The Mechanics of The Heart (Unedited)

25

Amara Joseph

Most heart attacks happen on a Monday.
It's loosely referred to as the blue Monday effect, there's no consensus or evidence of the exact reason.
Some people think it's because it's the start of the week, the beginning of an onslaught of never ending stress that blows a fuse through your heart before it dies out like a suffocated flame.

I learned that by accident watching tv later than I should I have been at eleven with school the next day. It was an ad for a retirement center, my bedroom was pitch black outside the glaring bright television of a man golfing. I remember the narrators tone being so upbeat for stating something so ominous.
'Do you know most heart attacks occur on Monday?- At Willow Springs Mondays are spent in tranquil pool side peace-'

I couldn't get it out of my head, it was like a record was spinning on repeat in the far echoes of my brain. The next morning I had blurted the facts out to my sister over a soggy bowl of fruit loops, my mother had been leaning against the counter a steaming cup of coffee I knew was dosed with enough sugar to give a dozen kindergarteners diabetes.

My sister had only looked at me strangely for a moment, very still as if she was frozen but then she blinked at me, very slowly before she shook her head.
"Why can't you just be normal?" Her tone was exasperated, coated in genuine exhaustion and it confused me at the time. At the time I had spent the better part of my time trying to keep up with my parent's expectations. They gave birth to three children, they were expecting three prodigies in return.
Somewhere in her distant gaze my mother muttered over her steaming mug, clutched with both boney hands although it was almost eighty degrees just that morning. 'Pretty sure you were born on Monday, Amara.'
The information of my day of birth offered coldly and almost cruelly, was nothing but fuel to my spiraling thoughts, maybe that's why my entire life I've felt like I've been having a heart attack.

Ariya was always cold, something I and Agustin had learned very early on. It was better to leave our elder sister alone and she had spewed enough insults to me that she had no choice but to grow immune to them.

At first I'd cry, beg my mother to make her apologize but I'd be brushed off. A shrug with 'you're sisters, it happens, Amara. I don't always get along with my sisters. Get over it.' My father would avoid my gaze, silently standing beside my mother or playing a neutral position- I never knew which.

That day in the kitchen, I knew where Ariya got her coldness. It chilled her veins and demeanor the same way it did our mother, making her prickly to the touch. I always thought it was ironic their first children were girls. As if either one of them had a nurturing bone in their body to begin with, there was nothing motherly or daughterly I felt about the relationship with my mother.
A neglected, unwanted responsibility maybe. But I didn't feel like her daughter.
As much as the thought stings, aches deep in my chest. It makes me feel sick for my niece.

Moving around my apartment felt weird, all of Bambis stuff had been moved and she had gifted me a couch, table and tv and Bear had given me a bed from one of the unused beds from his clubhouse. There was an odd promise from Razor he made sure to find one the prospects hadn't defiled as he carried it in over his head.

It was pretty bare besides that, I had two paychecks cashed that I was debating saving but I needed toiletries, groceries and actual cook wear. Granite, I wasn't sure what I was saving for anymore. My conversation with Bear had made it clear my family hadn't been concerned enough to file a missing persons and I was officially a college drop out.

The calls were slowly but surely dwindling from back to back, every hour to twice a day. It was drastic but it made me realize just how much of the calls were actually coming from my college.

There wasn't much, if anything at all to go back to-

Three sharp knocks echo in the empty space of the entry way and I jerk, blinking I turn towards the door, standing in the living wrapped in a hoodie and sweats, I almost catch whiplash pulling myself from my thoughts.

Half expecting Bambi to be standing there with another house warming gift. I'm shocked to find Bullet standing- no swallowing the space of my front door with his massive frame. Subconsciously I run my hand over the frizz my hair, having just taken out braids from washing it after moving in.

"Hey." I breathed, swallowing past my initial shock offering a tentative smile. I hadn't seen him since yesterday when I tried to stamp out the feeling fluttering in my stomach at the light country dip in his words as I rushed away.
Thanking my ancestors for my complexion as I was now I felt heat rush up my cheeks.

"Hey." His hazel eyes pierced my own dark eyes and I crossed my arms to keep from clutching my head. Feeling it spin as I registered the lack of looming dread, guilt, fear all absent despite the presence of this towering man.
"I have another observation." I blinked, his words catching me off guard. Nodding I bit my lip to keep from chuckling at the seriousness of his tone of the sudden game we seemed to be playing.

"Bullet, did you come all the way here to tell me that? You have my number." I chuckled before I could stop it. He just kind of gazed at me for a moment before smirking, head tilting like a puppy but the glint in his eye reminded me of the stealthy panthers on the hunt on the animal channel.

"Let's make a deal." I paid to much attention to the way his tongue darted out swipe across his bottom lip.

"I was told making a deal with the devil was selling your soul." I glanced at the devil horns patch resting on the left shoulder of his leather vest. He smirk only widened.

"We share. You give me an observation and I give you one." He ignored my statement, a childish flash of mischief shined down at me for a moment as he leaned against the door frame, building arms coming to cross against his massive chest mirror my position.

"Why?" I pry, curious in his sudden interest to change the dynamic of the unspoken game we've started.

"Curious. Do we have a deal?" I rolled my eyes, chuckling at his deflection. Something telling me this could end up very, very messy. But I couldn't say I wasn't curious too, of what? I couldn't begin to tell you.
Bullet was dangerous, I knew that the moment I shook his hand at his sisters house.
He was too easy to talk too, too easy to joke with and too easy to get too comfortable with. He was a greek god sculptured and brought to life with oozing rugged charm and sex appeal.

Thing that should be pushed far, far to the very edge of my mind. I should be putting a fifty foot diameter between me and any man, and I had or at least I thought I did.
Bullet, somehow he had slipped past my barrier without intent or notice from me.