Taylor Halversen

The Preservers

She remembered when she could still feel a heartbeat pulsing through her body. It used to be the first sensation she felt before opening her eyes. She would lie there, half-awake, as the morning light streamed through her apartment window and onto her eyelids. She remembered feeling it throbbing in her fingertips as she rolled over, releasing her pinned arm after a long night of cuddle-sleeping with Max. In her mind, she romanticized that the pulse had felt comforting and natural, though in reality she had never thought about it before it was gone; it ran, unobserved, through each moment of her life. Keeping time. Keeping her alive.