by Jaime Reed
“Ooh. Somebody got their report card in the mail,” Sera sang, and did a little snake dance with her neck and shoulders.
I turned to her, my mouth gaping open in shock and then realization. Midterm report cards had been sent out this week. The envelopes were always addressed to parents or guardians, and if I remembered correctly, the report revealed class attendance. Codes and mathematic formulas danced in my head as I considered the various outcomes of this afternoon’s drama. No matter how it came about, the blowup with Grandma Trina would’ve happened anyway. Oh man, I could never become a criminal mastermind; I’d leave too much of a paper trail.
I looked at Sera. “Is Ryon failing?” I asked.
Wearing a menacing grin, she nodded. “Failed two tests and skipped three classes.”
“But you skip class all the time,” I argued, not seeing the point.
She shook her head. “My folks don’t really care what I do. They only care what the golden boy is up to.” She shrugged. “Ryon is stuck with a whole other set of standards. He might just meet them if he wasn’t so obsessed with a certain redhead who shall not be named.”
I rolled my eyes. Could she be any more obvious? “How would you feel if someone you cared about might die before graduation?” I challenged her.
Sera gave me a look. “She’s not gonna die, Janelle. She just wants people to feel sorry for her.”
Were we talking about the same person? “Actually, that’s the last thing she wants.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Because I know her!” I hadn’t meant to yell, but it was crystal clear that Sera didn’t know the real deal or the real Alyssa. Part of that was my fault for shutting Sera out of my decision. And if I told her now, she’d get mad over my secrecy and overanalyze our friendship needlessly. Was it cowardly to want to keep one small part of my life safe and normal? Couldn’t I just stay in this little oasis with Sera? Or was that selfish?
“Yeah, I know. You guys have this long, epic backstory.” Sera’s tone had that irritated drone you’d have after hearing a song one too many times on the radio. “I’ve seen married couples like that. After the breakup, they’d start dating people that remind them of their exes.”
I had to think about that for a minute. Did she mean Alyssa’s friends resembled me, or that she, Sera, resembled Alyssa? Either scenario had me cutting my eyes at her for the rest of the beach episode. Where had that come from?
A soft knock came at the door. Ryon appeared from the other side with a phone gripped in his hand. “Hey, Janelle. It’s for you.”
Slowly, I climbed off the bed and moved toward the door, my stare volleying between the phone and Ryon’s red, swollen eyes. He’d definitely been crying but bringing that up might embarrass him, so I asked instead, “Who would be calling me on your cell phone?”
“Your boyfriend.” Ryon pushed the phone closer, indicating that I should take it.
I stopped moving. There was only one person who fit that description. The idea of him calling me on Ryon’s phone at ten at night seemed more fictitious than our dating status.
But when I put the phone to my ear, his voice came through the line loud and clear.
“Janelle. It’s me, Mateo. Why is your phone off?” His question sounded like a reprimand, which spiked my attitude to a 9.8.
“I didn’t want to talk to anyone,” I answered. “How did you find me?”
“Hate to break it to you, but you don’t have that many friends. Didn’t need a search team or the K-9 unit on this one,” he replied with more humor in his voice than I had patience for. “Anyway, you need to come home. Now.”
My heart caught the hiccups. The jolt made my chest hurt. Mateo wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t an emergency. Questions flew out of my mouth before I could make sense of them. “Is it my grandma? Is she okay? Did something happen?”
“No, nothing like that,” Mateo said quickly. “She’s fine, everyone’s fine. You just need to get over here as soon as you can.”
I needed a minute to get my blood pressure under control. “Don’t scare me like that, yo! If it’s not a life-or-death situation, I’m staying put right here with Sera.”
“Alyssa and her mom are here.”
That was the last thing I’d expected him to say. Whatever fun I’d been having tonight shriveled up and died. Silence spread between us for so long that Mateo asked, “You still there?”
