Have a Heart Read online

  I was wrong of course.

  I barely even made it ten more minutes before I realised it might just be something a little worse than my asthma but, by that point, we weren’t too far from home so I decided to ignore the sudden pains in my chest, stick it out till I could take a couple paracetamol and then I’d be fine.

  You probably don’t need to be told that that didn’t work.

  As pain tends to do when you try to ignore it, it only got worse and, soon enough, I couldn’t hide it so well, couldn’t stop myself from wincing a little. Jai, being the attentive person he is, noticed, glanced at me with concern the first couple times but stayed silent, knowing that persuading me to get checked wouldn’t be an easy task.

  But after the third wince in as many minutes, he made me stop. ‘Li, d’you twist your ankle or something?’ he asked, his hands on my shoulders to keep me in place; I had a habit of brushing off injuries when they first happened and allowing them to get a whole lot worse before finally admitting that I needed help.

  Unfortunately, this time, I hadn’t hurt my foot. I didn’t particularly want to tell Jai what was really going on so I settled on a simple, ‘my foot’s fine,’ and tried to shrug him off, only to stop as I tried to supress the instinctive wince as pain shot through my chest again.

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’ he asked. I shook my head and pushed his hands away, but he still wouldn’t let me move, physically blocking my way again. ‘Al, you’re obviously in pain and we both know that I can be just as stubborn as you. So you know that I definitely mean it when I say that I’m not letting you go anywhere until you tell me where it hurts.’

  Knowing Jai, I knew that telling him the truth would definitely worry him but I also knew that I couldn’t lie to him, literally couldn’t; I’d never been able to lie to Jai convincingly. ‘My chest hurts,’ I admitted with a resigned sigh. His face didn’t betray anything, nor did his voice but Jai never let anyone see his emotions so easily so that didn’t surprise me. Nevertheless, his concern was immediately obvious to me; his thoughts always showed in his eyes, eyes that were way too honest despite how hard he tried to keep the truth out of them.

  But, predictably, that concern didn’t make it to his voice when he asked, ‘how bad?’

  ‘Uh, about a seven,’ I muttered, just about loud enough for him to hear.

  At that, he slipped and the worry showed on his face for a second. I mentally groaned on seeing it, knowing what his next words would be before he said them and that he wouldn’t drop it till I agreed. ‘You need to go to the hospital,’ he told me, just as I thought he would.

  ‘Jai, I’m fine. It’s just a little pain. I probably just need to take my inhaler,’ I assured – though I knew this absolutely was not an inhaler situation, that kind of pain is way different.

  ‘A little pain would be a stubbed toe or an headache, not chest pains so severe you can’t walk properly. And you’re crazier than I’ve always thought you are if you think I’m going to believe it’s just chest pains, by the way.’ I opened my mouth to refute him but he didn’t let me. ‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed the dizzy spells or the lack of energy – and don’t put it down to A-level stress because you don’t get so massively stressed over tests, that’s my job.’ I had to laugh a little at that, nodding my agreement. ‘So, at least call the doctor or something yeah? Just to make sure everything’s okay,’ he implored, giving me the puppy dog eyes he does so well.

  ‘Fine, I’ll call,’ I agreed, mentally berating myself for giving in to him yet again, though I knew all too well that it would make no difference; he had always and would always find a way to get me to give in, there was nothing that could change that fact.

  ‘Do it now. I know you won’t later.’ Sometimes, I really hated how well he knew me, it made it so much harder to avoid doing what he wanted. Which is exactly why I pulled out my phone and called the doctor’s surgery.

  Either I was really lucky or really unlucky, I’m yet to decide which, because I managed to get an appointment in the evening. Fortunately, the appointment didn’t last too long. Unfortunately, that was because apparently Jai had been right when he told me I needed to go the hospital, a fact that Dr. London was pretty quick to point out.

  He had been typing his notes but, before I could even finish giving him the complete run down of what had been happening, he stopped and looked at me, his expression far more serious than I had ever seen it – which is saying something considering I’d been coming to him for about eighteen years now. ‘Miss Kapoor, you should have come to me when this first started happening,’ he told me, clearly troubled.

