14. Sophia
SOPHIA
T he days in hospital are long, mind-numbing, and monotonous.
If it wasn’t for the visits from my parents and Rocco, I think she’d have gone mad with boredom.
Rocco hasn’t yet pushed me for a full explanation of why I hadn’t told him the truth about how sick I am.
I’m sure my parents filled him in on the details, but he deserves to hear it from me, too.
After losing his dad only the week before, he doesn’t need this kind of stress put upon his shoulders.
I’m feeling much stronger now. I’ve had two more dialysis sessions and been on antibiotics for the pneumonia.
Hopefully, I’ll be discharged from the hospital soon and things can get back to normal.
I’m nervous about how things will change with Rocco now.
He’s still visiting me, but maybe that’s just because he doesn’t want to let me down while I’m still in hospital.
He’s had a glimpse of what life will be like with me, and I won’t have blame him in the slightest if he wants to run for the hills.
When he comes in to see me this evening, after he finishes work, I’m feeling strong enough to sit up in bed.
“Hey,” he says as he approaches, giving me that lop-sided smile I love. “You’re looking better.”
I nod. “Yeah, I’m feeling better, too.”
“That’s great.”
He sits on the edge of my bed and leans in to plant a kiss on my forehead. I give him a smile, but my stomach churns, knowing the time has come for us to have the conversation.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the dialysis and how bad things were.”
He gives me a tight smile. “I wish you had. You’ve got no reason not to trust me, Sophia.”
“I know. I was just enjoying us being together again. I didn’t want to spoil things.”
He scoots closer and takes hold of both of my hands. “Hey, you’re not spoiling anything. I’m here for you. I want to know everything.”
I arch my eyebrows. “Everything?”
He nods. “Absolutely.”
“Well, I have bilateral renal dysplasia.” I sigh.
“It should have been picked up during my mother’s pregnancy with me, but it wasn’t.
It was only when the cysts on one of the kidneys were getting worse that we even knew there was anything wrong.
One of the kidneys was better than the other, but then I got an infection in the bad one so I had an operation to remove it.
The one remaining kidney started to go downhill, and I was getting cysts, just the same as with the first one.
I kept getting infections, but I battled through.
Then, a few months ago, my one remaining, crappy kidney failed, so now I have to have dialysis three times a week, which does the job my kidneys should have done.
I’m on the waiting list for a transplant, but I’m not expecting anything. ”
“How long can you be on dialysis for?” He holds my hand, his expression pinched with concern.
“Oh, years.” I sigh. “Lucky me, huh? Because I’m young, they say I can live another twenty years spending three days a week for all those years hooked up to a machine.”
I’m complaining, but the dialysis has quite literally been a life-saver for me.
If I hadn’t started dialysis, I would have died.
It’s as simple as that. Though I haven’t wanted to think about the possibility of spending the rest of my life on dialysis, I’m surprised at how positive I’ve ended up feeling.
Almost right away, I started to feel better.
My energy levels were back, the swelling in my limbs had gone down, and the frustrating itching went away.
I felt as though I’ve been given a new lease of life.
But sometimes it’s hard when I’m with people at the dialysis centre who’ve been on dialysis for years, whose fistulas are swollen and scarred and ugly, and they just look like they’ve given up.
It’s easy for me to be positive only a few months down the line, but will I still feel this way in a few years?
Or ten years? Or twenty? It’s impossible for me to say.
“Until a donor comes along,” he adds, and I can see he’s trying to be encouraging, but I’ve lived with this all of my adult life, and it’s hard to stay positive sometimes.
“Yeah, until a donor comes along.”
“And how long is that likely to take?”
I shrug. “Can be up to three years, possibly longer. The good thing is that because I’m young, I’m higher on the list. The people who make the decisions figure I’ll get more years out of a donor kidney than someone who was say, in their sixties.
But it’s still a strange thought, knowing that if it does happen, it’s because someone else has died.
