You need her,” Nick said, astonished by his brother’s words. “She’s made you happier than I’ve ever seen. You need her.”

“It doesn’t matter what I need,” Joe said quietly. “I’m dying.” He sighed and looked at his younger brother. “Do you believe in heaven, Nicky?”

“Joe, we practically grew up in a church,” Nick reminded him.

Joe smiled. “Yeah, but I still didn’t believe in it. I didn’t believe in it for a long time.”

“Do you believe in it now?”

“I have to,” he admitted. “I have to believe there’s more than this, that this isn’t the end for me. I have to believe that no matter what happens to me now, I’ll be somewhere warm and kind and bright and beautiful. I have to believe that there’s more, and when I do die, I’ll get to go there. But Casey, she’s still going to be here, long after me I hope. She’ll have to deal with the pain here. She won’t get to let it go like me. How is it far of me to ask her to stay here with me, to watch me slowly die so that when I finally do, I escape the pain only to leave her with so much more?”

Nick looked at his brother for a long time, but kept his mouth shut, because for once, he didn’t know what to say.