  ‘Yeah, Jai said the same thing. But, well no offence but you know I don’t like coming here unless it’s absolutely necessary, like life and death.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been your GP your entire life Alia. And I know you well enough to know that Jaival forced you to come here today,’ he said with a fond smile. Of course, having known me literally my entire life, as both my doctor and a family friend – and given that he was Jai’s doctor too – he knew the role Jai played in my life, right down to how he always had to force me to go to the doctors.

  ‘I mean, I was going to call anyway, but you know Jai, always worrying over nothing,’ I laughed, hoping he’d tell me that I was right, that there wasn’t much to be worrying about.

  Of course, if that had happened, I wouldn’t much of a story to tell so, as you could probably guess, that’s not what happened. ‘He was right to worry this time,’ Dr. London said, turning the computer screen so that I could see it.

  ‘Dilated cardio -? What?’ My face scrunched as I tried to figure out how to pronounce the word displayed on the screen before deciding that I wasn’t even going to try.

  ‘Dilated cardiomyopathy,’ he told me. ‘From what you’ve told me, I think this may be what you have. I can’t be sure about it until I’ve done some tests but, if I had to give you a preliminary diagnosis, that would be it.’

  ‘What kind of tests?’ I asked.

  ‘Blood tests, chest x-rays, a CT scan, probably an EKG.’

  ‘You can do those here?’ I questioned, wondering how all of that could be done in such a small surgery.

  ‘No. Well, blood tests yes, though it would take a while for the results to come back in and I don’t really want to wait too long for them. Plus, I can’t do any of the other tests here so I’m going to send you down to the hospital. They’ll be able to do all the tests tonight and get the results to me by Tuesday.’

  ‘You mean, like go to the hospital right now?’ Going to the hospital on a Friday night would probably mean a long wait which would mean coming up with some kind of excuse to give my parents for staying out so late, especially because I knew Jai would be hesitant; I’d had a hard enough time convincing him to cover for me long enough to go to the doctors, a few hours at the hospital… well, it would take a lot of needling and pleading to get him to cave.

  ‘The faster we do these tests, the faster the results come in and the faster we can find out what’s wrong.’

  I sighed, fully aware that he was right but not at all looking forwards to what was sure to be a long night at the hospital – or the long phone call I would have to have with Jai to convince him. ‘I don’t have much of a choice, do I?’ I asked, resigning myself to it.

  ‘As your GP, I can’t do anything to make you go right now. All I can really do is advise you to, tell you that it’s a probably the best decision.’ He pauses, lets me think it over a second before continuing. ‘As someone who knows you personally, outside of this space, I could tell you that if you don’t agree to go, I can always call Mr. Edmonds and let him know that you don’t want to get yourself checked,’ he jokes, eyes twinkling a little.

  ‘Ugh, fine, I’ll go,’ I conceded, fully aware that I sounded like a child but not really caring; I hated hospitals and, if I had to spend my Friday night at one, you could bet that I was sure as hell going to make my displeasure known.

  ‘Good. Let me g
et you some medical order forms; they should hopefully get you through the queues a little quicker,’ he told me, already printing them. I just nod, waiting in silence as he signs the forms and hands them over. ‘Head over to Kings Mill; hopefully they should be able to get you in and out before midnight.’ I nodded again, getting up from my chair, suddenly feeling very grateful that I had a car of my own and didn’t have to cater my travel to the schedules of public transport.

  I was almost out the door when I paused and turned back. ‘Dr. London?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re not like obliged to tell my parents about this are you?’

  ‘Don’t worry, they don’t need to know about it unless you want them to. You’re over the age of sixteen now, I’m not obliged to tell your parents anything – actually, I’m not allowed to. Anything pertaining to your medical conditions has to come directly to you.’ I breathed a sigh of relief, glad that I wouldn’t have to cross that bridge just yet.

