Alexa was discharged from the hospital on a Tuesday morning, six days after Yvonne's death. She left with a bag full of medications she wasn't sure she'd take, instructions for follow-up appointments she didn't plan to keep, and a donor registration card in her wallet that felt like the only honest thing she owned.
The apartment was too quiet.
The apartment was exactly as she'd left it; Yvonne's cereal bowl still in the sink, her backpack hanging by the door, her laughter still echoing in the walls. Alexa stood in the doorway, unable to move forward, unable to go back.
Mrs. Martinez had tried to clean up, had left casseroles in the fridge and a note of condolence on the counter. But nothing could clean away the emptiness.
Alexa walked slowly to Yvonne's room and stood in the doorway. The bed was still unmade from that last morning. The stuffed animals were arranged just as Yvonne had left them. On the nightstand, a library book lay open to a story about a girl who could talk to stars.
She couldn't stay in this apartment. Couldn't sleep in rooms haunted by all she'd lost. But she had nowhere else to go.
That night, Alexa sat at her wooden desk
and pulled out a piece of paper. Her hands trembled as she smoothed it flat. The doctors had given her months, maybe less. Her heart was failing. There was no miracle coming, no sudden recovery. Just a slow decline until the inevitable end.
But there was one thing she could control. One choice that was entirely hers.
She picked up her pen and began to write.
To whoever finds this,
My name is Alexa Freeman, and by the time you read this, I will be gone. Not by my own hand in the way you might think, though I considered it, tried it even. But my heart is doing the work for me. It's failing, the doctors say. Dilated cardiomyopathy, weakened from years of stress I didn't recognize as illness. I have months, maybe weeks. I don't know.
I don't want treatment. I don't want a transplant that would give me years I can't imagine living. Everyone I loved is gone. My sister Miriam died years ago. Her daughter, Yvonne, my sunshine, my reason for everything, was killed in a hit-and-run six days ago. I held her as she took her last breath, and then my own heart tried to follow her.
Maybe it should have. Maybe it would have been mercy.
Her hand shook, tears blotting the ink, but she continued.
But the doctors told me something that changed my mind about how I leave this world. They told me that when my heart stops, it could save someone else. That even though I can't keep fighting, someone else might want to. Someone with a family, with dreams, with a future that doesn't feel like an endless weight.
I've registered as an organ donor. When my heart gives out, and it will, sooner rather than later, I want it to go to someone who still believes life is worth living. I want my heart to beat in a chest that rises with laughter, that races with joy, that breaks and heals and keeps going anyway.
Yvonne used to ask me why birds sing. I told her they sing to remind us the world is beautiful. I don't believe that anymore. The world took everything from me. But maybe in someone else's chest, my heart will remember what hope feels like.
She paused, staring at the words, then added more.
I'm writing this now, while I still can, because I don't know when the end will come. The doctors say I need to be monitored, that if my heart deteriorates rapidly I need to get to the hospital immediately. They've given me a device that tracks my heart rhythm, sends alerts if things get bad. They think I'll call for help, follow their instructions, try to extend my life.
They're wrong.
When my heart starts to fail, I'll go to the hospital, but not to be saved. I'll go so that my death can mean something. So that the medical team can be ready. So that my heart can be harvested while it's still viable, still capable of giving someone else the life I'm done living.
To whoever receives my heart: I'm sorry it's broken. I'm sorry it couldn't hold on. But I hope it learns to love again in your chest. I hope it finds peace I couldn't give it. I hope it beats strong and steady for you, even though it failed me.
Maybe that's the only redemption left, to become someone else's second chance.
Alexa Freeman.
She set down the pen, her chest aching with more than just cardiac failure. The letter sat before her, final and irrevocable. She folded it carefully, slipped it into an envelope, and wrote on the front: TO THE ONE WHO HAS MY HEART.
Then she placed it in the top drawer of her desk, alongside the donor card and a list of emergency contacts that no longer mattered. Dr. Patel's number. Mrs. Martinez. The hospital. Not Charles… never Charles again.
The apartment was silent around her. Outside, the city hummed with life she no longer felt part of. Alexa pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the irregular flutter beneath her palm.
"Soon", her heart seemed to whisper.
But not tonight. Tonight she had to bury Yvonne. Tomorrow she would face whatever came next.
She turned off the desk lamp and sat in darkness, holding vigil with her own failing heart, waiting for the moment when letting go would finally mean something.