“Yeah.” I snuck a glance at Ryon and Sera, then spoke softly into the phone. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
When I finished the call, I handed Ryon his phone, then gathered my books and my backpack from the floor.
Sera uncrossed her legs and rose from the bed, concern etched on her face. “You’re really leaving?”
I slid my book bag over my shoulder, then searched the floor for my overnight bag. “Yeah. Family emergency.”
“What kind of emergency? Does it have to do with why you came over?” she asked, following me out the bedroom door. “You sounded really upset on the phone.”
I still was upset, but now wasn’t the time to get into the gruesome details. It would only lead to a fight, and I already had one of those waiting for me when I got home.
“It’s just family stuff driving me crazy again. It’s no big deal,” I told her on my way downstairs.
She didn’t make a fuss—a blessing in itself—but I could almost see the tiny question marks floating overhead like the anime characters we’d spent hours watching. I gave her a reassuring hug along with a promise to call. Dragging my feet, I stepped out into the cold night.
So much for my mini vacation. Time to face the firing squad.
Exactly eighteen minutes later, I sat on the love seat in the living room beside Mateo. Mrs. Weaver and Alyssa sat across from us on our living room sofa, with a throw rug of dogs curled at their feet. We all watched Grandma Trina pace the floor in front of the TV.
“All right then. We’re gonna do this like we did in the old union days and bring this to a vote,” she announced, and rubbed her palms together.
Mateo raised his hand. “Union? Like versus the Confederates in the Civil War? How old are you anyway, Mrs. Trina?”
“Watch your mouth, boy.” Grandma pointed a lethal finger at his face. “I’m thirty-five; that’s all y’all need to know.”
Palms up, shoulders hunched, Alyssa appealed to the lady of the house. “I just wanna know why we’re here.”
“For you, baby,” Grandma replied, then realized Mrs. Weaver hadn’t explained the nature of the late-night meeting. “We brought you here to discuss a solution to your medical condition. Janelle volunteered to be an organ donor. Your organ donor.”
The room fell quiet as the Weaver women sipped slow on that new information.
I kept my eyes trained on the floor, braced myself for Alyssa’s response.
A soft voice came from across the room. “I can’t accept.”
I jerked my head up. “What? Why?”
“Because I don’t want your kidney,” Alyssa replied as if the very idea disgusted her.
She picked this time to try and act brand-new? It’s not like I had cooties or anything. “Why not?”
“We’re not talking about having a wisdom tooth pulled. That is a huge operation that might not even work, and I still might need dialysis afterward. It’s not worth it.”
Mrs. Weaver touched her daughter’s back. “But honey—”
Alyssa shrugged the hand away. “No. I’m not doing it.”
“Well, that settles it.” Grandma Trina’s firm clap served as a gavel. “Janelle, you can call the doctors tomorrow and cancel the testin’.”
Alyssa was clearly stunned by that little detail. Her irate stare swung from Grandma Trina to me. “You’ve gotten tested?”
“Yeah. I’ve completed all of my appointments,” I said, feeling proud of myself. This wasn’t all big talk; it was the real deal. “The lab results say that I’m a good candidate. Our blood types are the same a
nd the crossmatches are negative, so it’s a go. And I just finished my psych evaluation. The coordinator might request another phone conference before my case is reviewed, but for now, we just have to wait.”
Alyssa slowly rose from the sofa, her expression puzzled and suspicious. “You’re a match?”
“Yeah.”
“That must’ve been steep. How did you get it done so fast? How’d you even know who to contact?” Mrs. Weaver asked.
“I found the brochure on Alyssa’s dresser when I came over,” I answered while ignoring the mass homicide flashing in Alyssa’s eyes. “They knew your case and passed me through quickly. And since I’m the one donating, I don’t pay a dime. Just the checkups afterward.”
Alyssa nudged her head toward the hall. “Janelle? Can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?”
“Sure.” I stood and led her to the kitchen.
