Have a Heart Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Nashina Makhani

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or completely fiction. The medical information in this book may not be accurate and should not be used as a substitute for medical advice or treatment. The reader should consult their physician for advice, and take all information in the work as fiction.

  For my little lion; I always did tell you Ati would write you a whole book world

  Have

  A

  Heart

  Contents

  Part One: Alia

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part Two: Jai

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Part Three: Bucket List

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Part Four: Alia

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Bucket Lists

  Part One: Alia

  Prologue

  They say a reader lives a thousand lives and a writer creates hundreds. But the hardest life to write about is the one you’ve lived yourself. Here within lives a small portion of the life I’ve lived. It’s but a short part of a life that I’m still living but it is, by far, the most important.

  Before we get to the story, I should probably introduce myself, just so you know who I am at least.

  My name’s Alia Sharma. I’m 36 and I live in Blidworth. You probably haven’t ever heard of it, it’s a tiny little town in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. A lot of the time, I like to complain about how titchy this town is, but really, I love it.

  Still, back when I was 17, I couldn’t wait to go to uni and leave it behind for a while.

  Anyway, I’ll tell you more about the tiny town later.

  What else should I tell you?

  There’s not much to know about me really. I’m the youngest of three. I have an older brother and an older sister, both of whom still live at home. My brother’s married and has a daughter who hates it when I call her adorable because she’s 22 but, of course, I do it anyway. My sisters married too; she’s got two kids, a boy and a girl and they’re both absolutely adorable. I like to say they’re the cutest kids on the planet but I’m probably a little (or a lot) biased. And me… I’m complicated.

  That’s all there is to know really – all the basics anyways. The rest, well, I’ll let you find that out for yourself.

  Chapter One

  Most great love stories start with once upon a time, mine started with an alarm clock – actually, strictly speaking, it started long before the alarm went off on the morning this part of my story starts but we’ll get to that later.

  The morning this story starts, my alarm went off and I attempted to snooze it but failed.

  Well, okay, not entirely… it did shut up when it hit the floor. But by that point it had achieved its purpose of waking me up; or at least, the loud bang it made when it hit the floor did.

  Groaning, I felt around on my nightstand for my phone. Once I managed to find it, I clicked it on and opened my eyes, immediately scrunching them both tightly shut again, totally unprepared for the bright light streaming from the screen.

  After a long minute, I tried again, slowly this time. Well, slowly until I registered the time displayed across the screen. It took a couple of seconds for the numbers to register in my head but when it did, I all but jumped out of bed.

  It was already half seven, which meant I had to get out of bed else I’d be late for college. So, with a groan, I dragged myself out of bed and headed for the bathroom, hoping that I could somehow do my routine on double speed.

  ***

  Ten minutes later, I stood in front of my cupboard, wondering why I couldn’t just go to school in my pyjamas. I know I would probably look kinda ridiculous, but, hey, at least I would be comfy… and probably also use my backpack as a pillow in maths and fall asleep but still, I’d be comfortable. Unfortunately though, pyjamas are one of the few things that are against dress code.

  So, with a sigh, I got dressed, digging through the pile of clothes on the floor to find my most worn pair of jeans and an old, baggy t-shirt. As I pulled my hoodie on, I began to feel a little lightheaded. Instinctively, I reached out and grabbed a hold of my shelf to stop myself from falling when the room began to spin, closing my eyes and waiting for the feeling to pass.

  I felt a little more grounded after a second but I stayed standing there for a minute longer, eyes still closed, wanting to be sure that it had fully passed before I opened them again. After a long moment, I opened them again, only to shut them quickly when I realised that it hadn’t entirely passed – the room was still moving faster than it should be, which I took to be an indication that I wasn’t ready to be letting go of the shelf yet… though that was probably more the fact that the room was moving at all than that it was moving too fast.

  The dizzy spell took longer to pass than I expected it to and, by the time I actually trusted myself to let go of the shelf and get downstairs it was already past eight which meant no time to sit down for breakfast. With a quick glance at my watch, I headed for the kitchen, switching the kettle on and grabbing my thermos from the cupboard nearest to the sink, dropping a tea bag in and pouring some milk in, standing by the counter and waiting impatiently for the water to finish boiling.

  The kettle seemed to take an age to boil and I tapped my foot impatiently for a few seconds before looking around the kitchen and heading for the island, grabbing a banana and peeling it, chucking the skin in the bin and going back to the kettle.

