CHAPTER 27
HOLLY
Finally, on Saturday, I get a text from Ben.
Ben: Dialysis today 2 p.m.?
I guess his phone isn’t broken. The message leaves much to be desired, but I’m not about to be petty because I’m annoyed with him.
Holly: I’ll be there.
Hopefully, when I show up, he’ll have an explanation for why he ignored my messages for two days.
An hour and two bus rides later, I’m back in front of his parents’ house. I wonder if, one day, I’ll ever be comfortable enough to just walk in without ringing the bell. The idea makes me smile, and I’m still wearing the expression when Ben answers the door.
It falls away immediately when I take a good look at him. He’s pale with dark circles under his eyes, and his lips are chapped and drawn tight. Without thinking about it, my hand immediately presses against his forehead. I expected to find him feverish, but his skin isn’t more than pleasantly warm.
“You look sick, Ben. Are you okay?”
Instead of answering, he removes my hand and uses his grip to pull me forward. I let him, pressing up against his chest. Ben runs his fingers up my neck before cupping the back of my head. He angles me how he wants and then slowly kisses me.
All the while, the front door hangs wide, letting in cold air. While I enjoy his affectionate greeting, the impracticality of leaving a door open in the beginning of winter has me stepping away, so I can shut it.
When I turn back to Ben, he still seems off, but before I can ask him what’s wrong again, he laces his fingers with mine and tugs me farther into the house. Instead of heading to the stairs, we move toward the kitchen.
It being the weekend, I’m not surprised to see Mrs. and Mr. Gerhard. This is their house after all. Ben’s dad is leaning back against the counter, arms crossed, legs crossed, eyes on his shoes. Mrs. Gerhard is standing at the kitchen island, hands spread wide on the granite counter, watching me without blinking. Their agitation is clear.
“Hello.” My greeting works its way through air so thick with tension that I’m surprised it even reaches them.
Mrs. Gerhard gives me a tight smile. She moves to pull out one of the tall chairs tucked under the island. “Hello, Holly. Please take a seat. We were hoping to speak with you for a moment.”
This whole setup screams at me to cautiously back away and then sprint for the exit. Whatever this conversation is, I doubt I’ll like it. When I glance up at Ben, I’m shocked to find him glaring at his mother.
What’s going on?
Fighting my urge to flee, I take the offered chair. My body angles to face Ben’s mom, but he swivels the seat so that I can only see him. In fact, he moves to stand between my knees, taking up my entire field of vision.
“I need to tell you something. I don’t think you’ve heard yet. My parents asked to be here.”
There’s a pain in my stomach. A small, sharp pinch. Like a warning.
I nod for him to continue.
“We got a call from Fred this morning. He hasn’t been feeling well for over a week. He was worried he might have the flu and that it would push back the exchange, so he went in for another checkup.”
Two sharp pinches.
“He doesn’t have the flu. He has Lyme disease. Got it from a tick bite while out hiking. There’s antibiotics to treat it, but …”
Three pinches. Four. Five. Six. More. More. More.
“Fred won’t be able to donate to Marcus.”
The pain grows until I have to wrap my arms around my torso to keep it from splitting me open.
“Marcus won’t be getting a kidney.” It’s not a question, just a statement to make sure my brain registers the horror I’m living in.
Still, Ben answers, “No.” His hands cup my cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
My mouth won’t work, but even if it did, I don’t have any words. Right now, there’s just a solid wall of pain pressing on my chest.
I shut my eyes. Shut out the world. The cruel world that keeps giving me hope and taking it away.
A phrase does climb over the wall to plaster itself across my eyelids, pulsing and beating like a drum.
Not again. Not again. Not again.
But the words are useless. I could beg on my knees, but this would still be happening. Again.
“Holly. Please.”
A voice pulls my eyes open, and I find Ben watching me with concern. But he wasn’t the one who spoke. I look to Mrs. Gerhard. She fiddles with something in her hands.
“We know how hard this must be to hear. God, do we know.” She takes a deep breath that catches like a hiccup. “But please … please don’t take away Ben’s chance. You care about him, don’t you?”
“Mom!” Ben’s voice is sharp, whipping my head back toward him. He’s glaring at his mother again, but his whole face softens as he turns back to me. “I understand, Holly. You don’t need to feel bad about backing out. I know Marcus doesn’t have many options.”
