Dear Ana: A Novel

The heart beating in my chest belonged to the girl buried six feet under where I was standing.

ten years earlier

Dear Ana,

Hospital food sucks.

I’ve been staring at what looks like chicken and vegetables on the plate in front of me for twenty minutes now, but it still hasn’t transformed into a juicy burger. Maybe the nurse will feel bad and give me two puddings for dessert.

If you were thinking that I’m talking about food as a stall tactic, you thought correctly. I don’t know why I’m doing this. The psychiatrist that’s been visiting me every day since I’ve been admitted suggested I start writing in a journal as a way of coping with my accident. I thought it was useless at first––I still do. But then I heard them mention you the other night when they thought I was sleeping and your name has been consuming my mind ever since.

You don’t know me and I don’t know you, but we’re connected in a way most people will never understand. You gave me a part of yourself. A huge part. The single most essential part of all living things. Now every breath I take feels . . . stolen. I can hear your heart beating your name in my ears, and pumping blood that isn’t mine through my veins.

You saved my life, and I know I should be thankful, but all I feel is guilt. A heavy, suffocating feeling of guilt that’s made its bed right on my chest and doesn’t want to leave. It works its way uninvited into every thought that crosses my mind and I can’t push it out. I don’t know how to live with the burden that someone had to die in order for me to be alive.

Ana. Who knew one word could hold so much meaning? Before last night you were just an organ, but now you’re a person. A girl, with a family and friends who loved you, and are probably broken right now because I snatched you away from them.

I should be thankful, but I’m not. I should be relieved and happy to be alive, but I’m not. Because the truth is, Ana, as guilty as I am, I’m also angry. I’m filled with an intense rage that’s burning a trail through my body and scorching every part of me your blood touches.

Yes, you saved my life. But you saved my life when I didn’t want it to be saved.