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  PULSE

  Copyright © 2015 by Liv Hayes

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations within reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PULSE

  a novel

  for you, J.

  Chapter 1

  MIA

  It started with a pulse, a secret, and a bad breakup.

  “Mia,” he told me. We were lying in my bedroom, on top of the sheets, our skin still damp with that post-sex glimmer – faces flush, limbs heavy. “I need to tell you something. It’s important.”

  I knew right then, to be honest. Though it was kind of hard not to. When somebody tells you: I need to tell you something, and you have half a working brain-cell, you can piece together the puzzle pretty quickly. It’s either a) I’m fucking someone else, or b) I have an inoperable form of ___ cancer, and this is actually a Nicholas Sparks novel, and didn’t you know?

  I already knew. But I still indulged him. I indulged him because even though my brain was telling me: Mia, kick him out now. Don’t even give him the chance to hurt you, I was silently begging for different words to tumble out of his mouth.

  “What is it?”

  The words were heavy on my tongue. I could feel my heart clench as I yanked the sheets over my chest, instinctively covering myself. In the back of my head, like a distant record on repeat, was that bit of sage advice we kids always get: you’re young, and young love doesn’t last, and there’s a billion fish in the sea and so forth. When you’re older, you’ll learn what real love is.

  Had I loved him in a real sort of way? Of course I had. At least, I thought so. We’d been together for two years, shared the same bed in my tiny, cramped apartment, and spent countless hours messing around and laughing and behaving like wild, college-aged kids together.

  So yeah, I loved him. In that young, first-time kind of way.

  As I clutched the sheets, I added, barely audible: “Uh-oh.”

  Evan sat up, reaching for his boxers that lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. He slid them on, combed his hands through his hair, and looked at me.

  “I love you,” he said. “You know I love you.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was vaguely incredulous. “What do you need to tell me, then?”

  Another sigh. He broke eye contact, glancing down at his hands.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry about what?”

  Why was I doing this? I knew why. It was the same reason we all drag things out: because spitting them out, like a bitter venom, is hard. It’s never easy to say the things that we know will hurt people. It’s never easy to let the ax drop.

  Evan knew he was about to hurt me. I knew he was about to hurt me. I suppose dragging it out with stupid little words seemed to soften the hit.

  “There’s someone else,” he said. “Another girl that I’ve been seeing.”

  Outside, a car alarm went off. The afternoon sunlight sliced through my window shades, making the room feel like a prison.

  “How long?”

  “Mia,” he said.

  “How long?” I asked. I felt bolder, then. Stronger. “How long have you been lying to me?”

  Evan covered his face with his hands; large hands, maybe too large for his small wrists. He was such a boy.

  “Three months,” he confessed. “In February.”

  “When in February?”

  He shook his head, stood, and faced the window. I could see the sunlight almost seep through him. I could still smell his shampoo and sweat on the sheets. He was already gone, but still everywhere.

  “Valentine’s Day,” he wasn’t even going to lie for the sake of sparing my feelings. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  Evan turned to me, and he looked almost as if he wanted to care, but couldn’t bring himself to.

  “I wanted this to work,” he explained. “It’s just, I can’t fake it anymore.”

  “Then why did you just fuck me?”

  “I’m sorry, Mia.”

  I’d had enough then. I was done.

  “Get out,” I said. “Pack your shit and leave. Now.”

  “Mia,” he said. “Listen, let’s not do this. Let’s not end it like this.”

  I threw the covers off and grabbed my bathrobe from the floor, needing to clothe myself in something. I didn’t even want him to look at me. Vulnerability had left me feeling like the reflection of some Circus House mirror; skewed and disfigured.

  “You said you didn’t want this,” I said coldly. “But you let us fall apart.”

  Evan slid into his jeans, stumbling and catching himself. He was tall, lanky, and he was always stumbling. It was one of the first things that had made me fall in love with him – but now, it just made me sick.

  “We’ve been together for two years,” he said. “Things happen.”

  “Things happen when you let them happen,” I said, looking down at the floor. I could feel my heart breaking, and really, why bother with the theatrics of a break up? It was over, anyhow. Just let it end. “Get out.”

  “Mia,” he said.

  “I’ll pack up your stuff. Come back when I’m not around to pick it up,” I told him. “In the meantime, you can go back to bunking with Lewis. I assume that’s where you were fucking this new girl.”

  Before moving in together, Evan had lived in the dorms with his roommate, Lewis. When I got this apartment, during the last semester of my final year at UCF, Evan eventually became my unofficial live-in boyfriend. Clothes turned into boxes, and boxes turned into posters, and all of it melded into a mesh of Hers and His, mine and ours. Our home.

  Now here we were.

  Evan looked at me, his expression full of an obvious awkward discomfort, and I said:

  “At least tell me you didn’t bring her here,” I said.

  “I swear,” he said. “I’m a dick, but I’m not that kind of person, Mia.”

  “I’m not sure what kind of person you are,” I said. “Now please leave.”

