“Yeah. Why the hell not?”
I’d had no answer, so on that seasonably hot afternoon in September, we’d jumped into the waves, fully clothed in the warm ocean. I’d never felt the surge of water hitting my chest, and I’d had no idea how to duck under an oncoming swell of white water.
I remember holding my breath as we’d dived further into the surf and that wonderful gasp of fresh air that had followed as we broke the surface once again.
Since my heart transplant, I’d experience that same feeling each and every time I visited the doctor.
Sitting in this uncomfortable green chair, my foot nervously bobbing up and down, was like sitting at the bottom of the ocean. I felt like I hadn’t taken a single breath of air since I left home.
So far, I hadn’t had a reason to doubt anything, yet that was exactly what I did.
Everything was perfect. I was finally living beyond the walls of the hospital. I was in love, and in less than a month, I’d be married to a man who had made all of this possible.
So, of course, I expected everything to go wrong.
I never shared these fears with anyone, especially Jude. I knew it was most likely ridiculous, but I had spent the majority of my life thinking I wouldn’t make it past my twenty-fifth birthday. It was a hard notion to shake.
These checkups were like my monthly pat on the back. It was the reassurance I needed to get through the next thirty days, knowing my heart was pumping and nothing was going wrong in my perfect slice of heaven. I’d fought with Marcus—well, everyone—about the frequency of the appointments. Marcus, my lifelong doctor and now stepfather had won in the end though. Every month was excessive, but to be honest, it was nice to know I was still healthy, still whole. It was like playing monopoly and getting one of those jail passes every four weeks.
What were they called?
Maybe I should have added Monopoly to my Someday list.
“Lailah Buchanan?” the young blonde nurse called, peeking her head out from a door across the waiting room.
I stood and walked briskly past the other patients to join her.
She ushered me back to an exam room. “How have you been feeling?”
We settled into the small white room after checking my weight. I stepped up to the table and took a seat, hating the way the paper crinkled and crunched with every slight adjustment.
“Good,” I answered.
“Nothing different? No changes we should know about?”
I shook my head as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm. “Not really. Maybe a bit of additional stress from wedding plans and finals coming up but nothing out of the ordinary.”
Her mouth curved into a slight smile as she tucked the tip of the stethoscope into the crook of my arm. “When is the big day?”
“December sixteenth,” I replied.
“Oh, wow. That’s soon!”
“I know. I can’t wait.”
She finished her routine of preliminary checks, taking vitals and writing them into my chart.
“Well, I wish you the best of luck. The doctor will be in shortly.”
She stepped out, and I was left alone to stare at the walls and pick at my nail polish.
How many minutes and hours of my life had been spent waiting on doctors?
The time lost was something that would most likely make others mad, enraged even. A fraction of my life had probably been wasted away in this exact position, waiting.
Always waiting. In retrospect, it wasn’t all that bad.
I was healthy.
And I was alive.
I’d gladly stare at a thousand more dingy white walls and pick apart a million more manicures while I sat waiting for a specialist to come in and examine me as long as the end result was the same.
“Hey, Lailah!” Dr. Hough greeted happily as he walked through the door before taking a seat.
“Hi. Happy belated Thanksgiving,” I said. “No Black Friday shopping for you today, I’m guessing?”
His smile turned into more of a grimace. “No, thank you. I’d much rather be here with my patients. Although, I think I’m in the minority.”
“Well, I appreciate you coming in, especially on a holiday.” I winked.
Dr. Zachary Hough was one of the best cardiac surgeons in the state. This, paired with the fact that Marcus and Dr. Hough had been roommates in college, had made him an excellent candidate to take over my care once I’d made the decision to move across the country. It had been a tricky decision, especially for someone who had just undergone a heart transplant, but luckily, my medical team at UCLA had been willing to make it work, and everything had transitioned smoothly.
Dr. Hough had worked closely with my doctors back home, and he still spoke with them, providing updates and taking guidance if needed. If something were to go wrong, I had no doubt in my mind that he would be able to handle it.
“So, how’s the new ticker doing?” he asked, scrolling over the latest lab work results I’d gotten done a few days prior.
“Everything is great,” I answered.