For Fox Sake

Chapter 12

Jake

“Hey, Donuts. What are you doing?”

I jump at the unexpected voice behind me and spin around.

My heart, already frantically pounding as I attempt to inconspicuously break into Elaine’s office while she’s at lunch, triples in speed.

“Sorry.” Bernie scrunches her nose at me. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine.”

She glances at Elaine’s door, then down at my hand on the knob, brows rising in question. “Are you busy?”

“I just needed to grab an HR form. What’s up?”

Bernie reminds me of my sisters. She’s an amalgam Taylor’s sassiness and Mindy’s ball-busting and Finley’s kindness. We hit it off right away, though not in the same way I hit it off with Ryan... My life might be less complicated right now if I were more attracted to Bernie, instead of the woman I’ve come across the country to investigate and lie to.

“You’re taking Ryan out tonight?” she asks.

My mind takes a second to catch up to the question. “Yeah. Why?”

She puts one hand on her hip. “Is this like, a date?”

If Ryan hasn’t told her, I’m not going to be the one to do so. “Why are you asking?”

Her brows lift and then she straightens, stretching her five-foot-nothing height as tall as it will go. “Ryan has been my best friend since before puberty. If you string her along or hurt her, I know twenty-five ways to kill a man and I have a four-body trunk.”

I frown. “Do you need a four-body trunk to murder just little ol’ me?”

She shoves me in the shoulder. “I mean it, Donuts.”

I lift my hands. “Listen, Bernie. I like Ryan. And Ari. I would never do anything to hurt either of them.”

Guilt pushes at me. Am I already hurting them? Or about to, once I come clean?

I’ve had dinner with her and Ari every night since the sink incident earlier this week.

Last night, I treated them both to pizza after running into them here at the hospital when they came to visit Ryan’s mom. We ate, played games, and watched more of The 10th Kingdom. We’re only a couple episodes in, and Ari is as obsessed as my sisters and I were when we were kids.

Every night, I fully intend to come clean about the real reason I’m here in Dull. Lay everything all out there. But every night I can’t. The words stick in the back of my throat. So, it’s still there, sitting between us like a giant immovable rock, growing in size, and I am the only one aware of it.

I haven’t been staying to hang out with Ryan after Ari goes to bed. It’s not just because of my avoidance to telling the truth. Ryan is clearly exhausted from running herself ragged day in and day out. It would be cruel to impose myself on the only time she has to herself to relax. I can’t kiss her again without telling her everything. And I can’t be alone around her without wanting to kiss her.

The need is a drumbeat in my veins.

I’m making excuses to avoid dealing with consequences.

Because consequences suck. But I can’t keep it a secret much longer. There will be no perfect time. Logically, I know all this, and yet when I’m hanging out with my girls it’s... that’s just it. They feel like “my girls” and I have no right to it. And as soon as I tell her the truth, it will be over.

“I’m glad you’re taking her out. She deserves a nice dinner.” Bernie’s voice snaps me back to the conversation. “It’s been a rough week. You know her mom is deteriorating pretty quickly.”

“I know.”

A nurse calls her name down the hall, and she has to run to check on a computer issue, waving at me over her shoulder as she strides away.

I blow out a breath and then open Elaine’s door.

I grab an HR form from the wall randomly, just in case someone walks in and asks questions, then I carefully open the drawer and grab the keyring.

Elaine only goes out for lunch once a week. The last time I attempted to get into the locked scanning room with all the files, I ran into Ryan. This time, I have to get it done. I may not have another week before my family descends and forces me back home. Honestly, I’m surprised someone hasn’t shown up on my doorstep already. I slip the keys in my pocket and then check my watch. I have about twenty minutes until Elaine gets back.

My hands are shaking. I barely register the ding of the elevator when I reach the bottom floor.

Glancing around, I move as fast as my shaking hands allow, sticking in one key after another until finally I reach one that works.

Eureka!

Elation bursts through me but there’s no time to celebrate.

I shut and lock the door behind me, then flick on the lights. On the table at the back of the room sit two dark computer monitors with a scanner in between them. Lining the walls to the left are beige file cabinets, each about five feet tall. I stride over, singing the alphabet song in my head as I scan the labels. There. GRE-GRO.

Sliding it open, I flip through the files until I find it.

Green, Mia

My stomach flips, heart accelerating.

Guilt whispers through my gut. I shouldn’t be doing this. But I have to do this. I might not even find anything useful, but I have to check for... something that connects Mia to Dad. Anything.

I open the file, skimming through the details, flipping through the pages. Basic biographical information. A record of the congenital heart defect, tricuspid atresia. Fontan procedure given at six to divert the flow of blood around the right ventricle. More follow-ups and hospital visits, and records transferred from Ithaca...

I glance at my watch. Ten minutes. I need more time.

The connection has to be in New York. I flip to the Ithaca medical reports, and then my eyes snag on the date of a major surgery—a familiar date, over twelve years ago.

The day Aria died.

I reexamine the details, and then realization flows through me, letters and numbers blurring on the page.

Mia had a heart transplant.

I didn’t know. No one mentioned a transplant, only her heart condition.

The same day Aria died, Mia had a heart transplant.

We were close in age. Aria and I are only a year older than Mia. Aria was fifteen, Mia was fourteen.

Rushing white noise fills my ears.