  And that was it. We didn’t yell, but who really wants to yell, anyway? I was young, but handled most disagreements maturely enough – and honestly, screaming was never my thing. And Evan, for all of his apparent bullshit, was never one to raise his voice. It was another one of the things I had grown to love about him: he wasn’t much for conflict. He never barked, or let things irritate him, or spent time mulling over the constant crap that came with being a twenty-something-year-old in a world that is very, for the most part, totally unaccommodating and cruel.

  Before he left, I asked him one last thing:

  “Can you at least tell me why?”

  He sighed, giving a small, defeated shrug.

  “You’re better looking,” he declared, as if that would somehow make me feel better. “She wasn’t nicer, or prettier, or even smarter than you.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “She was just different,” he said. “I don’t know, Mia. That’s all I can say. I’m sorry.”

  With that, Evan left. I gathered up his belongings, which, collectively, didn’t comprise of more than a few small boxes. And that was the conclusion of my first heartbreak.

  After, I lay down, my chest tight and body aching, and tried not to cry. My heart was throbbing in the most painful way possible; my bones felt brittle as thin glass. Every single thought of the past two years I had spent with Evan felt twisted and blurred – but no tears fell. I couldn’t cry. I could on
ly silently break.

  There’s a million fish in the sea, they say. And you know, they’re right. Maybe I had just been swimming sideways.

  Approximately six hours and a dozen missed phone-calls later, Aimee was peering down at me. Burnished hair, sprightly eyes and the figure of a Roman goddess, she was also never one for knocking on doors, or ringing bells, or acknowledging most forms of common courtesy. We were vastly different – she was wild, vibrant, and more erudite that most gave her credit for (something she blamed, largely, on being blond). I was small, quiet, and in my opinion, plain. And no, this isn’t one of those stories where we’re talking about one of those ‘seemingly-plain’ girls that’s actually a total babe with a bit of makeup and a tight dress.

  I was, all things considered, nothing spectacular.

  But I relished it, in the same way I relished long afternoons where I spent hours watching YouTube videos on elaborate hair and makeup tutorials that I’d never end up accomplishing with any sort of eloquence – or managing to finish my homework early enough to binge-watch Netflix or the Home and Garden channel, picturing the exact sort of bathroom or kitchen (all with marble counter-tops and stainless-steel appliances and magnificent floral arrangements) that I would someday, undoubtedly, have in my future, Grown Up home. To me, plain was normal, and comfortable, and rendered me able of avoiding most stares and glares and whistles on the street.

  “You are a hot mess,” Aimee said, sympathetically enough. “Get up. Take a shower. Get dressed. We’re going out.”

  “I think I’d just rather stay inside and watch a hundred episodes of Supernatural and die,” I said, feeling adequately sorry enough for myself.

  “You’ve hit rock bottom, Mia. Congratulations. Now get up.”

  So I did. Because Aimee was right, and because the faux-wood floor of the apartment was aggressively uncomfortable, and because maybe I did need to shower.

  That night, we drove to the local dive-bar, much to my chagrin, and Aimee ordered us a round of margaritas which I sipped at precariously. I hated bars, to be honest. And with summer around the corner, they were frequently cram-packed with Spring Breakers that I much preferred staying approximately ten leagues under the sea from. Loud, voracious, and overly-intoxicated on more things than just the tequila in their drinks. They yelled and blared their shitty music (because what was waiting for the ‘beat to drop’, really?) and by the end of the night, even without a single drop of booze, I had a pretty damn substantial hangover.

  Aimee was flipping through her phone, looking at whatever she was looking at, when I finally muttered:

  “I can’t believe it. Two years, and he was fucking someone else behind my back.”

  “And you want to know something?” she asked.

  “No. Yes. Wait, no.”

  Aimee half-smiled. I sighed, feeling that funny twinge in my heart start to tighten and twist again.

  “I guess this new chick isn’t even from our campus or anything. I guess he met her on Tinder.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “That’s what Lewis said. I swear. So here’s exactly what went down: Evan sent me about a hundred text messages telling me that you guys had broken up – omitting, of course, the details – and for me to come and check on you, because I guess you looked as if you’d just swallowed a dram of poison or whatever. So I go straight over to Lewis’ suite, expecting Evan to be there, but he isn’t, so I ask: what the actual fuck is going on here, you sleaze?, and he just stares at me blankly.”

  “You’re still sour that he never called you back, after, ahem.”

  Aimee threw up a hand.

  “Anyway!” she said. “So after a solid minute of pacing around like a complete tool, he looks at me, as if a light-bulb went off, and says, verbatim: he left her for that girl on Tinder, didn’t he?”

  I wondered what she looked like. I wondered what her tagline was. I pictured something ironic and clever, with her profile photo smacking of some kind of fabricated depth. A fake, flashing smile and manipulated angles. Wing-tipped eyeliner to give a sultry sort of look. The kind that washed away at night.

  My stomach flip-flopped, and I grimaced.

  “I don’t even want to think about it.”

  She shook the glass in front of me, and I took a sip. Suddenly, the tequila, warm with each swallow, was welcoming - but I didn’t want to get drunk.

