Chapter 1: Prologue

TW: SUICIDE

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"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

I glance at my sister, my hands pausing with the apple and knife I was using to skin the fruit and cut it in bunny shape. Her body is way too thin, looking too weak as she rarely stands away from her hospital bed, and her also-too-pale face that is turned away from me. She's looking at the window, probably, watching whatever is happening outside. The sound of kids laughing, the chirping of the birds, and vehicles honking and driving away…

The world outside that is completely cut off from her.

"What?" I ask back.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

"Yeah, I heard but like, what do you mean?"

"Reincarnation…" She looks at me. "You know how religions sell their beliefs like how there's eternal life and we will get reincarnated and stuff."

What? "Coming from you?"

"Hey, what does that mean!" She exclaims while playfully frowning. "I'll have you know I'm a woman of culture!"

"Ah, sure." I roll my eyes, resuming what I was doing before she cuts my thoughts off. "You're an atheist. You never believed in God."

"I do now."

I pause once again. But for a completely different reason.

My sister, Claudine, had a weak heart ever since she was born. She was older than me by five years but if anyone would look at us now, they would think I'm the first born. Ever since she was young, she hated God, blamed Him for all the things that happened to her. A weak heart, a weak constitution, a weak everything. She didn't enjoy life as much as I have. Our parents are religious but even they understood what Claudine is going through and never forced their belief.

Claudine had that kind of relationship with religion. And yet here she is, saying something that caught me off guard.

"What?" I ask in that high falsetto voice. "What kind of… you really had a change of heart, huh?" Something about this conversation is making me uncomfortable. I feel like Claudine is about to say something that's going to piss me off. "Mom would be happy."

"You're not going to ask me why, sis?"

I shake my head, my hands almost shaking. "Things change over time. Beliefs are fluid, I respect whatever it is you believe in."

"I'm dying."

Ah. There it is.

I put down the knife with a thud and give up the idea of the bunny. She can eat it like this. I offer it to her and meet her eyes that look a little too sad… no, not sad. Accepting. "What are you talking about? You're going to get a heart transplant and live vigorously. Isn't that our plan?"

"If things can change, so do plans." She breathes in. "I feel it. It's coming for me."

"Don't say something so ominous." I warn her. "You believe in God now, right? Pray. I heard that's how He gets His messages."

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Claudine giggles softly. She grabs my hand and squeezes them softly. "I love you."

"I know." I reply.

"Star Wars reference?"

"Of course, it is."

"You don't even watch that."

"Everybody knows that reference."

I wholeheartedly believe that she's going to get better. That it's going to get better. But like I said, beliefs are fluid and the only thing that is constant is change.

Claudine's heart turns the worst when the clock strikes twelve.

At midnight, the monitor that's telling us how her heart is starting to go flatline. I may not be a doctor but I understood what that meant. If there's not a surgery transplant for Claudine's heart by today, it will be too late for her.

I'm standing in the middle of the hospital hallway. My parents beside me crying, the nurses and doctors coming and going on my other side. It's all happening so fast and yet at the same time, a second feels like it stretched into eternity.

And then it hit me.

Me. My heart. It could save her.

A pair of arms suddenly wrapped around me. My mother sobs in my chest while saying my sister's name like a mantra. My father patted my head like I was five years old again, and I broke my aunt's favourite vase.

I go home, with an excuse I need to change my clothes and I want to take a bath. Unbeknownst to everyone around me, I start to search for a safer way to die without damaging my heart. According to Google, it's by hanging.

As soon as I reach home, I find a pen and paper.

Use my heart for my sister's transplant. I write. What else am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to say goodbye? Am I supposed to tell them how I loved my sister more than I loved myself and now there was a choice where I could pick her, I chose her? I love you, I write at the bottom.

Because it's true. I love my parents. And I know they would have done the same if they could.

I find a rope, search in Google how to tie a noose, and find a perfect place where I can do this. I turn the radio on, hoping it will play a song I can enjoy as I lose my breathing.

— And I have heard of a love that comes once in a lifetime,

And I'm pretty sure you are that love of mine —

— are the last few lines of the song I hear as I feel my feet dangle.

Dandelion, into the wind you go,

Won't you let my darling know…

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