Now, for Wynne’s part, understand that though she was still alive, she was completely serious. She did not know if her heart would fit inside Nadia’s body and didn’t quite trust the doctors enough to ask about such a thing, but she meant for her lover to have a heart that fit and she was quite willing to offer hers up. She really did not need it.

And it was clean, in good working order. She had taken care of it, never smoked or drank, really, kept to a very austere vegan diet, raw food when she could. She ate no sugar, nor wheat, and very little fat (no animal fats, of course). And had no genetic ailments, as Nadia had. She engaged in aerobic exercise almost every day (except when so saturated with despair and lifelessness that she could not bring herself to leave her bed). As far as she could tell, her heart was certain to be shiny and spiffy, ripe and ready to be harvested. She went so far as to think that it was quite possible that she was put on the earth to provide a host for Nadia’s heart, replete with legs and feet, adept fingers, soft full lips, a skillful tongue, and a sexy package to put it all in. Nadia liked sexy packages.

Wynne was quite serious about this heart business. We must understand that the poor girl was quite thoroughly in love. And more than ready to die. Nadia’s love was not enough to save her, though it was enough to make her miss her flight and force her to schedule another.

Yes (I knew you’d ask), Nadia was always chasing after strange women (strange as in new-to-her, not strange as in peculiar-in-the-way-that-Wynne-was-peculiar), but Wynne didn’t mind. It wasn’t about her. It was just her way. Nadia warned her the first night they got together that she didn’t do monogamous relationships. That she liked new people, new things, new places she’d never been (read: new bedrooms, new hotel rooms, new dining room tables and kitchen countertops, new department store dressing rooms, airport/bus/bar/restaurant/library bathrooms and broom closets), and that she liked sex. Liked, in fact, a wide variety of sex. And she drank. A lot. (Which gave her a terrible memory for anything which was not deeply remarkable.) Those things were non-negotiable. And if any of that was problematic, perhaps they had better end the engagement there and then, before any heartbreak or vexation transpired.

Wynne was grateful. She knew that she could very well die any day now. And would rather not feel that her lover (should she have one at the time) would be inconsolable, and unable to get on with life and love and the rest of business of living. The last thing she needed was someone to anchor her to the earth with needing her so badly. Of course, she didn’t expect to grow so attached to Nadia as she did. But still, attachment does not necessarily breed jealousy or possessiveness. It does not have to. And Wynne wanted her to be as happy as she could be. Besides, on a good day, Wynne had been known to get around a little bit herself. This was not her first polyamorous relationship, though it might be her last.

In either case, she didn’t fret about Nadia’s predilection for other women. The alcohol made her sweat a little, though. It just seemed imprudent, given her heart’s condition. (She wondered if maybe when Nadia was told decades ago that she was not going to live past 20, she took that information and decided that it didn’t matter, then, if she wrecked her body. She was going to die, anyway.)

Granted, when the doctor told Nadia that if she didn’t stop drinking, she wouldn’t be considered a viable candidate, Wynne stopped fretting so much. Nadia did want a heart. She wouldn’t jeopardize that. Wynne felt certain about that. She was sure that Nadia still characterized her as overly concerned with her alcoholism, but she was more concerned at this point with whether or not Nadia’s body would receive her heart. All she knew was that, yes, Nadia and she were the same blood type. But, of course, there were surely more concerns than that. And of course, these are not the kind of questions you can ask the doctors, without them having you committed or watched or barred from visiting your lover at the hospital or something. After all, she was not talking about metaphor.

Wynne didn’t mean to kill herself and have her heart harvested by some arrogant stranger and then, furthermore, to have it shipped off to someone who by some arbitrary act of fate was higher on the list than Nadia was.

Perhaps she was being ridiculous, but she didn’t really care.