Dear Ana: A Novel

Dear Ana,

It took me a minute to understand what happened.

I remembered being in pain, and I remembered all the doctors scrambling in a panic around me. I couldn’t understand why until I realized that the frantic beeping sound was the heart monitor. My heart monitor. I knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sound, and then I finally grasped what was happening.

I was dying.

And I was relieved.

God, Ana, you have no idea how fucking relieved I was when I put the pieces together. If my face didn’t feel like I was getting electrocuted with a thousand powerful bolts, I would have smiled from how alleviated I was by that news. I felt the load I’d been clinging to for so long completely disappear. My back felt light. The pain was slowly but surely melting away.

I always thought people were exaggerating when they said ‘go to the light’ but it was true. You would know, I guess . . . I saw the extremely luminous and beaming light flashing directly into my eyes, and it was getting closer and brighter, and if I could only move my hand and reach out I was positive I could feel it burn my fingertips.

Then the heart monitor stopped, and the world went quiet and I was . . . nothing.

I felt nothing. The light was gone. Everything was gone. Time was gone, my senses were gone, Maya was gone.

Until suddenly I was back.

The pain was back. My senses were back. That stupid beeping heart monitor was back.

I knew something was off the second I touched my chest but I couldn’t put my finger on it. My thoughts were flowing through cement and it hurt too much to try to think a single coherent thought, but there was one thing I remembered. One thing I was extremely sure about.

“My heart stopped beating,” I whispered.

“What did you say, honey?” Mama asked from beside me.

“My heart . . .” I started again, taking a deep breath to clear my raspy voice, and cringed back from the pain. “I heard it stop. I felt it stop, Mama. I . . . died.”

“Honey,” Mama started, taking my hand carefully.

“I died,” I repeated louder. “Why am I still here? I died Mama, I died!”

I was screaming now. The monitor was thumping erratically alongside me, as the heart in my chest thrashed against its bandages with hysteria.

“Maya, you’re okay now,” Mama said, trying to soothe me. She grabbed my hand but I yanked it out of her grasp.

“No!” I screeched, yanking at the needles attached to my body. “I died! Why am I still here? Why am I alive?”

A dozen nurses flooded into my room at that point and rushed toward me. I fought and clawed against their hands aggressively, but they restrained me and injected me with enough sedatives to instantly knock me out.

I don’t know how long it took, but eventually, I woke up. I opened my eyes and stared at the rusty overhead light hanging from the ceiling. I tried to take a deep breath but my throat was rough and scratchy. Inhaling and exhaling made it feel like my trachea was rubbing against a cheese grater. I waited a few minutes for my brain to regain its motion before willing it to signal my arm muscles to move, but they still wouldn’t budge.

I heard the lock turn, and a nurse walked in. “This should help,” she said, slipping my glasses onto my face. My vision immediately cleared, and that’s when I noticed the thick leather cuffs binding my good hand and leg to the bed rails, restricting them from moving.

They tied me to the bed, Ana. They actually . . . shackled me to the bed like I was a mental patient. I looked around frantically, trying to find my mom so she could explain what was happening when I saw the bars on the window.

The multiple locks on the door.

The stark white walls.

The empty room.

I wasn’t just chained to my bed, Ana; I was chained in my room. From the looks of it, I was literally in some kind of psychiatric ward.

I looked back at the nurse to demand that she take them off, but I paused. She looked so familiar, but I couldn’t recall when I had seen her before. I focused my gaze on her appearance, and my eyes froze on her arms which were all bandaged up.

Memories flooded back to me then. Flashes of screaming . . . my screaming . . . blood . . . nurses trying to help me and I . . .

“Did I do that to you?” I whispered, my voice cracking.

She sat beside me slowly and nodded. I closed my eyes against the tears that were bubbling in my throat.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to, I just didn’t––I don’t know what’s happening––I thought I died and then I woke up,” I stuttered, my words stumbling over each other.

“It’s okay,” she soothed softly. “I know you’re confused and scared, but a psychiatrist will come and explain everything to you soon.”

“A psychiatrist?” I asked, coughing.