  By the time I finished the banana, the kettle had finally done boiling. As quickly as possible and strained the tea bag, barely waiting till the tea was a decent shade of brown before taking it out and chucking it in the bin. I floundered for a second, searching for the lid and putting it on the flask so fast that I nearly knocked the whole thing to the floor. Thankfully, years of playing goalie against my brother had given me some pretty good hand-eye coordination so I just about managed to save it.

  I let out a sigh and allowed myself to relax for a second before checking the time again, eyes bugging out at seeing that it was already close to quarter past eight. My college was at least a twenty-minute walk from home and I had to be there before quarter to nine. So, with another sigh, I grabbed my house keys and headed out the door.

  ***

  I somehow managed to make it to school just after half past eight. Now I just had to wait outsid
e for Jai – who most definitely wouldn’t show up until the last possible minute. I had been waiting about ten minutes when I saw him coming. He was almost running, his bag slipping off his shoulder and one of shoelaces undone.

  Hold up, I forgot to tell you about Jai before.

  Jaival Edmonds, or as I liked to call him, Jai. Kind of an odd name, I know but, strangely enough it suited him perfectly. Jai came from a mixed family, an Indian mum and an English dad. Looks wise, he mainly took after his mum, the only thing that he got from his dad in that department was his height. He was 5 foot 9 with short, dark brown – almost black – hair which he spent at least fifteen minutes styling every morning, not that it ever made much of a difference really, no matter what he did to it, his hair still ended up a mess. His skin was naturally tan, something you don’t see often in this part of England, and his eyes… well they tended to change colour depending on the light and the colours around him but let’s just say they’re hazel.

  Though I never would have admitted it, he wasn’t bad looking. Especially since he’d started to build muscle since we were fifteen. Most of the girls in our year wanted to go out with him but, Jai being Jai, he was completely oblivious.

  None of those girls had a clue what Jai was really like though. If they did, they’d’ve called him a dork, no matter how attractive he was.

  The truth is that Jai was a complete nerd. Most of the time, he had his head in a book. And if he didn’t, he was watching movies – cheesy, romantic films or Bollywood movies, what most guys would call chick flicks. On occasion, you might have found him playing a video game but only ever retro games or the newest Pokémon – and that’s as close to being a typical guy he ever really got. Jai was bookish, a bit of a dork and, loathe to admit it though he was, the most artistic person I’d ever met.

  But all of that was what I loved about him. Probably the only bad quality he had was that he was always late, always. But I guess I’m probably a little biased about him.

  Jai had been my best friend my entire life. I barely had any memories that don’t involve him. Our parents went to school together, they were a tight knit group so, of course, when they had kids two weeks apart – Jai was older, probably the only time he beat me for time - they raised us side by side. Being so close to each other, all our milestones happened together – something our family teased us about any time we watched old home videos. Though, even in that aspect, Jai tended to be late. I started walking before he did, only by about five minutes mind you, him getting up to chase after me, but, that never stopped me from holding it over him. Though, as much as I hate to admit it, he spoke first. My first word, Jai because I couldn’t manage to say Jaival, came in response to his, Li because he couldn’t say Alia, a fact he liked to hold over me.

  Suffice to say, we’d been inseparable since we’d first met. And, at that moment, we were about to be late for school, again.

  He barely slowed down as he ran passed me, grabbing my hand and pulling me along. I didn’t bother telling him to slow down and let me catch up, I knew he wouldn’t. We went through this routine almost every morning; I would be waiting on the road just outside the school gates for at least five minutes and he would get there two minutes before the bell. Every morning, without fail, he would come running up the road, jacket unzipped, the sleeve close to coming off, his bag nearly falling off the one shoulder he’d bothered to sling the strap over, one shoelace undone more often than not, and pull me along so we could make it through the gates before they were closed.

  Today was no different. We made it to form right as the bell rang, apologising profusely as we took our seats and caught our breath. Mrs. Abel, our form tutor, shook her head at us but it was pretty obvious she was trying to hide her smile. ‘The day you two are on time will be the day I retire,’ she told us.

  ‘Sorry miss, but, in my defence, it’s not my fault,’ I apologised, getting a slight smile from her.

  ‘I know. Mr. Edmonds has a habit of being late; we’ve all gotten used to it by now.’ Jai grinned sheepishly and I almost laughed but held it in. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, you have your mock exams coming up in a few weeks…’ Mrs. Abel continued on about what I assumed to be the subject before we’d walked in.