Ryan wrote letters to my dad about Mia. Did Dad—did he? Was Aria’s heart donated? To Mia? He never said anything. Why didn’t he say anything? Why wouldn’t he tell me?

It’s my fault. We never talked about Aria. Every time he tried to bring her up, I changed the subject.

Why didn’t he tell Finley? Why didn’t he tell anyone? Wait. Maybe he did tell someone. Why wouldn’t they tell me?

My mind is tripping down rabbit holes, creating questions I cannot answer.

It’s too much to take in. I can’t think straight. I close the file and slip it back into the cabinet, my fingers shaking.

Breathe.

I suck down a few long deep breaths, taking time I don’t have to calm my body before I exit the room.

The walk back to Elaine’s office is a blur. Somehow, I get the keys back into her desk without being stopped or questioned along the way. Then I slip into a stall in the nearest men’s room and attempt to pull the pieces together.

What the hell do I do now?

I stare at the back of the stall door. Minutes pass. I keep breathing until my body settles and my mind clears enough to think somewhat straight.

Sliding my phone from my pocket, I pull up Dwayne’s number and shoot him a text, letting him know what I found out. Mia had a heart transplant the day Aria died. Maybe he can find more out for me, now that we have this little tidbit.

This is definitely the reason Dad was exchanging letters with the family and explains why Ryan always told stories about Mia in her correspondence, but I only had the one side of the story—I never had letters from Dad to Ryan.

Does she still have the letters?

I need to tell her everything.

She’s going to hate me.

Maybe I’ll pull her aside before dinner. During dinner? With her mouth full so she can’t yell. No, after dinner.

I can’t think straight.

I still have to get through the rest of this workday.

Eventually, I leave the bathroom and put one foot in front of the other and make it back to the break room to clock in when my lunch period ends. Then I go through the motions of the day, doing my best to pretend like my whole world hasn’t been rocked on its foundation.

Bits and pieces of Mia’s medical file float through my consciousness. She was at the top of the transplant list because she was going to die.

If Aria hadn’t died, Mia might have. If Mia had died, then little Ari wouldn’t be here.

That’s why they named her Aria. Mia knew the name of the teenage girl whose death saved her life.

Ari. Aria. Shit. If Aria hadn’t been in the accident... fuck.

* * *

“The address labels were printed, and there was no return address because the transplant center would ship the letters back and forth between them.”

I pace back and forth in the front room of the rental, my phone pressed to my ear. Dwayne texted me back a couple hours ago, letting me know he had more info and I’ve been crawling out of my skin to get off work and get home to have this exact conversation.

“Why didn’t they exchange the letters directly?”

“Because Ryan was a minor at the time. With adults, they will allow direct communication after going through a consent process. Donor recipients send thank-you notes all the time, but because Ryan was under eighteen and it was ongoing, they needed a go-between to ensure privacy and that’s why they used first names only and didn’t disclose addresses on either side.”

I rub my jawline, exhausted from... everything. I stop pacing and look out the front window.

Ryan’s little Honda isn’t there. She must be taking Ari to her friend’s house for the sleepover. She only lives a few blocks away. She should be back soon for our date.

“Thank you. For everything.”

“If you think of any other questions I can answer, you know how to reach me.”

We hang up right as Ryan pulls in front of her house.

I glance at the clock. I have about an hour to get ready.

Guilt hammers me from all sides.

For lying to Ryan. For all the times I wished Aria were still here. Because if Aria were still here, Ari might not be. Life is so bizarre. So many choices piling together, leading to inevitable outcomes. Like the butterfly effect.

What-if scenarios crowd my brain. What if Aria hadn’t died? Would Ari still exist? Would I be here now? Would I have met Ryan at all? Not likely. These thoughts are pointless. I am here now.

After Aria died, the scant minutes here and there when I wasn’t numb with shock, my thoughts constantly hummed around what I could have done differently. If only I had convinced Aria to not go to the party. If only we had waited for Taylor to drive us home. If only, if only, if only. But I can’t go back and change anything. Maybe it’s true, if I had done something differently that night, the outcome would have been different. But I didn’t. And it wasn’t. And here we are.

Grief is love with nowhere to go... but now it has somewhere to go. Maybe. Do I deserve it?

Fifty minutes later, I’m crossing the street, mind racing. This is it. This is an opportunity to tell her the truth. And... completely ruin her evening.

But it needs to be done. There will be no good time to do this. I have to tell her tonight. Ari won’t be there, and we’ll be alone so she can yell and scream or kick my ass if she wants to.

I knock on the door and check for the eleventh time that I’ve buttoned my shirt up correctly.

The door swings open.

My mouth goes dry.

I’ve seen Ryan dressed casually, jeans and T-shirt, in her work clothes, stuff that can get dirty, and relaxing clothes like sweats and leggings.

My eyes dip down and back up. She’s wearing dark jeans, a silky black top that slips off one shoulder. Her hair is down and slightly curled, her lips are shiny, and she’s in heels.

Fuck.

She’s a stunner when we’re sitting on the couch with Ari and she’s fresh-faced with her hair pulled back and a tomato sauce stain on her shirt. But this...

“You’re fucking gorgeous.”

Her smile lights up the whole night. It reaches into my chest and grabs my heart and squeezes.

And by the end of the night, she’s going to hate me.