“Your throat must be sore. I’m going to bring you some water, okay?”

She came back in after a few minutes and brought me some water. I looked at my one good hand expectantly, thinking she was going to untie me, but she didn’t. She leaned in close and pressed the Styrofoam cup against my lips, waiting.

“Can you take these off?”

“I can’t do that.”

She didn’t trust me enough to let me drink my own water, Ana.

I separated my trembling lips and let her tilt the cold liquid down my throat.

“The psychiatrist will be here soon,” she promised, before exiting the room. The locks clicked back together loudly in the empty space.

Hours went by. Nurses came in every little bit to check on my vitals, and on all the tubes pumping God knows what inside my system. From what I could tell, my left leg was in a full cast, suspended in the air. My right arm was also in a cast, and I distinctly remembered the flash of white and the snapping sound cracking in the air like a gunshot.

The psychiatrist finally arrived, locking the door behind her and taking a seat.

“Hello Maya, I’m Dr. Silverstein,” she said, introducing herself.

“Hi,” I muttered.

“The nurses told me you’re still a little confused about what’s going on, is that correct?”

I nodded.

She took some notes in her notebook before looking back up at me. “Yes, that’s normal considering all that you went through.”

“My car accident,” I stated.

“Yes. And your psychotic episode.”

I froze, my eyes widening at her statement.

“I didn’t have a psychotic episode,” I snapped. “I was just confused. I’m sorry about the nurses I hurt, but I’m not crazy.”

She scribbled in her notebook. “Why don’t you tell me what happened from the very beginning? Your brother was picking you up from the students’ house you tutor, correct?”

“Yeah, he picked me up and . . .”

Suddenly I was back in the car and he was beside me again. I could feel him in the room with me, breathing in my ear, making my skin crawl. I looked to my side, but there was no one there.

“Do you see something?” she asked, pen on paper.

“What are you writing?” I demanded. “I’m not seeing anything.”

“I’m just observing you. I have to before I can make an official diagnosis.”

“Diagnosis?” I repeated. “Diagnosis for what?”

She looked at me carefully before putting her notebook down and clasping her hands together on her lap. “Maya, honey, your brother told us what happened.”

Her words were a bombshell exploding in my brain, and I knew then that everything coming out of her mouth would be bad. Something very, very bad was happening, Ana.

“What did he tell you?” I asked quietly.

“He said that while he was driving home, you suddenly started to freak out. When he tried to help you calm down, you started hitting him, similar to the way you did to the nurses, causing him to swerve the car and almost crash. You told him to drive faster, and when he didn’t oblige, you tried to push him out of the driver’s seat and out the door. He struggled against you, accidentally punching you in the face, and before he could lock the doors you jumped out.”

I closed my eyes as the tears finally brimmed over the edge, and the story she described played out in my head. A similar version to what I remembered, only in a different font.

“You survived the fall unscathed,” she continued. “But before he could stop the car and restrain you, you ran in front of a truck.”

Of course Mikhail would use my time unconscious to his advantage. Of course he would try to place the blame on me.

“He’s lying,” I insisted. “This is what he does. He takes the truth and twists it to fit his own story.”

“Maya, it’s okay. Now we just need to focus on getting you better,” she said softly.

“No, just listen to me,” I pleaded frantically. “He was the one who was speeding, and I was begging him to stop. I didn’t feel safe in the car anymore, that’s why I jumped. I didn’t think I had any other choice.”

I stared at her, breathing hard, but she didn’t respond.

“Why aren’t you writing this down?”

“Maya . . .” she started. “Your brother told us you would say that.”

It was like a bucket of cold water was getting drenched over my head. “Well, he’s a liar! Just ask my parents––they’ll tell you. They’ll tell you about his anger problems.”

I couldn’t understand why she was just sitting there. Could she not hear the desperation in my voice? Could she not see the fear in my eyes?

“I did speak with your parents,” she said. “They told me you had some kind of . . . resentment toward your brother, but that they never actually saw him do anything to you.”

“He’s lying,” I whispered through a mouthful of tears. “Please, why don’t you believe me?”

