Dear Ana: A Novel
Dear Ana: Chapter 18

Dear Ana,

I want to know what you were thinking when you decided to give me your heart.

You weren’t a registered organ donor––I heard them say that––which means they would’ve had to ask first. So I want to know the exact thoughts that framed your mind and the exact emotions that overwhelmed your body when you realized you were going to die. I want to know how you even ended up at the hospital that day. How is it fair that you saved my life, but I don’t even know how you died?

Did they tell you who I was while you were laying on your deathbed, clinging to life? Did they tell you about my accident, in a sick attempt at guilt-tripping you into saying yes? Did they tell you that I was just a poor little girl, broken from head to toe, and was going to die if you didn’t help her? That I was too young, and still had so much life to live and so many more moments to experience? If you were in a state so ghastly and irreversible that all your doctors decided you weren’t going to make it, how is it possible that you were even able to give your consent? The answer is that you didn’t. You didn’t give them consent, Ana, someone else did. You didn’t choose this, Ana, someone else chose for you. Someone else thought they knew you so well and so intimately that they were qualified enough to make such a drastic decision for you.

I hate them.

I hate that person.

I want to replace the soulless monster who thought they could play God, and mix and match organs like we’re just two pieces of a puzzle instead of real humans. I want to show them the life they brought me back to. I want them to experience just a fraction of the dreadful misery I had to experience every day.

I want to tell them that I’m currently hiding in my closet because my dad and my brother are at each other throats. I want to tell them how four hours ago my dad found a black trash bag filled with needles in the basement, and that Mikhail was the one who hid it there. I want to ask them why someone would just casually have a bag filled with needles. Is he doing drugs? Is he selling drugs?

I want them to know that the first thing I did when I heard this was run up to my room and strip out of all my clothes. I want to demonstrate how I desperately analyzed every inch, and crevice, and vain on my body for any needle pokes. How I scrutinized my entire physique for hours, searching and prodding for any evidence of a recent puncture wound, or a prick from a syringe sticking into my skin because I was so convinced he had used them on me. How suddenly, I could feel a strange and unknown substance flowing through my system. How I was starting to sense something repugnant and vile pouring into my bloodstream. There was something that wasn’t supposed to be inside me, and it was fueling my organs until they would be reliant and couldn’t function without it. I couldn’t replace any marks, but I was positive, Ana, so I checked again. And again. And then again after that.

Mikhail must be skilled, I told myself, that’s why I couldn’t replace any evidence. Something was living inside me though, I was sure of it. I could feel it in my core. Whatever he injected me with was making my skin crawl, like a thousand invisible spiders creeping all around and gnawing away at my insides. It was making me so itchy until eventually, I couldn’t help myself anymore, and I started to scratch. I desperately dug my nails deep into the thin outer layer of my skin and dragged them all along my body but the spiders just kept burrowing faster. I scratched my arms, my legs, my chest and my back but the repulsive creepy-crawly feeling of something burning my flesh only got worse. It was so strong and present that it blocked out any physical pain I was inflicting on my body.

I want them to know how I continued to claw and scrape at my skin until an hour later my body was ripe and raw from head to toe. It must be out though, right? The burning had sizzled down. The spiders escaped. That thing he tried to poison me with was finally gone.

I want to tell them that after I cleaned myself off and hid the evidence of my panic attack with layers of clothing, I came and sat in my closet and after a few minutes of being enveloped in complete darkness, I began to realize that it was my fault. A couple of days ago, I was so exhausted. I knew I shouldn’t sleep because sometimes Mikhail watched me while I slept so I always forced myself to stay awake. But the other night I was so drained and worn out, and it was four AM and my covers were so warm, and my bed was so comfy, and my eyes kept slipping closed, and before I could help myself I was falling, falling, falling. I opened my eyes after only a second, Ana, but the sun was up, so I knew it had to be longer than a second. Long enough for Mikhail to use that bag full of needles on me.

It was all my fault.

Except that it wasn’t.

It was their fault.

That’s what I want to tell them, Ana. That’s why I want to know who they are. They did this to me. They’re the reason I’m still here. The universe was finally going to set me free but they stopped it from happening. I saw the light, Ana. I felt its brightness on my skin. I was so close.

I was finally going to rest in peace.

But instead, I’m here, in this cramped closet with damp eyes and heavy breaths, forcing myself to listen to their screams just to make sure my dad is okay.

I may be alive, but my soul died that day. They thought they were doing me a kindness, but in reality, they just dragged me back to hell.

And I will never, EVER, forgive them.