by Jaime Reed
But I was past all that now and had reached a whole new level of pissed off at what I’d witnessed in the hallway.
Five minutes ago, I was walking around, enjoying the sights, minding my own business. Now I was questioning my own sanity and racing through the exhibits in need of a second opinion.
I zigzagged through the crowd, my neck straining in the search for a sophomore with wavy hair. Under the monster rings of Saturn stood Alyssa in a bubble jacket, leggings, and Ugg boots. She’d given up her staple glittery gold costume pieces for a look that was a bit more … basic. It didn’t fit her at all, but that was what her “new friends” were wearing.
“Come with me,” I said. Before she could protest, I grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward the entrance.
We stepped out of the observatory and into the blinding sunlight of the main corridor. The museum resembled an aircraft hangar, with glass taking up the front side of the building. Our classmates wandered the open hall, pointing and taking pictures on their phones while teachers and chaperones micromanaged the tour group.
Alyssa squirmed and pulled at me, but I only let go of her hand when we reached the side balcony.
I pointed to the scene below. “You mind telling me what that is?”
She peeked over the railing toward the bottom floor, then noted the capsule suspended in air by wires. “A large model of the Apollo space shuttle.”
“Not that. The two people standing under it.”
Her eyes moved to where I pointed. Then she frowned. I’d hoped for shock, outrage, and maybe a quick plan of attack, but all she offered was a shrug. “Oh. That would be Mateo Alvarez and Destiny Howell holding hands. They made it official this weekend.”
My mouth fell open and all the blood in my body drained to my feet.
“What?” I cried out, then held up my hand when she opened her mouth to repeat herself. Her words were clear the first time. But I wanted to deny this new reality.
Laughter steered my attention back to the first floor. Destiny giggled while Mateo palmed a giant plasma lightning ball. His curly hair shot straight up from the electric static of the glass. Those two coexisting in any capacity felt not only profane but scientifically impossible. One of the museum guides could probably prove it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked Alyssa.
Arms folded, she rested her back against the railing. “I figured you wouldn’t care either way.”
“Of course I care!” I lowered my voice. “You know how I feel about him.”
“Feel or felt?” she asked. “Because you haven’t done anything about it in the past three years. What, you expected him to wait for you on the off chance you’d turn brave enough to approach him? That’s not how life works. When I first told you I liked Ryon, I didn’t wait for the stars to align. I planned out a five-step system on how I was gonna get him down the aisle. And yes, my methods might be devious—”
“You locked him in the janitor’s closet with you—”
“—but my methods got results.” She spoke over me. “I have a doctor’s note to excuse my weaknesses, you don’t. Yet you’ll sit back and let a girl take the guy you want. I say more power to her.”
“Really? Destiny, the klepto?” I pointed to the bottom floor. “I can’t believe you’re defending her. She’s faker than Monopoly money and keeps stealing my stuff in class.”
“Mateo is not your stuff, and that’s your fault, not hers,” Alyssa shot back. “She’s my friend, too. And I’ll support anyone who shows backbone. In fact, I’ll help them along.”
Help them? It took me a second for the words to click. “You set them up?” I whispered.
She didn’t bother to deny it. If anything, she looked proud of her betrayal. “I may have mentioned something to Mateo about a love letter in his locker. I didn’t name names, but I didn’t debunk his theory that Destiny sent it, either.”
I leaned back and gave her a once- and twice-over to make sure I was talking to the same person. Was this the Alyssa Weaver I knew? Had she been hypnotized and trapped in the Gossip Girl version of the sunken place?
Come to think of it, this personality swap hadn’t happened overnight. It had been a slow, gradual creep within the past year. Never mind her clothes—her whole attitude had changed. Her tone got colder, her visits to my house got shorter, and her banter got more hostile.
I shook my head slowly. “What are you?”
She held out her hands and shrugged. “I don’t know. Effective? Ambitious?”
“Manipulative? Two-faced?” I offered instead. “Did you figure getting in good with Destiny would help you climb the social ladder? So you do your friends dirty just to sit at the cool kids’ table? And you call me weak? Girl, bye.” I walked away, not knowing where I was going nor caring if I broke the rules by straying from our group.
Alyssa was right on my heels as I marched past the astronaut suit display, the model figurines, and moon rocks sealed behind glass. Heads turned in our direction, feet scooted aside to give us room, whispers hummed in the air as we passed. The tension was pudding-thick, so people were bound to sense it. Yet my pace didn’t slow until I reached the IMAX theater at the far end of the hall.
“See, that’s my biggest problem with you, Janelle,” Alyssa began, her short legs struggling to keep up with my long ones. “You get mad when stuff doesn’t go your way, but you didn’t put in any effort. I’m always stuck doing the legwork for every money-making scheme while your head’s in the clouds. None of your protests and petitions make any lasting impact—it’s just noise. You know why? Because you don’t really care.”
I stopped and glanced back at her like she was crazy. “That’s not true.”
“Sure it is. If you did care, you wouldn’t let your crush slip away. You didn’t even try. You’re a spectator, a sports fan who tries to coach from the couch. You don’t sacrifice or risk anything. There’s nothing meaningful to you, not enough to heat your seat. Isn’t that what your grandpa used to say?”
