Donna sat in the plastic folding chair, watching the stars peek out from behind the clouds above her. It was an old habit she had picked up from Wilfred, new for her, she supposed. Wilfred had always been fascinated with the sky, more so recently. Little more than a year ago he had started to come to the hill religiously, rain or shine he'd hike up the hill behind their home and stare up into the vastness of space. Or sometimes, when the weather was sour, just the clouds. Always said he was remembering an old friend, perhaps a friend from the war who had finally passed on, but he never explained and it had never seemed right to ask. She looked at the other chair laid out beside her, noticeably empty, it had been two months now, since he'd gone. Seemed so long ago and still so painfully fresh at the same time. Now there was no one to think of the daft old man but her. Her mother was too busy buggering on, no time for mourning, no time for anything but moving forward.
And so she came up to the hill every night, came to remember Wilf, her grandfather, who had been there for her, through thick and thin. More so in the recent year than she thought she deserved, the depression she had sunk into had eaten up the whole of her life. She hated to admit it now, but the real reason she had started to join Wilfred on his nightly adventures was to escape the nagging of her mother. Always after her about going back home to Shaun, make something of herself, insisting that she go back to the life and husband she had abandoned.
It was tempting sometimes; she knew Shaun had watched helplessly as she had slowly shut down. He still loved her, and she thought there was a part of her that still loved him. But it wasn't enough anymore, nothing was. The planning of the wedding had been so rushed that no one had seen her slipping away. The lottery ticket that followed had seemed like the answer to all their problems. They went on a trip; they bought a nice home in the country, a shiny new car. Shaun immediately talked about starting a family there; he went to school so he could work toward his dream of city planning.
She did nothing. She quit her job, she sat around the house, she washed dishes and did laundry with mechanical movements, she turned on the TV and stared at nothing. Nothing could snap her out of it, and yet she was excruciatingly aware of it, she knew how Shaun had phoned all the psychologists in the area; he had stacks of books that dealt with depression. He wanted to understand, he wanted to be there for her, and yet every attempt he made, every failure he faced with her, killed her a little more inside. That small part of her that still cared, still loved him, had started to hate herself more every day for what she put him through. And so she came back home, so she didn't have to watch while Shaun killed himself to bring her back to life.
Tears sprang to her eyes, thinking of his face as she had walked out the door. It had been cruel to leave, but it would be crueler still to let him continue, thinking he could help. The greeting she had gotten from her mother was less than enthusiastic, luggage at her feet her mother had just tsked in a scolding manner. Wilfred had just opened his arms and hugged her, as though he knew all of her troubles and despite them, he would stand by her. "It'll be alright." He had promised her, pulling her into the warm house and setting her on the couch where she burst into tears for no reason that she could explain. That was why she couldn't go back, something was deeply wrong with her. Wilfred had recognized that and understood, Shaun would try to fix it, but she didn't think it was something that could be fixed. She was broken, and she would only bring down those around her until she could set it right herself.
The wind started to chill the skin beneath her thin jacket; she refocused her eyes and realized that the starlight no longer penetrated the clouds above. They were now a thick black layer, warning of the storm to come. She could smell it too, somewhere further down the road the thick drops were already falling and stirring up the dust that blew to her in the breeze. She knew she should pack it in, but she stubbornly stayed put. A bit of rain had never bothered Wilfred, and she certainly wasn't going to let it bother her. Besides, there was nothing for her inside, just her mother, and a large glass of red wine to drown the woman out. Thunder rumbled nearby, bringing along with it the beginnings of the headache she had managed to avoid all day. On and off her headaches were, a fair bit worse than the migraines she had once had. They were like tiny explosions deep within her mind, no amount of aspirin capable of soothing them away. It was worse because she could always sense them coming, hours of dread to go along with the pain that would surely follow. She ought to get in to see the doctor, but she had become so sick of them by the end of her time with Shaun, she couldn't bear to go back, not just yet. Of course, she ought to do many things, but she never quite got around to them.
The first fat drops splashed onto her face, bringing with them the sharper chill of the storms air. She knew there was no reason to stay now, with both the storm and her headache coming together. The faster she could get home and get those pills down, the faster she could get herself to sleep, and if she was lucky, it would be a dreamless one. She stood on her numbed limbs, having to stretch slowly because they had fallen asleep while she sat there. The pattering of the rain sounded like a wind, creeping closer as the clouds that carried it approached her hill.
A blinding flash of light and a tremendous boom dropped her to the ground. Her whole body had seized up and collapsed beneath her and for a moment there was absolutely nothing, she ceased to exist. Fragmented thoughts started to come to her and the ringing of her ears suggested she was still alive. She blinked her eyes and strained in the darkness but she could see nothing. She realized she was face down on the ground, cold wet grass seeping into her clothing and sticking to her face. The rain started to come down in sheets then, soaking her and the grass further, the sound of it was muted, the crash still making her eardrums throb irritably. Points of light began to return as she dragged her stunned body up to her hands and knees, she could just see the street lamps down below casting their yellowy light on the homes.
She focused on breathing, realizing that her heart was hammering violently in her chest, as though she had just run a race. Her thoughts began to clear and she realized that she was stupidly out on a hill in the middle of a thunderstorm. She tried to stand but didn't have the strength for the effort, so instead she crawled away from the shack, the tallest thing on the hill, and partly retreated down the path. But there was still something wrong, very wrong. She didn't feel winded, her head still ached, but her vision was returning, she didn't feel much else other than stunned. But her heart continued its rapid pace, maintaining a speed that was not her own.
"It's okay." She told herself in as calm a voice as she could muster. "It'll be alright." The words had made her feel better when Wilfred had spoken them and she hoped they would now. She pressed her hands against her chest, trying to slow her heart, but still it pounded in her ears, impossibly fast. She was going to give herself a heart attack if she couldn't calm herself down. As she pressed her hand uselessly against her chest she felt something odd, a regular heart beat. What was more alarming was that she was feeling it on the wrong side of her chest. She stared down, still hearing the rapid rate fluttering in her ears, she felt around carefully, there, where her heart should be, was the regular beat. But it was different, off in some way. She thought she was imagining it until she connected the pieces, the beats were different, and they were complementing each other in such a way that her pulse felt like it was going excessively fast. But it was really the same rate, coming from two different sources.
"Oh God…" She shook her head, mouth hanging open as the gears in her mind turned. The rain spilled down her face and dripped from her nose but she didn't notice. Instead, she stared up at the clouds, her only comfort now in the confusion. "Two hearts?" She shouted, more to herself than anyone who may have been listening. She looked an angry wet mess with her hair plastered down and shouting at the dark ugly sky. "How've I bloody got two hearts-" She cried out then, the pain in her skull flared up brutally and star bursts of agony exploded behind her eyes. The same glow of the street lamps seemed to surround her then; it took her a moment to realize it was coming from her skin. Her mouth shook as she raised her hands to her face, staring at them in horror, a haze of dust drifting around them, heedless of the rain and wind that battered her.
"Doctor?" She whispered the word before she knew its meaning, anyone listening would have known it was a cry for help. And then the pain was too much and she screamed, pressing her hands against her head, her eyes rolled back into her sockets and she fell to the ground, unmoving in the slick grass.