Chapter Text
Summer 1932: Revelations
He was five when he first noticed his beating heart.
The metallic frame of the bed groaned with every shift in movement. Not just his, either. All the boys at Wools were jittery and couldn’t keep still. The dormitory stuffed full of beds smelled of sweaty bodies, old straw-stuffed mattresses, and unwashed sheets. Only soft snoring and deep breathing kept him company that night.
In an attempt to find a comfortable position on the thin mattress, Tom switched sides again, sandwiching his hands between his cheek and the pillow. He was coiled up, with his knees nearly reaching his chest even as the air grew claustrophobic with humidity. Eyelids drooping from tiredness, Tom closed his eyes and there it was.
Ba-bum. Ba-bum.
He noticed it in his arms, the beat that ran through his hands. At first, he didn't understand what it was, but it felt like being jostled from the inside, a sense more intruding than any noise. Tom jerked to lie on his back, his breath quickening. The feeling disappeared, but he could almost hear the pumping in the shifty silence of the room, could feel it work in time with his breathing. His breaths came out as wheezes quicker and quicker until the pumping in his chest became the only real, tangible thing in the room.
Tom knew enough by then to understand that he needed the pumping, that it was important, necessary even. Still, he couldn’t help but think the beat was such a faint, seemingly unimportant motion. It felt as feeble as an ant, so minuscule and weak. So valuable and yet so easily stopped.
He stared into the darkness above him, rubbing his sweaty palms against the rough fabric of his grayish blanket. Not much could be seen outside of the faint lines of the cracked ceiling. Alone and yet surrounded, the boy breathed and breathed for what could've been minutes or hours.
That night, Tom had several revelations. The first was that his heart was a fragile thing, one wrong move would make it falter. The second was that the pumping would not go on forever. There would come a day when the Ba-bum, once a rhythm, would become a cadence. His final revelation was that day could be tomorrow.
Tom shivered and pulled the covers up to his chin, damp skin and all. Sleep taunted that night like an insect that he was never quite able to catch.