GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: BROTHER

He was seventeen when the call came.

They said it was a miracle—finally a matching donor, with a perfect heart. My parents cried tears of joy. I just stared at the carpet. I didn’t know what to feel. My big brother Danny had been sick for most of my life. Dilated cardiomyopathy, they called it. His heart was too weak, too big and just not good at being a heart. For years, I watched him fade—pale, tired, sometimes blue-lipped and wheezing after walking upstairs. But then came the transplant and then came the change.