Runaway - Chapter 8
Saturday
This morning the nurse told me that it was Saturday.
I’d been here for over a week. My dad had left me here alone to…
what? Give me a chance to get over the fact that he was a kidney thief?
Spoiler alert…it wasn’t working. If anything, that just pissed me off even more.
I was never going to get over this. He’d pretended to care about me for months just so he could get an organ.
He could not speak to me for the rest of my life and it wouldn’t be long enough.
Honestly, I was hoping that was his plan.
He’d gotten what he needed from me. So now he could just let me go.
He would come today and say goodbye. Cast me away for good. Unless he needed another organ.
I couldn’t wait to get out of here. Today he’d come and I’d tell him I was fine. That we were all good. No hard feelings. But it was time to part ways. I’d be professional and composed about it. I just wanted to put this all behind me.
The door opened. I sat up in bed to greet my dad but…it was just the nurse again.
She looked at my untouched food and sighed. “I’m going to have to suggest to your father that we send you to a rehab facility next.”
“What? Why?” I didn’t want to go from one prison to the next.
“You have anorexic tendencies.”
Anorexic tendencies? That was a weird way to put the fact that I was too thoroughly depressed to find food appetizing. “I’m just depressed that my dad stole my kidney.”
“Well, we can get a psychologist to come in and speak with you then. There’s pills for such things.”
The last thing I wanted was to take prescription pills I didn’t need. I wouldn’t put it past my father to meddle with them and try to kill me or something. “I’m fine.”
“Then eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Well, then I have no choice but to put your IV back in. You’re going to starve to death at this rate.”
I grabbed my wrist. It hurt from the two times I’d ripped the IV out. And I freaking hated being attached to an IV. It made me feel like I was on a leash. I picked up the spoon and ate a few bites of applesauce to appease her.
“Good girl.”
Bite me. “When is my dad getting here?”
She stared at me. “Who told you that your father was coming here?”
Crap. I wasn’t trying to get Miller in trouble. “I just figured if he refused to take my calls it was because he wanted to plead his case for harvesting organs in person.”
She glared at me. “Your father is paying an arm and a leg for you to be here. You should at least be grateful for his generosity.”
Excuse me? She couldn’t be serious. There was something wrong with this lady’s head.
“I wouldn’t need him to be paying for any of this if he hadn’t stolen my kidney.
If anyone is generous it’s me.” And honestly I was a little concerned about my missing kidney.
If my dad had kidney issues, it might be hereditary or something.
I might need an extra kidney a few years down the road and I wouldn’t freaking have an extra one now. Asshole.
She just shook her head.
“So when is he coming?”
“He’s a very busy man.” She lifted up my untouched tray from breakfast. “Now finish eating your lunch.”
Did that mean he wasn’t coming at all? What the hell? But before I could ask, she hurried out of the room. I was starting to hate that woman more than I hated my father. And that was really saying something.
I stared at the ceiling and tried to practice what I’d say to my father if he did end up coming today.
Or if I ever saw him again. I needed to remember to stay calm and composed even though I could feel rage pulsing through my veins.
It was easy to stay calm though. Because my anger eventually boiled over to sadness. An endless loop of anger and despair.
It was Saturday. Which meant my fight with Matt happened nine days ago.
Nine. And as far as I could tell, he’d just let me go.
I rolled over and stared at the blank wall.
I willed myself to not look at my left hand, where my engagement ring once sat.
Because every time I looked at it, I started to cry.
The last voicemail I’d left Matt had been horrible.
I’d called him a hypocrite. I’d said awful things.
And I played those hateful words on repeat as I lay here in this hospital bed.
I missed him. Desperately. And each day that passed made it seem like he didn’t miss me at all.
How could I be reduced to so little in his mind when he was still my everything?
I quickly wiped away the tears on my cheeks.
Maybe I did need to talk to a therapist. These mood swings made me feel like I was insane.
It reminded me of when I went to the nurse at Empire High and she suggested I go see the school counselor.
My uncle had just died and I was struggling.
Honestly, I was still struggling. Some days it felt hard to breathe.
It was like every time I thought my life was going to be okay again…
something terrible happened. Something awful and irreversible.
And I was so tired of waking up all alone in my misery.
There was a knock on the door.
I quickly sat up. It was definitely too early for dinner. Which meant…
“Princess,” my dad said. He was in one of his normal suits, and if it wasn’t for the cane he was leaning on…
there would be no way to know he’d just had surgery.
He looked healthy and the smile on his face made it appear that he was happy too.
Great. He was the exact opposite of me. And just like that… I got angry again.
“Please don’t call me that,” I said. “That’s your nickname for Isabella. And I’m not Isabella.”
His smile faltered. “Of course you’re not. You’re my angel.” He sat down on the edge of my bed.
“An angel would have willingly given you a kidney. You had to steal mine.”
His smile disappeared completely. “Brooklyn, you have to understand…I thought you knew. I never would have…”
“Bullshit.”
“Language,” he warned.
He wasn’t allowed to be a kidney thief one minute and a good parent the next. “Fuck you!” Wow, this conversation was not going at all how I’d planned.
For just a second he looked ghostly pale. But he quickly recovered. “We’ve already been over this. You signed the contract and…”
“Dad! How can you not see my side on this? You gave me the world’s longest contract to sign. I couldn’t possibly have read all the fine print. And we never talked about it.”
“We did discuss it. I tried to talk to you about it at the diner that day I picked you up during lunch. Remember?”
What? I shook my head. “We were talking about me getting on birth control. Which was super awkward and I wish you’d stop…
” Oh. Wait. I tried to remember the conversation.