  Chapter Three

  Almost five hours after leaving the doctor’s surgery, I finally left the hospital. Thankfully, I managed to convince Jai to cover for me again – though it took a lot of coaxing and bribery – but, eventually, he agreed to tell them that I was staying with him for the night.

  By the time I managed to get to my car, it was close to eleven. Fortunately, the traffic was fairly clear for a Friday night, making the drive easy and short, just over the quarter of an hour that was typical for the distance between the hospital and home.

  Of course, I didn’t realise that I couldn’t actually go home until I pulled onto my street, mentally face palming as it clicked that I was supposed to be staying at Jai’s for the night. I don’t think I’d ever appreciated how lucky I was that Jai lived up the road until that moment; I didn’t have to turn the car around and keep driving around any longer, just continue down the street until I got to the house that was pretty much my second home, pulling my car into the drive behind Jai’s motorbike.

  As I got out the car, I looked towards the living room window, noticing that the light was on and, from the reflections on the glass, the TV was too, indicating that Jai was still awake. I should have known that he would be; despite the fact that I’d had a spare key hanging off my keychain since we were old enough to be needing our own sets of keys, I’d hardly ever had reason to use it. For reasons even I couldn’t make sense of, Jai just preferred to be there to open the door. Which is why I didn’t even bother to attempt to find the key on my chain, choosing instead to knock and wait, figuring it would be easier for both of us.

  It didn’t take long for him to come and open the door, letting me in without a word, as usual. I didn’t say anything either, moving through to the sitting room while he locked up, throwing myself onto the sofa – more dramatically than probably necessary.

  ‘Well somebody’s feeling theatrical today,’ Jai remarked with a laugh, earning himself a glare.

  ‘Shut up Edmonds,’ I muttered, getting a pout and questioning look in response. ‘I am not talking to you right now.’

  ‘Why? What did I do?’ he asked, going from amused to bewildered in thirty seconds.

  ‘Hmm, lemme think.’ I sat up and put a finger to my chin, tapping it a few times as I pretended to consider my answer. ‘Oh yeah that’s right! I just had to spend over an hour at the doctor’s office, nearly five hours at the hospital and three-quarters of an hour driving all because you made me call the surgery and get an appointment,’ I snapped, glaring at him again.

  Unsurprisingly, Jai was unfazed by my snarky behaviour, his expression returning to one of amusement as I let out a frustrated sigh and turned away from him.

  ‘So, you’re definitely not talking to me then?’ I ignored him, continuing to stare at the opposite wall. ‘Okay, if that’s how you wanna be, I won’t share my ice cream with you.’ Despite my best efforts to keep myself from reacting to that in any way, my head whipped back round to look at him. He’s stood there, still smirking amusedly, and I knew I had given him the exact reaction he’d been hoping for. I mentally groan, more than a little mad – at both of us, but mainly at myself for falling for that trick.

  I mean, okay, ice cream is like the one thing in the world that I can literally never say no to but I should have known better than to give into Jai’s ploy like that.

  And yet, while I was telling myself this, I continued to play into his hands, giving up on my attempt at giving him the silent treatment. ‘Ice cream?’ I asked, trying my best to sound uninterested and completely failing, of course.

  Jai nodded, trying to hide the triumphant grin – doing a far better job at masking his expressions than I had, as per usual. ‘Bubble-gum ice cream to be precise.’ I literally bit my tongue then, stopping myself from saying anything further, already feeling pretty idiotic for falling for the trick that even Zia, my three-year-old niece could recognise and resist by now. If he’d pulled any other trick on me, I would have left the room and refused to speak to him for at least twelve hours but… well, it was ice cream and, like anyone who knows me should know, even the prospect of ice cream was enough to get me to break my resolve. ‘I was going to give you some but, if you’re not talking to me, I guess I’ll just have to eat it all by myself.’ He let out an obviously false sigh, turning towards the doorway and making as though he’s going to leave the room.

  ‘Wait Jai, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I mean, you know, you’ve gotta a pretty sensitive stomach and all; eating all the ice cream by yourself, it’ll give you a stomach ache,’ I told him.