Their words reach me on a delay. I see their mouths moving, but I need a moment to comprehend. A buzzing in my brain, a demand to sink into misery, does its best to drown out their voices. It takes effort to focus, but I try.
“You can. But, Holly,” his mom is speaking again, “we can help you in other ways. We know you don’t have much money. But you don’t ever have to worry about that again.” Mr. Gerhard steps forward to wrap an arm around his wife’s shoulders, nodding as he stares at me. “Whatever you need, however much you want, we’ll give it to you. Just please, save our son.”
She slides a piece of paper across the island to me, and purely on reflex, I pick it up.
“Stop it. Both of you. This isn’t what I want. You can’t put this kind of pressure on her,” Ben growls.
Why is he so angry? Should I be angry?
Right now, I’m just lost in the hurt. My skin is flayed open, all my nerves exposed and in agony. My heart breaks for my brother. The Gerhards must hear it cracking. The pain is too powerful to be inaudible.
“We have to! I don’t ever want to get another phone call from Sammy, saying you’re in the hospital! You could’ve died!”
“That’s not the point!”
Hospital? Was Ben in the hospital?
With each beat of my fractured heart, the anguish inside me pulses. My brain wants to escape my head, growing and pushing at the confines of my skull.
I ache.
Focusing on something else might help me forget, if only for a moment. The first thing available is the paper in my hand. So, I hone in on it, studying each aspect to give my mind an escape.
The shape and layout are familiar. A small rectangle, lines filled in with written words. Some of those words look like my name. Then, there’s a long line with no handwriting. An empty space waiting to be filled in.
This is a check. A check made out to me. A blank check.
“Has anyone offered to pay you for your kidney?”
Just like that, real time slams back into place. I drop the bribe like it’s covered in anthrax, stumbling out of the chair and wiping my hands on my clothes, fearing the psychiatrist will somehow smell it on me.
“Are you insane?”
Whatever argument the three of them were in the middle of stopped the moment I moved, and both Ben and his mom flinch at my words.
Ben recovers first, reaching his hands out to me, palms up, as if I were a wild animal in need of soothing. In a way, that’s what I am. Rabid, my brain melting, wanting to attack something, anything, as I grind my teeth.
“No, Holly, no. I would never expect you to. I know you need to find Marcus a kidney. It’s okay.”
He takes a step forward, but I fling my arms out to ward him off. The fact that I crave his comfort shows how little I deserve it.
“This wasn’t supposed to be about you!” My voice reverberates around their stupidly large house. “I wanted to save Marcus!”
“I know, Holly. You still can.” Ben’s trying to reassure me with his calm voice.
But he doesn’t get it.
Before, I was confused as to whether or not I should be angry. Now, I know.
I’m enraged.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Ben’s mouth goes slack, and his parents watch me with wide eyes.
“You think I’m not going to give you my kidney? Of course I am, you fucking idiot! Of course I am! And your mother, with her stupid-ass check, is trying to ruin it all! And my—” I choke on a sob and do my best to push back the furious tears that want out. “My brother is dying. And it’s all going to shit. And you think I’d let you get sicker? When I—when I—”
No. I can’t say those words now. Not here. Not like this. Maybe not ever.
They’re the reason I can’t help Marcus.
I take another step back.
“Shh, Holly. Let’s just go upstairs. Just you and me,” he pleads with me, still holding his arms wide, tempting me to run into them.
A laugh spills out of me, high-pitched and manic. “Just you and me? So you can what? Make me feel safe? Tell me it’s all going to be okay? You gonna lie to me, Ben?”
He grimaces.
My brain is on fire.
I see the three of them standing there. Together. A family.
It’s too much.
“I have to go.”
My sneakers squeak on their beautiful hardwood floor as I sprint from the room, down the hall covered in smiling family photos, and out their charming blue front door.
“Holly! Wait!”
I run, a full-on track-star sprint. I’m the healthy one. Even if he follows, he’ll never catch me because I don’t want to be caught. I just want to escape.
Once I pass the bus stop, none of the streets look familiar, but it doesn’t matter because I just want to keep running.
And I do for some time until my lungs demand that I stop to catch my breath. But I keep moving, walking through the vapor clouds formed by my own panting breath. Now that I’m not running, a chill creeps over me, starting a persistent shivering that radiates out from the shattered organ in my chest that somehow continues to pump.
Spotting a city bus, I board it because the action is familiar, and in a way, it soothes me.
