Bloodline [h.s.]

twenty-seven.

As I opened the front door, she was standing over the sink with her phone to her ear. It sounded like she was finishing up a conversation. Her palms pressed against her eyes once she hung up.

"What's going on?" I asked, walking towards her.

"Megan's heart is failing. The LVAD stopped helping her heart function. Her lungs filled with fluid, and the doctors just had to intubate her. They are putting her on bypass, and I think that only gives them hours left to get a new heart." She spoke with her head tilted at the ceiling. She didn't turn around right away as my arms wrapped around her torso. Her breaths were even, and there were no tears. She was just broken.

"Do you want to go to hospital?" I wondered.

"I-I don't know. Peter said no one can see her for right now. Jacob, even he sounded scared. I don't know what to do." She said, resting her hands over my arms.

"Maybe we should go, so you're close if anything changes." I suggested carefully. The air in the room felt so delicate as though one wrong word could puncture it and cut off all air supply.

She nodded as she turned to follow me to the car. Even in the quiet, it was impossible not to feel the fear internally tormenting her. She kept her eyes out the window. I gripped her thigh to pull her out of her thoughts as we got closer to the hospital.

"This is it, isn't it? It's all happening again. She's going to—" she choked out the words before slapping her own hand to her mouth. My own throat throbbed from listening to the strain in her voice as she fought herself to not cry.

"No, they will find her a heart. They have to." I said.

"Bella didn't know she was... but Megan is mature. I think she knows. She knows my parents are lying to her and downplaying it, and I let them." She said, her voice shaking. "You were the only one honest with her, and I pushed you away for it. Now, she's not even conscious. I can't fix it."

I felt myself wanting open my own chest and give my heart to Megan to save Bridget from feeling this. Her arms locked around her knees pressed to her chest as if physically holding herself together kept her from falling apart.

"Don't do that do to yourself. You are an amazing sister. You did what was best to protect her. Megan knows you love her." I said as I drove into the car park.

"I want to ask you something, but if you aren't comfortable answering, that's fine." She began. "When you lost your parents and your brother, what did you... how did you recover from it?"

This was the very last thing I wanted to discuss with her, but I would have done anything for her at this moment. Wait. How did she know I even had—

"When you had that nightmare, you were shouting for your brother." She explained, reading my mind.

Fuck. All this time she knew. What else did I say that night? What more did she already know? I couldn't worry about it now. It didn't matter, today.

"I didn't recover from it. I didn't grieve. I just got angry. I picked fights because I felt guilty that I survived. After awhile, you just learn to breathe even when you don't want to. It doesn't go away, but you get used it." I said bluntly. She looked shocked I even answered.

She dug her teeth into her bottom lip as tears welled up on her lash line only for a second. Moments like these reminded me how new I was to this. I didn't know what to say to comfort her. She was caught in a hurricane of fear and grief, and all I could do was watch the storm ruin her.

With each step closer to her sister's room, the movement of her chest increased in speed, gathering as much oxygen as she could before the image of her sister took her breath away entirely. A tube was placed in her throat since the fluid in her lungs kept them from functioning. More wires and tubes covered her small body than the last time we were here. My eyes tore away from the girl that no longer looked like Megan as Bridget gripped my arms for support. I held her up as her knees buckled.