We barely made it into the room before she went in on me. “How long have you had this great plan of yours?”
“I applied a few days after your collapse. And I had my first appointment after I visited you at home.”
Crossing her arms, she asked, “When were you going to tell me about it?”
To be honest, I didn’t want to tell her at all, and I should’ve opted for an anonymous donation. Wincing, I answered, “Right before the surgery?”
Her mouth fell open. “Are you serious? You just automatically assumed that I’d be okay with getting hacked and scarred and tampered with just to have it fail and get it done all over again?”
Who said it was gonna fail? We were a match. That was half the battle right there. “What choice do you have, Lyssa? You can’t live on that machine forever. Your condition is terminal, and we all know it.”
“What I do know is that you had no right to do this without asking me first,” she snapped. “You went behind my back, again, making decisions for me that aren’t yours to make, again, and treating me like a child, AGAIN!”
I raged at the ceiling. “Omigod, you are so petty! Don’t you see that I’m trying to save your life?”
“Don’t you see that I don’t want you to?” She strolled back and forth in front of the kitchen table. “I’m not one of your starving orphans in the Congo, Janelle. I don’t need twenty-nine cents a day, I don’t need to be adopted, and I don’t need to be spayed or neutered. I’m not one of your causes!”
Her hands were buried in her hair, gripping the roots. “I just wanted a friend who I could hang out with and be normal with. I wanted to talk about shopping, boys, movies, why the Earth spins at a tilt and why Pluto isn’t a planet anymore, and if there’s such a thing as female angels or if that’s just a gimmick to sell underwear. Just random stuff where I don’t have to think about what’s going on in my body.
“That’s why I hooked up with another crowd who had no idea I was even sick. People who saw me as fierce competition, not a charity case. That’s why we stopped being friends, Janelle. That’s why we fight and slam each other all the time—’cause that’s the only way I can actually talk to you. That is why I did what I did, knowing full well it would crush you, because I’d rather have you hate me than pity me.”
Silence dominated the kitchen. The adults stopped talking in the living room, no doubt having overheard Alyssa’s rant. Everything went completely still. No response came to mind, no excuse was adequate, and no words made it past the pinch in my throat. This would be the part where I’d say, Why didn’t you tell me you felt that way?
The answer was she had. Countless times, and I didn’t listen. I was listening now.
Alyssa held her face in her hands, fingers pressing into her eyes to keep from crying, but tears leaked down her wrists all the same. She straightened up, tilted her head back, and blinked wildly.
“This is my decision. My life.” She sniffed and wiped her face. “My body controls me enough. I don’t need any more help from you. Cancel your application to the organ donor program or get reassigned if you really want to sacrifice a body part. But it won’t be to me.” She left the kitchen. Not a stomp. Not a run, but a quiet departure of a ghost.
A part of me had seen this coming. It was why I made Ryon keep quiet. It was why I tried so hard to cover my tracks. And it’s what I’d tried but failed to explain to Dr. Langhorne in our session the other day …
“You have the right to remain anonymous; however, we encourage all living donors to attempt communication with the recipient,” Dr. Langhorne had said. “What do you think her response will be?”
“She won’t be throwing a parade in my honor, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I answered, glancing at my feet. “I’d probably get chewed out, like usual. She hates pity or being treated differently. That’s why she didn’t tell me …”
“Tell you what?” the counselor prodded.
I kept my stare grounded and my voice low. “That she was getting worse. All this time I thought she was handling it, that it wasn’t so bad. There were so many signs, so many clues I missed.”
“Do you blame yourself?” the doctor had asked. “Like if you were a better friend, you would’ve prevented this somehow?”
I saw where she was going with this line of questioning. I wanted to shut that assumption down, but I hesitated. If I’d tried to get through to Alyssa, if I’d done more research on her condition, if I’d gotten out of my feelings long enough to see the symptoms, and on and on it went. “What ifs” and “if onlys” always showed up late to the party, offering insight that would’ve been useful weeks ago, months ago, years ago.
