Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Antonia
I regret there wasn’t enough for both.
That’s the cold, hard truth of what I do. Stocks are limited. Criteria needs met. But sometimes, even when it all looks hopeful, life pivots, and someone needs to lose out. In our world, that can mean life, death, or a clock running out sooner than needed.
My destroyed wellies sit at the door where I kicked them off when I got home. A trail of wet, muddy sock prints lead up my hallway. My toes haven’t thawed yet, still frozen after being wet all day.
But my lipstick is still intact. Hastily applied when I realized I’d been set up. When I was asked to defend myself in front of media coyotes with no warning.
We do the best we can. That’s what I said. It’s not clear-cut.
It’s triage.
Our decisions are made on the evidence at hand and the possibilities of a positive outcome.
Sickness doesn’t follow a script. No medicine triggers the same symptoms in every victim.
And not every patient gets the results we hope for.
All we can do as professionals is stack the odds in their favor.
Give the people with the best chance their yearned-for wonder drug. Then pray it works.
I believe in allocation.
In viability.
In leaning into probability.
Those beliefs are how I survived Mikey’s lack of treatment. Once I understood the process. The blood markers. The scan results. I understood why our answer was no.
Maybe that’s why saying no comes easier to me than most. Or maybe I’ve trained myself not to feel the weight of it. Why I said no to Daniel Longdown. How can I go home and eat dinner after telling a patient that their final chance is gone?
I’m not sure that always makes me right.
I can justify every decision to myself. But justification isn’t the same as peace.
They say that’s all you need to be able to do. Unless someone questions you, and the relevant authorities get involved.
I have built a life on being right. By knowing the criteria. Scouring the conditions. And matching a candidate to a program.
But being right doesn’t stop people from hating you. Sometimes emotion doesn’t need data to win. It just does.
My phone pings in my pocket.
I fish it out. An email. Spam, no doubt.
I ignore it.
It pings again. This time it’s Ben.
Subject: Next Steps
Are you alright?
Today was tough. You were inspiring.
Send me the finalized funding gap details.
I’ll make calls
Ben
My thumb hovers over reply. He’s offering to take the heat on this. To try to rectify the shortfall I ultimately created. My appreciation knots with irritation. I don’t need rescuing. But I am tired.
I don’t know whether to be grateful or offended. Fixing this isn’t beyond my capabilities. I have contacts.
I read it again.
Part of me wants to tell him not to worry about it. The other is relieved that someone else is willing to take some strain.
Ben
I’m fine.
Survived worse.
The gap is ￡756,098.
Antonia.
I delete it. Retype it, then save to my drafts. I’ll send it. But I’ll do it later, not now, not immediately. People I work with answer my questions in my time, so I’ll answer his when I’m ready.
If he wants to fix it. He can try.
If it fails, I’ll clean it up. I always do.
***
Later, the television moves onto a drama series about love and loss. It’s too real. I switch it off, not needing any more drama, fictional or otherwise. I open my laptop instead, rationalizing that work should be the safer option.
My browser is already open.
The search bar encourages me to hit enter on a web address I haven’t looked at for a few weeks. One that the last time I graced, I sent a friend request I probably shouldn’t have.
Ben had accepted within minutes.
He’s never mentioned it, but he gave me access to part of his life I probably shouldn’t have. A place beyond the professional boundaries I hide behind.
My own social account is old. I never use it.
The day I created it, I posted my headshot, added a few people I knew, and never went back. Scrolling endlessly over funny memes and pointless stories made little sense.
His timeline is full in comparison. When it opens, there are dozens of new photos to see. Christmas Day, it looks like, surrounded by his kids. Every single one of them smiling, wearing a tacky knitted jumper with fairy lights sewn on.
I zoom in on his face. A man I’ve only known in the workplace. A man who’s always been professional, apart from when our lips brushed.
He looks settled. Not haunted. Not filtered. Just him with his kids. Living in the present.
I haven’t been present in years. Only preserved.
There are lines at the corners of his eyes I don’t remember. Graying at his temples. He looks older than the man I know. But somehow lighter. Happy. Content.
His children lean into him. It’s natural. There’s no staging.
His world has been built beyond the loss. A new now.
My gaze scans my apartment, then my own blank profile.
I live in a museum.
There is nothing in my life that is not tied to loss or work. My name only exists beside the word CEO.
If I stopped working tomorrow, what would I have? If Opengate didn’t exist, what would remain? A name on an apartment buzzer. A memory box. A grave with fairy lights at Christmas.
I’ve spent years surviving grief by swimming in it. He survived it by building again.
As I was creating a shrine, he was moving forward.
When did survival become enough?
I don’t remember when I stopped wanting more.
It’s only since meeting him. Since Ben showed me it’s possible to breathe while drowning in sorrow, I’ve considered more than Opengate and memories are possible. And that, in all honesty, I want to feel more than a keyboard beneath my fingertips again.
But I’m not sure I’m ready.