  ‘Well, what else am I supposed to do? Like I said, you aren’t talking to me so…’ he sighed again, continuing on his way out of the room.

  I silently debated with myself for a second - though, if I’m honest, I’m not sure why I bothered to waste my brainpower on it; there was no doubt about what the outcome of my little internal argument would be.

  Before I really had to chance to make a conscious decision though, he was already walking into the hallway and I could see the prospect of ice cream disappearing by the second so I did the only logical thing and called after him. ‘Jai, you know I was only joking,’ I half-lied, knowing he wouldn’t buy it but would let it slide anyway.

  ‘No you weren’t. But that’s okay, nautanki,’ I’ll share,’ he said, popping his head back through the door and giving me a lopsided grin. I almost smiled back, forgetting my annoyance at him for a second before realising that he’d just called me a drama queen. The half-smile that was forming on my face quickly dropped and I narrowed my eyes, giving him a glower that would have scared even my older brother into silence. But Jai just chuckled, shaking his head. ‘You don’t scare me Li.’ I tried to keep my scowl in place but I couldn’t, not when he used one of his many nicknames for me. Had anyone else called me by anything other than Alia, I would’ve hurt them but Jai had hardly ever called me by my full name, least of all when I was already irritated with him. For reasons that I myself didn’t understand, Jai’s multitude of nicknames for me always made me smile.

  This time was no different. Within two seconds, I completely forgot that I’d been mad at him, finding myself smiling, giving him the goofy grin that was reserved specifically for him. ‘My glares may not scare you but I can guarantee you’ll be scared if I’m hungry and cranky,’ I joked, laughing as I saw the brief flash of terror on his face.

  ‘Okay, I get it. I’ll get you some food,’ he said, quickly turning and heading for the kitchen again.

  ‘Don’t want food!’ I called after him. ‘Ice cream only please!’ He didn’t reply but came back two minutes later with two bowls of ice cream.

  ‘Here you go, princess. Anything else I can get you?’ he questioned sarcastically.

  ‘No, I think I’m okay. For now at least,’ I said, patting the space next to me on the sofa. He rolled his eyes at being told to take a seat on his own sofa but flopped down next to me all the same.

  ‘So, what did the doctor say?’ he asked after a few minute
s of silence.

  ‘I told you, he sent me for some tests and he’ll give me a call when he gets the results.’

  ‘Yeah, but why did he send you for the tests? You didn’t say.’ I didn’t speak for a minute, suddenly finding that my ice cream required most of my concentration.

  Jai didn’t say anything either, both of us continuing to eat in silence, the clinking sound of our spoons against the bowls the only sound in the room as I considered the best way to approach this conversation.

  I tried to make the two scoops of ice cream last as long as humanly possible, knowing that, as the ice cream left in the bowl decreased, so did the time I had left to think. Unfortunately, that only worked for so long; soon enough, there was only the melted ice cream left and I wasn’t yet desperate enough for the extra time that I would try to scrape that out.

  With a sigh, I set the bowl down on the side table and turned to Jai. He was already looking at me, his face displaying his concern – concern that, for once, wasn’t baseless. My silence spoke volumes; I had no reason to be keeping quiet, arranging my thoughts for so long, if it wasn’t serious.

  I took a few more seconds to compose myself, closing my eyes for a brief moment and letting out a breath before speaking. ‘Jai, before I tell you anything, promise me you won’t freak. We don’t know anything for sure yet.’ His expression grew more concerned but he didn’t say a word and I didn’t know what was more shocking – the extent to which he was allowing his thoughts to be displayed on his face or his hesitancy; not once in my memory had Jai hesitated to make me a promise. Hell, he rarely hesitated to do anything I asked. But yet, here he was, clearly unsure of whether or not he should.

  A minute passed, and then another, and he still hadn’t said anything. ‘Jai, promise me, please,’ I repeated, waiting anxiously for him to speak, wondering if he’d say no. For possibly the first time in my life, I was unsure of what my best friend was thinking and, to tell you the truth, that kind of scared me.