Dr. Langhorne sat straight in her chair and leveled me with a stern gaze. “Janelle, I’m not at liberty to discuss the recipient’s case with you, but you need to understand that none of this is your fault. And going through this procedure is not a proper form of atonement.”
“I know. That’s not my reason,” I told her, though I wasn’t entirely sure that was true.
“It might not be the main reason, but it’s something to consider. You need to go into this situation with clear and realistic expectations. If the surgery is successful, this experience could bring you closer together or tear you further apart. If it’s unsuccessful, it may deepen the wound already there. I believe it would be best if you spoke with her, sooner rather than later. Get whatever unresolved issues out in the open before you make any major decisions …”
Braced by my arms, I slumped against the kitchen counter and controlled my breathing. In … and out. Repeat. Again and again, until the function came automatically and no longer needed coaching.
I heard soft murmurs from the living room, Alyssa insisting on leaving and her mother’s protests to stay. Eventually, the front door opened, then closed. Locks turned and chains slid into place. After that there was silence. Utter silence. If you heard it long enough, it almost sounded like screaming.
Brilliant idea, Dr. Langhorne. What could possibly go wrong? Aside from absolutely everything?
Angry footsteps advanced and broke my writing flow. Before looking up, I felt the negative energy, the slight shift in the air of a fast-approaching person. The sentence I’d written lay incomplete on the page and was swallowed up by the shadow that now darkened my notes. The chatter at my lunch table stopped as classmates watched the fiery cannonball that was Alyssa Weaver.
She loomed over me with balled fists and a hostile stance. “We need to talk.”
Where was all of this attitude coming from? I dropped my pen and closed my textbook. “Um, okay. What’s going—”
“Who told you to broadcast my medical history to the entire school?” she demanded in a low voice. “Seriously, who? I want names. Point them out, because it sure wasn’t me.”
“You better add Janelle Pruitt to that list, ’cause it wasn’t her, either,” I replied.
“Then how come kids in school are talking about it? Why is Ryon Kimura following me around, handing me juice and crackers and asking about my blood sugar? Oh, and why is there a booth set up in the commons for diabetes awa
reness?” She pointed to the double doors behind her.
My eyes scanned the cafeteria for witnesses. Kids became super focused on their food or buried their noses in their books, which meant they were ears-deep in our business.
Collecting my tray, I whispered, “We should take this out in the hall.”
“Oh! So now you wanna keep things hush-hush.” She followed me as I dumped my food and left the cafeteria.
In the hallway, I squared off with her and explained, “Look, I may have mentioned something to Ryon, but only after he saw you almost faint when we went to the pool last week. I didn’t expect him to host a telethon about it.”
She recoiled, her face etched with resentment and betrayal. “You had no right to tell him.”
“He was worried about you, that’s all,” I said in my defense, but the reasoning sounded worse out loud than it did in my head. Being open with Ryon was coming back to haunt me, but I never thought she would take the news this hard. “I’m sorry, Lyssa. I was honestly trying to help you. Why are you getting so upset?”
She threw up her hands like I was the unreasonable one. “Look around, Janelle. We’re in high school now, the worst place to be different. I don’t feel like explaining to a bunch of morons what diabetes is. What kind of social life am I supposed to have with people thinking I’m made of glass?” Her fist pounded her chest. “I am self-sufficient. I’m able-bodied. I’m competent and I can do anything everyone else can do, beat them at it, and send them home crying.”
“Nobody said you weren’t.” Furthermore, if anyone looked ready to go home crying, it was her. Her eyes were runny and unfocused, her feet couldn’t keep still, and her fingers fidgeted with the ends of her hair. Why was she acting like this? Was she on some new medication?
“But they will, as soon as this gets around school.” She wiped her runny nose on her shirtsleeve. “If my dad couldn’t deal with my issues, how do you expect a guy like Ryon Kimura to handle it?”