  “So don’t,” she said. “You’re a total catch, Mia. There’s plenty of other guys out there. And besides, with Cambridge around the corner, why bother even focusing on American guys? Find yourself a cute, articulate British one.”

  “Call me a fool,” I muttered. “But truthfully, I’m more keen on attending Cambridge to pursue a further education, and not drool over boys.”

  Aimee rolled her eyes. Maybe I deserved that one. I mean, there would be tons of guys in the UK; assuming I even got into Cambridge, that is. Cambridge was where I (hoped) to pursue my Master’s degree – in English, of course. Because in some ways, I was utterly typical. And it was another thing I relished: my love of books. My love of stories. My love of escapes.

  “What. Is. My. Life?” I asked, scraping the salt from the rim of my glass with the clear, plastic straw. “I’m tired. I want to go home.”

  “Want to make a Ben and Jerry’s run en route?”

  I nodded, sighing for the countless time.

  In the car, while Aimee searched for her keys that were lost (as they always were) in her abyss of an over-sized purse, I sat with my head against the window, my chest tightening again.

  Suddenly, a sharp pang made me sit upright.

  “My heart hurts.”

  “I know it does,” Aimee said, touching my hand. “Things will get better, Mia. Time goes on, and there’s always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and you know the rest. You’ll heal from this mess eventually.”

  “No,” I pressed. “I mean, it really hurts. I think something’s wrong.”

  I looked at her, alarmed.

  “I think I might be having a heart attack?” I said, the upward inflection making everything seem worse. “It feels like it. It definitely feels like something.”

  “But you’re only twenty-two. Is that even possible?”

  Another sharp pang. Another wince. And in front of my eyes, I swear, I saw red lights.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But we need to go to the ER. Now.”

  So we sped off into the humid, Orlando night. I tried to calm myself down, but each almost-calculated throb was more heightened than the last.

  Don’t panic, I told myself. Don’t panic.

  The hospital’s lights were all lit up; the yellow orbs of distant windows. The red Entrance sign shown brightly against the backdrop of the chalk-board sky, and I turned to Aimee.

  “I’m scared,” I told her.

  She held my hand as we walked inside. Where one chapter had closed, and another would open.

  Chapter 2

  ALEX

  Standing with my hands against cold glass, I looked down at the sprawling city below, all palm-trees and gray-scale buildings. And in the early evening, right around twilight, when everything was bathed in that spectacular amber glow – that watercolor wash of golds and purples – it was really very lovely.

  I generally enjoyed evenings. Mostly because I was never much for hanging around in the glaring sunlight – admittedly a questionable confession for a couple reasons. For starters, this was Florida: the Sunshine State, as it were; and secondly, I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to endorse the positive benefits of sunlight. Natural vitamins, and all that generic nonsense.

  Frankly, I made a point in avoiding all au naturel exercise by working out in my own personal gym. If I did run, I ran in the early morning before the first glimpse of light peaked above the horizon. I bought organic, farm-grown vegetables at the Farmer’s Market. I kept myself healthy, of course. No cigarettes, and I tried to keep the drinking moderate - but I hated the sun. Maybe I was a vampire.

 
; Kidding. A bad joke. I didn’t spend nearly ten years with my nose buried in textbooks, countless nights falling asleep at my desk by lamp-light, and almost half-a-million in personal costs (chiefly loans, of course) to become some sort of Edward Cullen wannabe.

  Plus, at thirty-two, I think that sexy-schoolboy ship has sailed.

  So why was I here? I didn’t know. Well, that’s a lie – I did know. I was here because this is where I had intended to establish my life; the things that are expected of a guy when they reach a certain age. The perfect girlfriend that inevitably becomes the perfect fiancée, then wife, then the mother of your 2.5 kids. The starter apartment that you eventually leave in place of a Real Home, with several floors and at least several bathrooms (because what is solidarity anymore?) and a pool and a yard for cook-outs, family gatherings, birthday parties.

  Oh, and a dog. Because what’s the family without God’s most loyal companion?

  Anyway, I could draw out my own story, or I could make it quick. I’m going to guess, for the sake of brevity, that most people prefer the shorthand version.

  Of course, I had those things. The blond fiancée who would have certainly gone on to create very beautiful children; all of whom would have certainly made for very beautiful, blown-up black-and-white photographs to place around my office. I had the perfect starter apartment – which I still lived in, actually. A sleek, modern loft on the very top floor of a high-rise building that overlooked Orlando’s downtown metro. I had the suits, and ties, and all the beginning makings of a Grown-up Guy. I had a proper job, a respectable title, and a more than sizable income.

  But my fiancée – ex-fiancée, as it were – left me after several years together when she confided, after one too many glasses of Riesling, that I was too distant, and didn’t really want a life with her. I was just going through the motions.

  And you know what? She was right. I was. I wanted that life, of course – or, that life in some fashion, with some person. But she wasn’t it.

  In the end, I apologized, and told her to keep the ring (because she had never really worked a day in her life, and I was largely supporting her), and she packed up her belongings and left, as these things usually go.