I was finally home. I was at the hospital for about two weeks. Heart transplants, stitches, and broken bones don’t mix well together. My days consisted of watching stupid soap operas, physical therapy, getting pain meds, and sleeping. Well my sleep wasn’t very restful all the time. I don’t know if having constant dreams of the man who almost killed me is defined as restful.


It turns out I broke a lot of bones. Of course I didn’t find this out until I’d been at the hospital for three days. The first two days consisted of doctors and nurses making sure I was stable and once I woke up, they’d make me sleep some more. By my third day I guess I’d slept enough to find out about what happened and was wrong with me.


I required a few stitches in my head, just because of some glass that cut me, thankfully no brain damage, some bruised ribs, I may have fractured one of two, I don’t remember, broken right arm, and a broken right leg. My body is covered in bruises. Oh, and did I forget to mention, a new heart? Yea, I have one of those too. And oh yea, it belonged to the guy who ran the light and almost killed me, who just happened to have been fleeing the scene of a murder.


I hear a door slam. My mom must be home with my boat load of homework. I’ve missed about 10 days of school by now. I don’t know how much more will follow. My mom walks into the guest room I’m staying in since stairs are an issue for me right now.


“Well, dear, all you teachers are incredibly concerned and happy that you are recovering.” She smiles warmly.


“Yes, but how much stuff will I have to make up?” Mom drops three text books, two binders, and a huge pile of papers on my desk. I let out a chuckle. “Awesome.”


“All your teachers were very understanding and they said take as much time as you need to make it all up.”


“Can I take the rest of the year?” I laugh.


Mom smiles, “You and I both know that you will be done with it in a few days.”


I sigh. “Yes, Mom, I know.”
She begins to walk out of the room. “Oh yea, Kyle, Greg told me he was going to come over and see how you were doing tonight after he’s done working.”
Greg didn’t come see me in the hospital because I was in and out of consciousness so often, and my mom didn’t want anyone to see me as messed up as I was.
Mom walks out of my room and I hear here mumble, “I’m going to make you boys some cookies…”
I chuckle. My mom is so funny. She rarely bakes, but when she does, whatever she makes, pies, cakes, bread, cookies, anything, turns out amazing.


Maybe I should start my homework…or maybe I should rest my eyes a little bit before Greg comes over…



I’m in a smoky room, on a ripped up gross looking couch, with a drink in my hand. I have no clue where I am. There are five other people in the room, three sketchy looking men and two younger looking women. The men all have drinks in their hands and one of them has what looks like a cigarette, but I’m sure it’s something stronger. I stretch and try to stand up. My head is spinning. I drop my drink on the floor and slump back into the couch.


“Oh look who’s not passed out anymore.” The man with the cigarette laughs.


One of the women approaches me. She has long blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and clothes that aren’t really covering much of her body. She sits next to me. “You were out for at least an hour.” She says as she runs her fingers through my hair.


“What happened to me?” My words sound slurred.


She laughs. “What do you mean silly?” Her breath smells like some sort of mixed drink that was strong. Really strong. Now that I see her closer, she has dark bags under her eyes that could either be from lack of sleep or drugs. Both could be quite probable.


“Where am I? I was passed out?”


“Oh wow… you’ve gotten really messed up. Well, silly boy, you’re here.” She giggles. Geez, she’s stupid. “And you passed out cuz Rodney got some really strong stuff that you couldn’t handle.”


Before I had a chance to ask what kind of stuff she was talking about a man with some cigarette thing and a drink approached me. Maybe he’s Rodney.


The blonde woman jumped from the couch and clung to him. “Oh Rodney, he is ok now, see!” Oh, he is Rodney.


“We thought you might have died over there, Damen.” Wait, my name’s not Damen! What is this? “You’re not very good at holding your liquor.”


I force out a fake laugh, “Yea, I guess not. Why don’t you just hit me with another one, but not as strong this time.” Where is this coming from?


“Alright man, you’re crazy. Tiffany, go make him another drink. Scotch sound okay for you?”


“Yea, sounds great.” Who am I? What am I saying?