  As usual, Jai wasn’t paying much attention. He sat at the desk next to me and had apparently decided it would be great fun to poke me in the arm with his pencil repeatedly. I tried to ignore him but, after two minutes and about ten times as many pokes, I turned to him with a glare. He was already looking at me, smiling innocently though his eyes held mischief. ‘Jai, I swear to God, I will snap that pencil if you poke me once more,’ I hissed at him. He just continued to smile at me like he’d done nothing. I glared at him for a beat longer before turning back to the front with a sigh. Thirty seconds later, Jai slipped a piece of paper on my desk.

  Turning my head the tiniest bit, I shot him a questioning look. In response, he cut his eyes towards the piece of paper, silently telling me to open it. I glanced towards Mrs. Abel and saw she was busy trying to get the mock schedule up on the white board so it would probably be a few minutes before she was paying enough attention to notice that we were passing notes and decided that I could probably risk it. So, I opened the note, rolling my eyes when I saw what was written there.

  Wanna go see a movie tonight?

  I decided that it wasn’t worth responding to; I could just give him an answer on the way to first period instead of getting caught passing notes; Mrs Abel was a pretty old school teacher, she had a strict no notes policy and I had no desire to be kept at college during lunch over something so ridiculous.

  But, of course, Jai was as impatient as ever; he took the sheet back and scribbled something else on it before sliding it back, not bothering to fold it up this time so that, even though I tried not to pay it attention, I couldn’t help but read what he’d written.

  Well, do you? Or we could go eat somewhere?

  I tried ignoring it but I could feel him staring at me, waiting for an answer so I took out a pen and scrawled a response.

  You aren’t going to stop till I answer, are you?

  I wrote before quickly passing it back, hoping nobody noticed. Jai grinned as he read my response and, not even a full minute later, the piece of paper was back on my desk.

  No, I will not. So you may as well just give me an answer

  His response got yet another eye roll from me as I wondered why I even bothered to ask.

  Fine. But I get to choose the movie.

  He sighed as he looked at the note and I looked over at him, seeing him shake his head, pointing at the paper. I glared at him and he shrunk in his seat a little but shook his head again. With a shrug, I reached over and took the paper back.

  My choice or we don’t go.

  I slid it back and stared at him, eyebrow raised, challenging him to say no. It was his turn to roll his eyes this time but he sighed and nodded all the same. I grinned triumphantly and he stuck his tongue out in response.

  Before I could mock his childish response, Mrs. Abel called our names and we both turned so fast, I was a little surprised we didn’t give ourselves whiplash. ‘You two better not be talking back there!’

  ‘No ma’am, definitely not,’ Jai said immediately, sounding slightly scared. Everyone laughed at that but a glare from Miss shut us all up; I have to hand it to her, she definitely had us all trained well.

  Thankfully, she didn’t get the chance to scold us; the bell rang just then and we all got up, chairs scraping against the tiled floor, books being shut and slipped into bags before we all filed out the room, some of us faster than others. By which I mean Jai took forever to walk out the door. Despite the fact that our desks were next to each other, I was out the class a solid two minutes before him so I stood by the wall just outside the door, waiting.

  ‘You always take forever,’ I whined when he finally exited the room.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. What do we have first?’ he asked as we began to walk down the cor
ridor. Though my parents hadn’t let us choose our classes together to ensure we didn’t purposely pick the same courses, we ended up with identical schedules anyway so Jai relied on me to tell him where he needed to be instead of actually learning it.

  ‘Maths over in the old building, just like we have always do on Mondays.’ He let out a groan and I shook my head at him, ignoring his protests as I took a hold of his arm and pulled him along with me towards our first class.

  Chapter Two

  You know that saying about even the best laid plans going awry? I can say, with utmost certainty, that it is 100% on point. I sure as hell hadn’t been planning on spending my Friday evening at the hospital but yet, that’s exactly where I ended up. Like any halfway normal person, I would have much rather been at the cinema with my best friend – like I was supposed to be – but that plan had gone down the drain about four hours ago, on the way home from college.

  Of course, it was all Jai’s fault. He meant well and all but I wanted to hurt him for making me go to the doctors right away instead of letting me wait till Monday to call the surgery and make an appointment like I’d planned. I tried to tell him that I was planning on making an appointment next week but he didn’t listen – and I’m not sure why I’d even expected him to if I’m honest. To be fair, I can’t really blame him; I did worry him quite a bit on the way home from college.

  We were walking, like we did most days, but, unlike most days, I couldn’t manage to keep up with him easily. Before we were even half-way home, I started to feel a little light headed. Given that I was also finding it a little difficult to breathe properly, I just put it down to my asthma acting up and made a mental note to get the doctor to prescribe me an extra inhaler to keep in my backpack. I let myself stop for a minute or two to catch my breath and take a drink and then I kept on walking, thinking I’d be alright.