“
And how does the LVAD make you feel?” I consider telling her about the butterfly in my chest that needs electricity to work, how it reminds me of the beetle with a pin through its living body, something I did, the big, bleeding red A on that science project. How that wasn’t terribly fulfilling because it was just another in a long line, before and after, my grades a long vowel-filled exhalation of superiority. But she’s waiting with her pen and paper, ready to put it all down permanently. And these are dark things that need to stay inside. So I lie. “Alive,” I say
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