It had been super weird. And it had ended with him talking about staying in front of the issue.
About getting it over with as soon as possible.
Had he switched the conversation halfway through to talking about the weird kidney thing without me realizing it?
“Wait…were you worried I would get pregnant and wouldn’t be able to do the surgery? Is that why you kept talking about it?”
“Yes, I told you that.”
“You didn’t tell me that! I had no idea what you were talking about!”
“Brooklyn, I even gave you an out. I told you if you weren’t comfortable talking about it with me, then maybe you weren’t ready to do the transplant.”
“I thought you were talking about birth control and sex the entire time!”
“Oh. What a misunderstanding.” He patted my shin.
“You even said I could see Dr. Wilson about getting on birth control. I know you did. I…”
“Good heavens no. Dr. Wilson is a specialist dealing with my kidney problems. He’s not an OBGYN.”
How could I have misunderstood everything so horribly?
“But I do appreciate you going through with it.”
“I was forced into it. It doesn’t matter that our discussion was a misunderstanding. You still tricked me. You sought me out after 16 years of ignoring my existence. All because you needed a kidney!” I slid away from him on the bed so he couldn’t touch me. “You made me believe that you loved me!”
“I do love you.”
“What’s the point of lying now? Do you need my liver too?”
“Brooklyn. I love you so much. And I hate to admit it, but I never sought you out. I never even knew you existed. Your uncle’s lawyer came to me. Because I’m your legal guardian. Do you really think I wouldn’t have found you sooner if I’d known you were out there?”
“Yeah, which goes back to the whole thing with how you wanted my mom to abort me. Don’t sit there and pretend you give a shit about me, Dad.” I put a scathing emphasis on his name.
He pulled his eyebrows together. “I loved your mother. I still love your mother even though she’s gone.
I made some terrible mistakes when I was younger.
Trust me, I don’t need you to remind me.
But I never sought you out because I needed a kidney transplant.
It was a happy coincidence that you fell into my lap.
And yes, of course I thought about it when I found out you were alive… ”
“Which is why you were so overly protective of me. And concerned about my health. And why you wouldn’t let me live in a bad part of town with Kennedy and her mom.”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t why I brought you into my home. It had nothing to do with that. I love you because you’re a piece of me and I will do anything in my power to keep you safe.”
“By cutting me open?”
“I thought you were giving me your kidney willingly. Because I’m your father. Because we were a match. Because you’re wonderful.”
I shook my head. “I’m not an idiot. All those tests you ran on me that first day when you locked me in that apartment? You were testing me to see if I was a match right away. Don’t sit there and lie and pretend that wasn’t the first thing running through your head.”
“No.” He stood up. “You know what the first thing I thought when I found out about you? I was ecstatic. I’ve regretted leaving your mother every single day since she left New York.”
I couldn’t even look at him. He was lying. He was a dirty fucking liar.
“And when I met you? All I could think about was how much you looked like your mother. And it was hard to look at you.”
I remembered being shoved in the back of his car. He’d acted distant and aloof. Had he really been struggling to look at me?
“And I knew that as soon as I brought you into my home that my life as I knew it would be over. The life I’d chosen over a life with your mom. And I did it anyway. Because I love you.”
I just stared at him. I didn’t know what to say.
“I didn’t think of the transplant at all.
My whole world was turned upside down. I called Dr. Wilson because I saw where you were living and I figured you hadn’t seen a proper doctor in years.
And yes, I wanted a paternity test. But as soon as I saw you…
I knew. I knew you were my blood. Dr. Wilson ran the extra tests without me even knowing it.
Apparently he assumed the worst of me too.
” He stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked completely distraught.
But I couldn’t tell if it was all an act or if he was being sincere. I wanted to believe him. Because he was standing there telling me he loved me. And I didn’t have anyone left in my life that loved me.
“Please don’t cry, angel.”
I tried to wipe away my tears. “If you had just asked me…I would have said yes. I don’t want to lose you too.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I would have given anything to save my mom.
My heart was so broken when she died. I’d remembered thinking that if my heart was going to break anyway…
that I wished I had given it to her to save her.
I never thought I could keep going. But here I was.
My heart was still beating. Still broken, but still beating.
I wished my mom was here right now. She was so good at reading people.
She’d know if my dad was telling the truth.
I stared at his face. She’d loved him once. She trusted him once.
But so had I. He’d betrayed her trust and now he’d betrayed mine. I looked down at my lap. The last words I’d said to Matt were hateful. I’d pushed him away. I couldn’t afford to push my dad away too. I wiped away the rest of my tears and stared at him. “Are you feeling better?”
He smiled. “A million times better, thanks to you. I feel like a new man.” He took a deep breath. “But we need to talk about you and the fact that you haven’t been eating.”
That nurse was such a traitor. I’d eaten some applesauce!
“I was upset. With you. Why would you just leave me here without any connection to you or the outside world for over a week? I’ve been going crazy.
And have you seen my ring? Did Dr. Wilson take it off before the surgery?
” That was what I’d been hoping. That Matt didn’t come take it back while I was unconscious.
That it was just missing. A missing ring was better than one that had been taken back.
“About that. We have something we need to discuss.”
I pressed my lips together. “Did Matt…did he…” my voice trailed off. “Did he break up with me?”
My dad reached out and grabbed my hand. “It’s over, yes.”
What? “But…I need to talk to him. Can I borrow your cell phone? If I could just explain…”
“It’s going to be a little hard to explain. Actually, it’s going to be impossible. Matthew thinks you’re dead.”