The blonde woman walks away and slips behind a bar in the corner. I stand up and tower over Rodney. Something is wrong. I’m normally the one who is towered over. I am not in my body.
Rodney is a man of average height, so I guess I’m overly average now? He has messy, dark brown hair. I’m assuming he’s in his mid to late thirties. He’s not skinny, but he’s not fat either. He’s average. That’s the only word I can find to describe him. Average.
“You stressed out or something? You’re not your normal self.” Rodney asks. Not my normal self? Clearly, I don’t know how I’m supposed to be acting.
“Hmm, I must be. That’s why I need another drink.” I laugh. Tiffany returns with my drink. “Thanks.” I take a huge gulp. It burns as it makes its way down my throat. Why would anyone want to drink this stuff out of choice?
Tiffany hangs on Rodney like she needs him to survive. I assume he’s the top dog here. “Excuse me for one moment.” Rodney says kissing Tiffany. He slips out of the room followed by the two other men.
“Tiffany, could you refresh my memory a bit?”
“Sure.” She says pushing me back on the couch. She begins to run her hands through my hair again.
“What’s going on here?”
“Rodney doesn’t tell me anything.” She pouts. I can tell she always gets what she wants.
“Well, why are we all here?”
She bats her eyes. “We’re all here for you silly.”
“For me?”
“Yes, he wants to kill you tonight.” She beams like a little kid who just got a new toy. “Oh wait… I wasn’t supposed to tell you that…” She pouts again.


“What?! Kill me?! Why?!”


“He doesn’t think you’ve been loyal to him. He hasn’t gotten anything useful from you.”


I am so confused. What didn’t this Damen guy do? I can’t die! Did he try to drug me before so killing me would be easier? I scan the room. There’s two doors, one that Rodney and his goons went through and another one. God do I hope that goes somewhere. I get up and try to get my bearings. I can’t pass out again. I feel something digging into my back. I pull a hand gun out of the back of my pants. How do I fire a gun?


Rodney and his goons appear in the doorway. “Leaving so soon?” Rodney sneers. “The fun is just beginning.” Bullets begin to fly around the room, and everything begins to blur. I’m no longer in control of my body. It all happens so fast. I don’t know what’s going on. My gun fires and before I know it the two goons are dead.


I fly out of the house and into a car. The city is a blur around me. Sirens follow me and before I know it I’ve plowed though an intersection…

I wake up screaming.

“Are you sure it’s not just your meds getting to you?” My best friend, Greg asks. Greg has light brown hair that brushes the tops of his eye brows. That’s long for him. He needs a haircut.


“Yes I’m sure! I’ve asked my doctors what the side effects of them are, and having dreams that are pretty messed up, is not one of them.”


“Maybe it’s all in your head. It could just be from all you’re trauma.” Greg is normally pretty logical; he’s not the kind of guy that you want to have a fight with when it comes down to brains.


“Maybe you’re right… but it’s just weird. These dreams...they’re so vivid.”


“Dreams are supposed to be vivid.” He laughs. “But why don’t you just tell me about them?”


“My first one I met the guy who hit me.” I scratch my head, how much of this can I tell him without him thinking I’ve gone insane? “Well in my first night of the hospital I met him twice, once in the intersection and then once in my hospital room.”


“And the guy who hit you, you have his heart right?” He’s being really understanding.


I nod. “I just talked to him the first two times, then I watched him hit me, and it was just overall really creepy.”


“Ok, well was there anything else? Any other dreams you had with this guy that were out of the ordinary?”


“Earlier today, I had this dream where they were calling me Damen. It was really odd, and by the end, I, or this Damen guy, which I guess I was anyway, had killed two guys, and then I was fleeing the house and it ended with me plowing through some intersection and hitting myself.”


We sit in silence for awhile. “Dude, that’s messed up.”


I laugh a little deliriously, “You don’t think I haven’t noticed that?”


“Maybe this Damen guy was the guy who hit you.”


“I gathered that.”


“No, I mean like, that’s the real guy’s name. Maybe we can look up the police record and stuff and find out about him.”


“You can just do that?”


“Well, I don’t think so, but maybe I can find a little on him, like in a newspaper database.”


“That’s actually a really good idea.” Maybe finding out more about this guy can help me deal with the dreams, or end them all together.


“But, seriously, it could be all in your head. Maybe you feel like you’re supposed to be connected to this guy and this is your subconscious’s way of doing that.
“Hmm, maybe you’re right. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens and research a little.” But I don’t want to wait this out. Something is seriously wrong with me and these dreams. But what if it is all in my head, or all in my heart… his heart?
“I’ll defiantly help you find some stuff on this guy.” Greg is really good with computers and breaking through computer systems to find what he needs. “So, what are your restrictions? Like with your heart?” I can tell he’s a little uncomfortable.