I sit in the back and curl in on myself. The pain claws under my skin, and I can’t keep it inside anymore.
So, on a public bus, surrounded by strangers, heading in an unknown direction, I do my best to sob silently into my hands.
I’m very bad at it. Probably from lack of practice.
This goes on for a decent amount of time. Like a make everyone else on the bus uncomfortable amount of time.
At one point, when we slow down for another stop, I hear someone clear their throat next to me. Glancing up, I find a middle-aged woman with a kind, pitying expression watching me. She stands next to my seat, holding on to an overhead handle in order to steady herself. Without speaking, she hands me a package of travel tissues.
Numbly, I accept them, earning myself a small smile before she gets off the bus. Using the tissues to soak up my tears, I stare out the window, doing my best to figure out where I’ve landed in the city. It takes a good five minutes, but finally, I recognize a few storefronts. We’re headed west.
I know someone in west Philly.
I have a destination now. A place to go where the pain might hurt a little less.
My hands search in my pockets, looking for my phone so that I can let him know I’m on my way. I come up with my wallet but nothing else.
I must have left it at the apartment. Not that it matters really.
Because who needs to announce themselves when they’re going home?
Twenty-four hours and still no word from Holly. Maybe most people wouldn’t think that’s a lot of time, but to me, it might as well have been a month.
Over and over in my head, I play out the scene of her yelling at my parents and me. The devastation on her face. The sound of those harsh curses she normally avoids.
Holly was in a bad place, but instead of seeking comfort in me, she ran away. Too fast for me to catch her.
Now, I can’t find her.
Well, I kind of did. When she didn’t return my calls or texts, I drove to her apartment, but there was no answer. It being Saturday, I figured she might have gone into work early. Both Ways wasn’t open yet, but when I knocked on the door, a huge guy with a thick black beard and more tattoos than even me appeared. Turned out, he was her boss, Curt, and Holly already asked for her time off. Apparently, she was worried about being exposed to so many people this close to the surgery. She didn’t want to catch a cold.
Lacking any other options, I called her brother, whose number I still had from that first meeting.
The first time I had seen Holly.
Luckily, Marcus picked up just after the second ring. Fred had already talked to him about the problem, so I knew I wasn’t going to deal with another round of being the bad-news messenger. Instead, I got straight to the real reason I’d called.
“Yeah, I just got word from my dad. She’s at his place. She doesn’t have her phone on her. I’m getting on the train to Philly now.”
There was a lot of background noise and the sound of departures being announced.
Some of the panic twisting my stomach eased. At least she wasn’t wandering around the city.
“She’s upset. Just … she was cursing.”
“She what?”
Even over the phone, I could tell I’d shocked him.
“Yeah. She yelled at us. Then, she ran away. I want to make sure she’s okay.”
Marcus didn’t answer right away, but I could still hear the sounds of the station, so I knew he was there.
“Just give her some space. I’ll talk to her. If she wants to see you, I’ll text you. But she usually needs some time to come to terms with everything when this happens.”
I was pacing around my bedroom, but those words had me tripping to a halt. “When what happens?”
His sigh pushed through my phone speaker, and the background noise faded. I assumed he’d made it onto a train at that point.
“When my transplants fall through.”
“Transplants? As in plural?”
“Yeah.”
My head started to ache, and I sat down heavy on my mattress, suddenly exhausted. “Marcus, how many times has this happened?”
The other man hesitated before responding, “This’ll be the third.”
His answer was like a punch to the gut. My doctor had warned me that lots of things could go wrong when trying to schedule a donation with a live donor, especially if it was an exchange situation. But I’d never really spent much time worrying about it.
Now, Holly’s frantic response made even more sense.
How desperate must she be feeling after having something go wrong for a third time?
I couldn’t remember what else we said other than his promise to text me about Holly. Then, I spent the rest of the night trying to wrap my mind around Marcus’s and Holly’s consistent disappointment.
Later, after I finished my dialysis and drove back to the townhouse, my phone dinged from a text. Scrambling for it, my pulse sped when I saw Marcus’s name, but my hopes plunged after the message.
Marcus: She’s asleep. Don’t want to wake her. Maybe tomorrow.
But, now, it’s tomorrow, and the day is more than half done with no word from Holly or Marcus. I’m living on the edge of insanity. There are things I need to tell her.
I’m sorry.
Forget the kidney.
I love you.
Fuck it. I can’t do this anymore.
Sitting around isn’t going to solve anything.