That was a low blow, even for her, but the disappointment on her face was what knocked the wind out of me. Or was that pity in her eyes? I couldn’t believe she saw me as weak, like she was better than me, like things were all peaches and cream in her life. Oh, no, I couldn’t let that slide, so I squared my shoulders and let her know a few things.
“Where do you get off calling somebody weak? You’re the one who gets tired all the time and can’t eat without getting sick. How about you check your glucose and leave me alone. And try not to pass out on the bus ride back to school. We wouldn’t want your new bestie to find out about you.” Those words were pure poison, and I regretted them the moment they left my mouth. But she’d pushed me to the edge, and there was no better person to share my misery with. If this ship was sinking, then we were going down together.
Alyssa just stared at me in silence, her body locked tight as if braced for a beating. Her chin quivered, her eyes watered, yet she stayed so still for so long, I thought she’d zoned out. With a voice thick with phlegm, she whispered, “We’re done here.”
I nodded, knowing that done referred to more than this conversation. “Yeah. We are.”
Sheree had warned me that, once word of my maybe-donation got out, the backlash would come in multi-levels of cray. But I didn’t think it would be this bad. Or that it would include a phone call from none other than Elijah Pruitt Jr., better known as Dad.
“Janelle, you need to stop this one-woman movement you’re on,” he commanded through the phone. “It’s not up to you to be the savior of the world.”
“That hasn’t stopped you in twenty years.” See, I could clap back because Daddy was sitting up the street from Liberia and Grandma Trina was taking a nap in her room. “How is this any different from you going to war-torn cities with rebels, refugees, gunfire, and bombs going off at random, and a hundred other ways to die?” I went on. “You let Sheree go off to a third-world country and you have no idea what’s happening to her. There could
be another earthquake and she could get crushed under a building. But oh no! Me donating a kidney to someone in need, someone I know, someone I actually care about—that’s where you draw the line? Really, Daddy?”
“You sure got a mouth on you, little girl. You’ve been hanging with that old lady too long.”
Don’t get mad at me. She’s your mama, not mine. “I thought that was the point of me living with her. To keep me civilized.” I smiled even though he couldn’t see it.
He harrumphed. “Yeah, a lot of good that’s done. Janelle, you need to think really hard about what you’re doin’.”
“I have,” I told him. “No one in her family has a match and if they are a match, they have too many antibodies. I’ve already been screened and I want to go through with it.”
“But have you weighed all the options? Do you know what types of risks are involved?”
I answered his question with one of my own. “If it were me that was dying, would you feel the same way? Would you hesitate like you are now?”
The anger in his voice melted into something close to compassion. “No,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t think twice.” He paused. “But of all the things to fight for, you choose this? If you feel this strongly ’bout helpin’ people, there are other ways to give back.”
True, there were all sorts of ways to show support without sticking your neck out. Anyone could write a check, pick up litter, or hand over banged-up canned goods and clothes that no longer fit. Plenty of people, including Alyssa, had played that hand—giving but not really, with a righteous smirk tacked on for good measure. But a person’s true nature showed when the gift exceeded what was deemed comfortable or convenient. My last conversation with Sheree came to mind, and I recalled something she had said.
It helped me respond to Daddy now. “Anybody can be generous when the gift costs them nothing,” I said. “I found my call to arms—that raging fire that heats my seat. Pop-Pop said all the Pruitts had it, but it’s different for each of us.”
The silence on the other end lasted for years. When my father finally spoke, he sounded resigned and tired. “I can’t really stop you, can I? This is who we are. Pop would be proud of you for sticking to your guns.”
A warm tingle moved across my back at his words. My eyes prickled and I needed to clear my throat a few times before saying, “Thanks, Daddy.”
“Don’t thank me yet, little girl. You still need to speak with your mama.”
“Oh God!” I collapsed facedown on the bed. The woman was worse than Grandma Trina, and it took twice the effort to make her see reason. Maybe that’s why Dad had married her; she reminded him of his mom.
That thought was more disturbing than the phone call, which amounted to an hour of screaming on Mama’s end when it was her turn to speak.
Then there was school. After Ryon’s big announcement in the student meeting, I was once again a person of interest. Only this time around, it had nothing to do with my supposed wedding to Mateo in Dubai. The newspaper editor hounded me all through lunch for a quote to put in this month’s article. No comment. The Borg begged me to appear in an episode of Active Beauty and offered to give me a makeover. Not even if I was held at gunpoint.
The last stall in the upper commons bathroom was the only spot in school to catch a moment’s privacy—and a decent signal. During lunch, I was working on two good bars and blocking half the people on my social media when some lowbrow trash talk invaded my headspace. I leaned closer to the stall door to hear clearly.
“You think she’s doing it for money?” A squeaky voice bounced off the bathroom tiles.
“Has to be,” came another voice. “You see how they fight all the time. I’m thinking serious cash. How much is a kidney anyway? Or maybe she’s being blackmailed. Alyssa Weaver’s got dirt on everyone, so I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Through the crack in the stall door, I spied three girls chatting in front of the sink. Sophomores. I was getting bashed by sophomores. What was the world coming to?