“Well I can’t go run a marathon anytime soon.” I laugh. “I’m not allowed to drive for a couple months, and I can’t lift stuff, because my muscles aren’t fully healed and whatnot. So nothing overly stressful, or stressful in general. I’m not really allowed to use my crutches for awhile either, so I’m like restricted to a wheel chair until my doctor thinks I won’t hurt myself.”


“So when will you be back at school?”


“I don’t know. It’s all up to my doctor. I mean, it’s my senior year. As much as I want to go back because of that, I don’t at the same time. I feel like it would be a lot of stress.”


“I’m sure after awhile this won’t be as scary and overwhelming for you.”


Will I ever forget that this isn’t my heart and that the guy who it came from almost killed me after killing two people? “I hope so.”
Greg leaves after he tells me about what’s new at school and other small things that I missed regarding sports and music. I kind of tuned him out because those things don’t interest me anymore, at least right now. I couldn’t get the idea of researching the Damen guy out of my head. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?
I grab my laptop of the small table next to me, carefully, very carefully. After booting up and finding the Milwaukee Journal website, I can finally begin my search for answers. What can I even search? I type in “resent car accidents involving teen”. Quite a few results pop up. “Teen drunk driver kills passengers in car, but he survives”, “Studies show more teens are having driving accidents now than ever before”, ok, none of these are any help. I scroll absentmindedly as I zone out into my computer screen when I come across what I’ve been looking for, “Teen hit in car chase, and survives”. I think it was written the day after the accident, November 10.

Yesterday evening in the intersection of 93rd and Main, right outside of the Stein’s parking lot, a police chase ended. The chase was cut short when the driver ran a red light and into an innocent driver. The man being chased was wanted for the murder of two men.



After running the red light the man suffered brain damage and was ruled brain dead at the hospital. The teen he hit was luckier. Because he was hit on the right side of his car his injuries weren’t as direct. The teen suffered from broken bones and bruises, but that wasn’t all. His heart went into shock.



Both were rushed to the hospital. The teen needed immediate attention and needed a heart fast or else he would die. He got lucky.



The doctors suggested to the family of the murderer that they should donate his organs because he could save lives. The family said they would donate his organs on one condition. His heart would go to the teen he had hit. Doctors explained that was not how heart transplants worked and that there was someone waiting for a heart. But the family won. It was an unreal situation. The family made sure the heart went to the teen he almost killed. The man’s mother was quoted, “I know there are other people who need the heart too, but my family and I just feel that it is only right to give it to an innocent boy who my son almost killed.”



No police officers were hurt in the chase.



Well, now I know the un-sugar coated version. The news paper online allows people to comment on what they think about the article or blog. The people who commented had mixed emotions. Some think it was great that my life was saved and others think I should have waited my turn for a heart like everyone else. I don’t know how I feel.


I zone out into my computer screen for awhile. In a daze I type in random things and find myself on some local newspaper that gives me police reports. I scan through them, they consist of car got a small dent in round-a-bout, kid got suspended from school, I zone out again. Car accident reports, yes! I see a couple that don’t concern me then at the bottom I find mine.



November 9, 2010



6:55 Station receives 911 call reporting a murder at 12271 W. Oakridge Dr. When dispatch reaches the house, the man who was said to have shot the men, flees the scene. A chase begins.



6:58 The man reaches a red light at the intersection of 93rd and Main and continues through it into oncoming traffic. He hits a red, four door 2005 Sedan. Ambulances are then called to the scene.



7:00 Ambulances arrive. A 17 year old male is pulled out of the Sedan with some injuries that would need to be assessed right away. The man being chased is also pulled out with fatal injuries.



7:06 the two males reach Aurora Hospital. The man who caused the chase is ruled brain dead and the teen has gone into cardiac shock and needs a heart transplant soon.



The report goes on for awhile longer. I can’t read anymore. It’s so dull. It doesn’t give me much more information. I just know for a fact that he killed two people and fled the scene. Maybe Greg can find out more about what happened than I can. I’m getting really drowsy. Darn pain pills. I put the computer back on the small table and drift into a deep peaceful sleep.