“I believe that you believe that,” she replied calmly, closing her notebook.

The irrational terror was starting to build up in my chest. I couldn’t believe my parents actually believed him over me.

“Just let me talk to my parents,” I begged, my hand starting to twitch nervously against the binds. They would believe me, all I had to do was explain.

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” I snapped, hating how calm she was. Hating the condescending edge to her tone, like she was talking to a child who was on a time-out for throwing a tantrum. “Take these off me.”

“You’re under observation right now,” she repeated. “Once we can determine that you’re not a danger to yourself or to others––”

“Why aren’t you listening to me? He’s lying!” I shrieked hysterically, thrashing my one good hand against the bandages restraining it. “He’s manipulating the story, please, you have to believe me. Just get me out of these!”

She continued to sit there patiently, watching me struggle without making a move, which only pissed me off more.

“What is wrong with you?” I asked angrily. “Why are you just sitting there? What happened to always believing the victim?”

“That’s just it, Maya. I don’t think you are one.”

I slowly halted my movements as the fatigue hit. My energy was limited and I only had two working limbs, but the pain of not being believed . . . the pain of my parents not coming to rescue me from this terrible mess . . . it was paralyzing. It drained all my sustenance in one big gulp and left me with nothing.

“I’m a sister too,” she said suddenly. “I have five brothers––all older than me. I’m a sister too, Maya, so I know. I get it. They always messed with me and it drove me crazy,” she laughed lightly. “They played pranks on me, pulled my hair, practiced wrestling moves. They were . . . boys. Boys are boys. Boys will be boys. Their definition of fun is just different than ours.” She paused and fixed her gaze on me seriously. “But just because they didn’t want to have a tea party with me and ripped the heads off of all my dolls doesn’t mean they were bad brothers. It didn’t make me hate them.”

I’ve never said that out loud before, Ana. That I hated Mikhail. I’ve never even thought it, but when I heard her say that I realized it was true. I hated him. I hate him. I hate my brother. I am a sister who hates her brother.

“Maybe you didn’t know because you only have one sibling, so let me relieve your confusion. This is normal. Siblings fighting is normal. Siblings not getting along is normal. Your life is normal, Maya, but your behaviour? That’s what’s not normal.”

She was right, Ana. I wasn’t normal. I was a fool. A fool for jumping out of his car. He was doing me a favor and I ruined it. He was giving me an out and instead of taking it, I backed down. I should’ve let him kill me.

“I’ve seen this before,” she continued, not noticing how I was slowly shutting down. Some fucking psychiatrist she was. “I’ve seen teenagers your age––younger siblings especially––act out when they don’t feel seen . . .”

I was invisible.

“. . . when they don’t feel heard . . .”

I had been screaming for years and no one had blinked an eye at the high-pitched noise.

“. . . they start to feel like the only way to get attention is by creating false scenarios, or by harming themselves . . .”

I didn’t want attention. I just wanted him to leave me alone.

“. . . until eventually they’re convinced that the ‘fake scenarios’ are real.”

I wished they were fake.

“What I’m trying to say, Maya, is that you’ve created this victim mindset for comfort, and to gain pity and sympathy from others.”

I continued to stare at the ceiling with dry eyes. If I truly wanted pity and attention, then why hadn’t I opened my mouth years ago?”

“I see this all the time, but you’re still different than the others. You’re smart. Straight A student. Top of your class. Never missed a day. Never got in trouble. You’re a good kid and sometimes the good kid doesn’t get as much attention as the others, but that doesn’t mean you’re neglected. That doesn’t mean you’re not loved.”

Straight A student? Never missed a day? Was she implying that if I got bad grades and had a long history of truancy then she would’ve taken me seriously? She was fucked, Ana. The system was completely fucked up. If I was lying in that hospital bed claiming that a stranger, or my boyfriend, or my parents tried to kill me, she wouldn’t be sitting there calmly, scribbling all her stupid assumptions in that stupid notebook. Why does it stop being real just because we’re siblings? Suddenly you’re just the little sister who’s acting out because her big brother got all the attention. Because she couldn’t take her big brother’s innocent teasing. Because her big brother sucked up all their parent’s love. Because her big brother didn’t want to play dolls, or stop and get some ice cream on the way home.