I’ll have a piece of another person inside me, and that’s a weird thing to get my head around, too. ”
I feel guilty about the death of a stranger that hasn’t even happened yet.
His voice softens. “I wish you’d told me, all those years ago, when you moved away. I can’t believe you’ve been going through this on your own all this time.”
I give him a wan smile. “You were a seventeen-year-old boy with your whole life ahead of you. You were always so talented and carefree, even with your dad trying to drag you down. I didn’t want to be the one to tie you down and give you more to worry about.
And how was it going to work anyway? I was stuck in hospital hundreds of miles away. ”
“I’d have come up and visited.”
“And what would have been the point in that?”
“To show you I loved you. To show you how much I cared.”
“I didn’t want you to see me like that. I was swollen up like a balloon. I was embarrassed.”
“I wouldn’t have cared. I loved you , Sophia, not the size of your limbs.”
I reach out and place my hand on his cheek, the scrape of his beard against my palm prickly. “I know, and that’s why I couldn’t tell you. I knew you’d give up everything, and I didn’t want you to do that.”
“I’d have given up everything in my life if you’d been in it. Everything I ever enjoyed or gave a shit about, and I’d still have been happier knowing I had you.” He covers my hand with his, pressing my fingers closer. “You broke my heart when you didn’t contact me.”
“I’m sorry, but you got over it.”
He lifts his gaze to mine, fixes me in his dark stare. “Did I?”
My breath catches in my chest, and my eyes mist with tears. What is he trying to say? That he still loves me?
He moves in closer still, his grasp tightening around my fingers.
“Sophia, nothing’s changed for me. I still feel the same way about you as I did when I was seventeen.
I’m crazily in love with you, even with all this going on—perhaps even more so because of it.
I know we haven’t been reunited for long, but that doesn’t mean anything.
I’ve known you my whole life, and I want you to be in my life for however many years I have left. ”
Tears fill my eyes, and I shake my head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes, I do. I’ve never meant anything more. I love you, Sophia Alexander. Maybe I haven’t done this the best way, and I haven’t got you a big ring or booked a fancy place to do this in, but I want you to be my wife.”
My mouth drops open. I hadn’t been expecting that.
“Wife? You mean get married?”
He offers me a shy smile. “That’s kind of how it works.”
“But it’s not fair on you,” I say. “You can’t want to marry me when the chances are I won’t be able to give you all the things a wife should be able to give her husband. I’m going to have to come into the hospital three times a week for the rest of my life.”
“Not if you find a donor,” he interrupts.
“The chances of that are low, Rocco. And even if one does happen to come along, it might not take. Donor kidneys fail all the time. And it’s not just about the hospital trips.
There’s only a very small chance of me ever getting pregnant, and even if I did, it would be extremely high-risk, and the chances are that the pregnancy will end in miscarriage.
If you want a family in the future, you need to find someone else, because I won’t be the one who can give that to you. ”
Tears stream down my face now, and he pulls me in and kisses the salt from my cheeks. “Hey, I want to marry you , not some imaginary future baby.”
“You feel that way now, but in a few years things might be different.”
He shakes his head. “No, they won’t. I’ve loved you my whole life, and nothing is going to change that. And I don’t care what sacrifices I have to make in order to be with you. I’ll give up everything, because nothing else matters unless I’m with you.”
I choke back a sob and grip on tightly to his shoulders, holding him as hard as I can, never wanting to let go. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve him coming back into my life again, but now he’s here, I can’t imagine trying to live without him. Even the thought terrifies me.
“I’m just scared that you’ll say all this now, but a few years down the line, when I’ve come to depend on you, you’ll realise it’s too much, and you’ll be gone.”
“I’ve got no reason to lie to you, Sophia. You’ve given me an out, if I wanted to take it, and I’m telling you I don’t.” He cups my face in both his hands so he can look into my eyes. “My whole world is you, and that isn’t going to change. I swear my life on it.”