“Speaking of black, how can you donate organs to other races?” Gossiper One said while fixing her hair in the mirror. “Ooh, wait. Does that mean Alyssa’s kids will be biracial?”
“I don’t know. She already talks like a black girl, so she’s halfway there.” Gossiper Number Two snorted and cackled.
All the kee-keeing and giggling stopped when I stepped out of the stall. Mouths dropped open. Eyes bugged out of their heads and terror scented the air once they realized I was recording them on my phone.
“You three have got to be the dumbest broads I’ve come across today,” I began. “Selling organs is a million percent illegal. An organ transplant does not change your ethnicity. And you do not make racist comments and not expect to get recorded and get posted online in an hour.” Wagging the phone in my hand, I strolled past the girls toward the doors, then asked over my shoulder, “What’d we learn, ladies?”
Up until the final bell, people kept stopping me to ask random questions about kidneys and dialysis. Some were curious, others believed it was the start of a new trend, while most kept eyeing me like I stole their boyfriend. At the end of the day, I couldn’t hop in my car fast enough. The only reason I didn’t drag-race off the premises like I wanted to was due to the fear of vehicular homicide.
Home was the only place I felt anywhere close to normal. My house was crowded with Mrs. Alvarez stumbling about and I now had more people to share a bathroom with. But it was heaven on earth compared to the outside world.
Just before dinner, I was in the kitchen, feeding Peekaboo lunch meat, when my butt started vibrating. Recognizing the number, I set the phone on the table and backed away as if the caller would kill me in seven days.
Mateo’s stare bounced from me to the phone and then back to me. “Really?” he asked.
By the fifth ring, he pulled off his oven mitts, reached over and pressed the ANSWER button, putting the call on speaker.
“Hello? Janelle?” Dr. Brighton always sounded uncertain on the phone.
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard, then tried again. “Yes. It’s me.”
“Good evening, Janelle. This is Dr. Brighton. I’m glad I could catch you. I just wanted to let you know that you’ve been approved for our Living Donor Program. You have been accepted to donate a kidney to your chosen recipient. Congratulations!”
Approved. Accepted. Congratulations. Those were positive terms that implied some sort of win. Then where was my victory cheer and fist bump? Why hadn’t that ten-ton weight been lifted from my shoulders? Why did it feel heavier than before?
I kept my tone as upbeat and sane as possible. “Oh my God! Yay! That’s great!”
“I’m glad you’re excited,” he said. “Once we get confirmation from the recipient, we can go ahead and schedule a surgery time. Does that sound good?”
“Yup,” I managed to get out as Dr. Brighton discussed dates, appointments, and more paperwork. By the end of the phone call, a head rush hit me so strong that I had to sit down.
I also seemed to have misplaced my puppy. She was in my arms a moment ago. But I had more pressing issues. How was I supposed to feel about this? Was I happy? Terrified? Queasy? Emotions were hard to identify when they spoke out of turn.
I should have been running laps around the block in triumph. Instead, I was getting the burps and looking for the nearest exit. There was no way out of this now. The donor situation was no longer a hypothetical maybe.
Mateo moved to my side of the kitchen table. “You okay?”
Between breaths, I answered, “Don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“Oh, I get it. Reality is finally hitting home for you. I’ve seen your Instagram page.” He knelt down in front of me and touched my hand.
I couldn’t enjoy this small show of affection. Not with my thoughts racing a mile a minute. But he was right, though. It was times like these when you saw a person’s true colors.
The internet was a cesspool of negativity and ignorance. Haters dragged
me from one end of Twitter to the other, talking real greasy behind faceless avatars.
— Gurl u stupid. Why u throwing ur life away for some white trash!
— Ur such a sellout. Ppl been waiting years for an organ & u turn ur back on ur own.
— Ha ha! What a sucker! Have fun getting hacked up. Do u people blead watermelon?
All I could respond with was:
— DELETE.
— BLOCK.
— The word is “bleed”. Learn to spell.
Alyssa and I had more similarities than differences, but all people worried about was race. If I heard “Relax, it was just a joke” one more time, I was going to snatch someone bald. If I heard another “I’m not racist, but …” followed by some really messed-up comment, I was gonna throw hands.
“A man offered me twenty grand for my kidney,” I told Mateo in a voice so small and broken it hurt my own ears. “He sounded so desperate and scared—I couldn’t finish reading the message. I wish I could help, but transplants don’t work that way. It’s not a pair of shoes you break in. Why can’t people see that?”
Mateo squeezed my fingers. “You put up a good front, but it’s getting to you. Maybe you should go see Alyssa and hash it out.”
I pulled my hands away, then rubbed at the heat behind my eyes. “No. She’s set in her ways and I don’t feel like arguing with her. When she digs in her heels, there’s no getting her to budge.”
“Then why didn’t you cancel your application?” he asked. “Why didn’t you tell the doctor she refused the surgery?”
My eyes lifted from my lap and settled on his greenish-brown stare. “Because it’s just a matter of time before things get real. Her health is getting worse, and her body will make the choice for her. I want to be ready when it happens.”