I wasn’t a victim of anything, and that was that.

He probably felt so fucking proud of himself, Ana. Proud that he finally pushed me over the edge and I was now medically diagnosed as a crazy person, which was exactly what he wanted. No one would ever believe someone that was clinically insane.

“But don’t you see how out of control your behavior has gotten? You almost died. You almost died for good, but you got a second chance. That doesn’t happen very often. You were lucky they were able to find a match so quickly.”

It took a minute, but eventually her words moved sluggishly to the left hemisphere of my brain, where my straight A frontal lobes began to comprehend what she was saying.

“Emergency heart transplants are risky and not many people survive. But you did, Maya.”

My eyelids collapsed into darkness as all the air escaped my lungs in a painful gust.

“This outburst, although extreme, can be remedied. This doesn’t have to be your story, Maya. Let me help you,” she said softly. “Don’t waste your second chance.”

Didn’t she understand? I wasn’t given a second chance; I stole it from someone else.

“We’re going to wait for your injuries to fully heal, and then we’ll start to work on the internal injuries that no one else can see.” She stood up and gently patted my shoulder. “You seem like a lovely girl, Maya, and you have a bright future ahead of you. I know you can do this.”

I didn’t respond. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear a door being shut and locks being clicked, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t in that room anymore. My spirit had seeped out of my body and through the hospital floors, all the way down into the molten lava bubbling under the earth’s core. I knew something was off the second I woke up, but I never imagined . . .

I was finally settling into a desensitized daze, but her words obliterated through the tough exterior shell my brain had created against the devastating pain. It was right on the surface, waiting for the first sign of weakness so it could attack me again and invade my composure. Heart transplant? Whose heart? Was it a girl? A boy? Were they young? Old? Was their body still warm? Did they feel it when their heart was suddenly removed from its home? I’m not stupid, Ana. I know that they––you––were dead when it happened, but you still had a beating heart pumping warm blood through your veins. Some part of you must have felt it, right? You had to have felt it when your primary source of life was removed. Did you feel it when your soul’s battery ran out? Did you feel it when your light was flicked off forever?

I turned and, to the best of my ability, shoved my face into my pillow in a weak attempt at muffling my tortured scream, but it still erupted loudly in the small room. I fought against my restraints as the bodily tremors plagued me roughly. What was this game God was playing with me? Was I truly just the Lord’s guinea pig? Let’s see how much one girl could suffer before she simply combusts into thin air under the weight of all her crippling despair?

Or maybe I really did die and this was just my specifically curated hell. To continue reliving the same nightmare over, and over, and over again until I finally learned my lesson? But what was the lesson? What sin did I commit, and why couldn’t I remember it? What form of repentance would be strong enough to set me free? I would do it all. I would do anything.

Whoever said what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is a fucking liar, Ana. What doesn’t kill you does not make you stronger. It just makes you wish that it did kill you.

I waited, writhing in mental and physical agony for the numbness to settle back in. For the pain to freeze my nerves until they were senseless. It eventually did, and I was able to think logically instead of emotionally. Fighting was useless so I just played along. I healed quietly. I did my time under psychiatric observation and made sure I was the perfect patient until they finally signed my release papers. It was during my last week at the hospital that I heard them.

“He came in again today,” one of the nurses said, adjusting my tubes.

“Really?” the other one asked in shock.

“Yeah, it’s so heartbreaking. I can’t imagine losing someone you love so abruptly. She was so young too.”

“Why does he keep coming back?” she mused thoughtfully. “Do you think he wants to see . . .”

She trailed off, and I felt their stares boring holes into my face. I made sure to stay very still.

“He keeps asking to see Ana, but they already had her funeral, so he must be looking for her. He doesn’t know who she is though, or where to even look.”

They both crooned in synchronized compassion and pity for this mystery boy, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore. There was only one thought running through my mind, blocking out any and all background noise from interrupting it.

Ana. The heart I stole belonged to a girl named Ana.