Every Borrowed Beat - Hardcover

Stewart, Erin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593710665 ISBN 13: 9780593710661

Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

A 17-year-old girl receives a life-changing heart transplant--and uncovers the truth about her donor all while falling in love in a novel that's "alternately heart-wrenching and heartwarming" (Kirkus). A touching read for anyone seeking a story filled with hope and emotional depth.

What if the heart that saved your life also held the secrets of another's?

* "With its perfect blend of chronic illness representation, mental health exploration, and romance, this is sure to appeal to fans of books like John Green's The Fault in Our Stars . . . a standout addition to the genre."--SLJ, starred review

Sydney Wells should have died. She was supposed to die.

She never expected, after years of waiting, to receive a heart transplant. Now, seventeen-year-old Sydney doesn't know what to do with her life. Her daily routine consisted of staying indoors, eating heart-healthy foods, and posting about her transplant list experiences on TheWaitingList with her long-distance BFF (and heart failure buddy) Chloe.

Now, Sydney latches onto the one thing that gives her meaning: learning as much as she can about the person whose heart she inherited. After finding the family of her likely-donor, Mia, Sydney falls deep into her world--and may also be falling for Mia's best friend, Clayton.

But Sydney isn't the only one hiding something. Mia's brother Tanner won't talk to Clayton, and Clayton won't tell Sydney why. And hundreds of miles away, Chloe's health has taken a turn for the worse. Sydney needs to face what's in her heart--the truth, the guilt, and the future--before it's too late.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Erin Stewart

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER ONE


“I should have died.

I was supposed to die.

Except I didn’t--someone else did.

And now I’m living on borrowed time with a borrowed heart just thump-thump-thumping away.

The problem with all this borrowing?

You begin to forget what part of you is actually, well, you.”



The video freezes on a particularly unattractive expression where I look like I’m about to sneeze or fart or, horror of horrors, simultaneously do both. If I were going to post this, I’d definitely need to pick a less humiliating final frame.

But I’m not going to post this video. I knew that before I even hit record.

An incoming call lights up my phone. Before I answer, I save the video to my drafts folder with all my other unposted clips, sixteen weeks’ worth of me rambling about my new so-called life.

When I hit accept, Chloe’s face fills the screen.

“You do it yet?” She jumps right in like we were already mid-conversation. Chloe’s never beaten around a bush in her life. I guess that’s one of the first things to go when you’re slapped with an expiration date. No time for formalities.

I shake my head. Chloe groans, her voice filling my room even though she’s six hundred miles away on the California coast, sucking up that salty sea-level air, trying to eke out a little more life.

“Sydney Wells, don’t make me crawl through this phone and post that video for you.” The oxygen cannula stuck up her nose tells me it’s been a bad night. I know Chloe better than to ask about it. “We’re supposed to be running this account together. I need you.”

That’s a stretch. Chloe’s the force behind TheWaitingList, our YouTube channel, where she posts videos of what it’s like to live on a transplant list with a crappy heart. She’s honest about it--raw--and also hilarious, which is why we have almost twenty thousand subscribers. She’s pretty much a celebrity in the transplant world.

I used to post, too. But now it feels, I don’t know, weird. But then again, what doesn’t these days?

“It’s called TheWaitingList, Chlo. And maybe you didn’t hear but”--I tug my shirt collar down below my clavicle, barely enough to reveal the top of my scar. It’s healing beautifully, Dr. Russell says, but it’s still purply red enough to have some serious shock factor--“I’m not waiting anymore.”

I feel Chloe’s eye roll all the way from Cali.

“Hello? That’s kind of the whole point,” she says. “You’re the success story people need to hear.”

Chloe leans in close to the camera. Her lips are blue tinged and her eyes have a purple cast beneath them, little semicircles of sleep she didn’t get. She definitely pulled an all-nighter.

The guilt sets in quick. Here I am complaining about post-transplant life, and she’s sucking oxygen through the equivalent of a crimped straw. This is why I can’t post any of my videos: I’m the one who lived.

I have no right to grief.

“Our fans are starting to wonder,” she whispers.

“Wonder what?”

“If you died.”

“Well, as you can see, I didn’t.”

She leans even closer so she’s one big old eyeball.

“Debatable.”

In the bottom of the screen, a face I don’t recognize looks back at me. Our viewers probably wouldn’t recognize me, either. Before the transplant, my face was thin, no, gaunt. My lips had the same perma-blue hue Chloe’s do now. Near the end, I couldn’t go more than ten minutes without my oxygen. Now I’m pleasantly plump, as Mom would say. Dr. Russell calls it moonface, a way-too-cutesy term for how the prednisone makes my face an overstuffed balloon.

“What am I even supposed to post about?” I say. “I’m hardly inspirational. I’m seventeen and have zero idea what I’m doing with my life, and zero friends unless you include my parents. And you barely count.”

“Rude,” Chloe says.

“You know what I mean. It’s not like we can just get together and hang out at the . . . wherever normal people hang out.”

“Normal people?” she echoes, but her grin tells me she’s messing with me.

“I’m just saying, I have no life worth posting about. At the moment, I have exactly two hobbies.” I hold my fingers up to count dramatically in the screen. “One: very slow, old-lady walks around the cul-de-sac with my aforementioned best friends slash parents--”

“Which sounds pretty great,” she mutters, and a stab of guilt goes through me.

“And two,” I continue, “reading local obituaries.”

Chloe frowns. “You still doing that?”

“Maybe.”

“I thought you found her? The girl from that small town?”

I nod. “I’m like ninety-nine percent sure. But it doesn’t hurt to keep checking.”

Chloe sighs out long and low.

“You need to come back to Broken Hearts Club,” she finally says, matter-of-factly. “Oh my gosh, last week, Josh, you know, the liver kid? He was going on and on about how he’s going to die without having sex, and I swear I almost banged the kid just to shut--”

A coughing attack hits Chloe before she can finish. She gives me a thumbs-up but then moves the screen away from her face. I can hear her hacking off camera. Her heart may be failing, but it’s her lungs that feel it. And her fits are getting worse. They’ve been getting worse since I met her two years ago in the online transplant support group.

Our moms both enrolled us after they got worried we were becoming miserable teenage hermits. It’s all very Fault in Our Stars, except there are no hot boys with an affinity for metaphor. Oh, and also, those cancer kids weren’t sitting around waiting for the phone to ring because huzzah! Someone has died! You get to live!

We talk about waiting (which is every bit as tedious as it sounds), and we talk numbers: oxygen saturations and liver stats and how many people have to die before we get to the top of the list. And will they die in the appropriate mile radius in the right way with the right blood type and perfectly sized organ? Will someone else’s tragedy be my salvation?

It’s a bit morbid, if you ask me (which my mom did not before signing me up). But I did meet Chloe, so there’s that. She nicknamed the whole thing Broken Hearts (and Spare Parts) Club and made it almost bearable each week: Watching people get better, watching them get worse. Watching everyone move up and down the waiting list like a macabre game of musical chairs.

Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? A sick game of chance where winning means someone else loses. Big-time.

I haven’t been back to group since my surgery. I highly doubt anyone wants me there, lording my brand-spanking-new heart over their failing organs.

Chloe’s face reappears, flushed and sweaty. She takes a swig from the water bottle next to her. It’s the behemoth kind with a ribbed straw they give you in the hospital. I guess that’s another essential of life on the list: an impressive collection of hospital souvenirs.

“All I’m saying is, you did it, Syd. You’re here. That’s a good thing. Celebrate it.” A wide smile spreads across her face. “Speaking...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Children's Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593710665
• ISBN 13: 9780593710661
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland