Sorry Not Sorry

by Jaime Reed

  Scars weren’t really an issue for me—that was more Alyssa’s area of narcissism. I was all about simpler things, like not dying during the procedure. Every horror story that had been told—be it via email or word of mouth—flashed in my head. The guy who woke up in a tub of ice with his kidney missing. The guy who died from a staph infection because the surgeon sneezed in his open chest cavity. The nurse who tossed a healthy kidney in the trash by mistake. Shiny, happy thoughts.

  “The final one will be a five-inch incision at the bikini line where the kidney, its artery, vein, and ureter will be removed and prepared for transplant. The abdominal area is a very compacted space of the body, so a small pouch will be inserted to inflate the area, similar to a car jack lifting the wheel off the ground.” Dr. Foster continued his rundown of the procedure like he had somewhere else to be within the hour. It all sounded cut and dried. No muss, no fuss. The operation could be performed in his sleep, let him tell it.

  “You’ll lie on your side during the operation and be placed under general anesthetic. You’ll have time to talk to the anesthesiologist before the surgery about whatever concerns you might have.”

  “I just wanna know if it will hurt,” I said while my stare drifted to the stomach diagram hanging on the far wall.

  “No. You’ll be under general anesthetic, so you’ll be completely unconscious. You’ll feel discomfort afterward, as is to be expected, and we’ll prescribe pain medication for you,” he explained.

  “How will they know I’ll be totally under?” I asked. “I saw this one movie where this guy was awake during the whole thing and could feel the blade and hear the doctors talking smack and everything.”

  His wry smile implied that this was a common fear. “Yes, we are well aware of that condition and it is extremely rare. And the anesthesiologist will be available to treat you in case something goes wrong. The overall surgery will last three to four hours. You will be taken to recovery, where you’ll be observed for any issues. After a few hours, you’ll be sent to your hospital room. So, any questions?”

  Tons, but sadly none that he could answer. Stuff like, How bad will it hurt afterward? Will I feel the lost kidney like when amputees can still feel their missing limbs? Will I have to watch what I eat like Alyssa does? If the kidney fails to work for Alyssa, can I get it back? But instead of sharing all that, I mumbled, “Uh-uh.”

  By the time I was sent back into the waiting room, I felt like I’d just survived an alien abduction. I refused Grandma Trina’s offer of food. The doctors had explicitly told me not to eat anything before the surgery. And anyway, I had no appetite. My nerves were all over the place and nothing entering my stomach would stay there for long.

  While Grandma Trina discussed overnight accommodations with the nurses, I hung around the common room with Mrs. Weaver. We sat a seat apart, facing a TV with no sound on. I checked my phone for any new messages. There were a bunch of well wishes from my parents and Sheree, but I hadn’t heard a word from Sera. I’d texted her before I left the house this morning. Her brother no doubt told her about the surgery today, so what was with the crickets on her end?

  I glanced over at Mrs. Weaver, not entirely sure if she was awake. Her head tipped as far back as it could go, her hands covering her face from the overhead lights. She looked as though sleep hadn’t crossed her path in years. It had been a pattern lately for people to lose sleep over Alyssa and that trend needed to die with the Jheri curl.

  “Is Alyssa’s dad coming?” I asked her.

  Her arms dropped to her lap. The heavy sigh that pushed from her mouth told me all I needed to know.

  “It’s just as well he stays where he’s at. He’ll just be in the way, tryin’ to run shop like he’s been here the whole time. But he called her last night and wished her luck.” Her head rolled in my direction. “Whadda champ.”

  “You mean chump?”

  “That too. So how are you, Miss Janelle? You doing okay?” she asked.

  “Freaking out a little,” I replied honestly.

  “That’s natural. Look at it this way: You two will be a lot closer now. Best friends don’t get no closer than this.”

  Best friends. I’d hoped for something a bit more traditional. You know, the stuff you see in commercials—girls prancing around at the mall arm in arm, checking out boys, and smiling because they have clear skin. To tell the truth, I never had that experience with Alyssa—or Sera.

  My phone buzzed on my lap then, and I wondered if Sera was psychic.

  SERA: Good luck today. I hope it goes well for both of you.

  ME: Thanks.

  Brief but effective. I wondered if she’d visit me after the surgery. It had been a lonely few weeks without her.

  Smiling, I tucked my phone away, then asked Mrs. Weaver, “Is it possible to have more than one best friend at one time?”

  “Sweetie, you can be in love with two men at one time with the same passion. So yeah. I s’pose it’s possible.”

  For real? What had Mrs. Weaver been up to in her spare time? I pushed that thought away. “But how?”

  She rubbed the back of her neck and thought it over. “The doctor said when they take your kidney out, the one left over will grow to make up for it. I reckon the heart works the same way. You think somebody’s your one and only and can’t nobody replace ’em. You ain’t gotta replace ’em. The heart makes room for more folks to fit in.”

  That kinda made sense. If anybody knew anything about packed spaces, it was the queen hoarder herself.

  Extending her arms, she bent back for a full body stretch. “I tell ya what, hon. People are the fun-house mirrors of your life. Some make you tall, some make you wide. Some make you see double or twist you into somethin’ you can’t recognize. Not even that one regular mirror will show your true self. The thing is, all of them images are your true self.”

  I guessed that was true. People do change you, for better or worse. After all, I was now surrounded by a lot of deep thinkers. Perhaps Mateo and Mrs. Weaver could swap philosophies over coffee.

  “Best friend or not, y’all two got somethin’ special,” Mrs. Weaver continued. “I saw it soon as she first brought you over to the house when you were kids. You really are an angel for my Lyssa.”

  I wasn’t looking for praise, but I nodded all the same. “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean it. That’s what she calls you.” She leaned in, her bony shoulder touching mine, and whispered, “You know how all the angels got E-L at the end of their name? Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, that sort of thing? She thought you were like that.”

  Janelle: the watcher of sick and angry gingers. And not to nitpick the issue, but my name wasn’t spelled that way, so my next question came from a place of concern. “Was she on any medication when she said that?”

  “Always. But that’s when you get the truth out of her, so get it while you can.”

  That didn’t sound like such a bad idea.

  I tapped on the door and poked my head inside the room. “Alyssa?”

  “Yeah.” She sounded drowsy and distracted.

  I stepped inside and closed the door. She reclined in what looked like a leather padded barber’s chair, magazine in hand, earbuds in, and TV monitor on while the robo-kidney did its thing. According to the timer, she had another hour left on the spin cycle. Dialysis always left her drained and I wanted to catch her before she was too loopy to talk. There was no telling when I’d have the chance before surgery.

  I grabbed the chair in the corner and dragged it closer to hers. “How are you?”

  She pulled the bud out of one ear. “Nervous.”

  “Me too.” My eyes panned across the room. Not much to see—everything was white, disinfected, and boring. No generic landscape paintings. No motivational posters, no gross diagram of human body parts. At least she had a television.

  “Look, I don’t know what’s gonna happen today, but I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry,” I said.

  Her brows dipped into a frown. �
��For what?”

  “For being a crappy friend. For babying you and treating you like a charity case. For always talking trash to you. All of it.”

  “I think I know that. I mean, I know you didn’t mean to do any of it intentionally. It’s so hard trying to be normal with this hanging over your head.” She gestured at the dialysis machine. “It sucks having to explain to people why I can’t eat certain things and why I get tired all the time and what this thing is sticking out of my arm. And the stares.” She blinked away the moisture from her eyes. “Either they feel sorry for me or they don’t look at me at all. Like I’m a freak.”

  I bent forward and propped my elbows on my knees. “You’re not a freak.”

  “I’m not normal, either. I’m not … healthy.” The words left her mouth in a wet, strangled sob. “Something’s … wrong.”

  I placed my hand over hers, careful not to crush it. Her fingers felt like bones in a sheer casing of damp skin. “I know. But that’s why we’re here. We can make things right. This can be fixed.”

  Her chest heaved as more tears trickled down her cheek. “I’m sorry for ditching you and pushing you away. It was messed up and I’m so sorry, Janelle. I just want you to know that.”

  I nodded.

  “Do you think that’s why this happened to me?” she asked. “Because I hurt you and did all those mean things to other people? This is karma biting me in the butt, isn’t it? It’s a punishment for past sins? Do you think that’s why I got sick?”

  “No. Alyssa—”

  “Look around. Look at them.” Her eyes circled the room. “You see all the awesome show of support standing around? Neither do I. I just see you. And it hurts because you’re the person I’ve trampled over the most and now you’re the only one here.”

  Maintaining full eye contact, I scooted closer until our chairs touched. Her seat stood high off the ground, so I had to look up at her to get my point across. “You are not cursed. This is not your fault. It just happened. Bad things happen to good people and bad people. No one is exempt from that exam. No one is born absolutely perfect. Look at me. I’m pigeon-toed, I’ve got oily skin, and—”

  “You’re really comparing that to kidney failure—”

  “And split ends galore,” I finished. “That’s why I keep my hair in braids, so I won’t be bothered.”

  Eyes narrowed, she replied in a lazy monotone, “A true underdog story for the ages. How did you overcome such adversity?”

  “A good moisturizer, mostly. But I take it day by day.” I was about to say more when I realized that neither she nor the media had been notified of a certain cosmic event. “Hey, guess what? I kissed Mateo.” This truth had to be spoken aloud, testified, or else it didn’t happen. A tree-falling-in-the-woods-type deal, but with lips.

  Alyssa’s own lips formed a perfect circle before she shrieked, “What? Shut up!”

  “I’m dead serious. I’ve seen the promised land. I’ve been to the mountaintop, and I’m still high from the altitude.”

  Her face lit up. “Really? How was it?”

  I struggled to find a good description. “Highly emotional. Wasn’t really expecting that.”

  She made a tsk-ing sound. “Let me guess. You cried for all the wasted years you spent pining over him when all this time you could’ve had all that Latin goodness and a free chef. And … this would be the part where I say, I told you so, and you laugh at your own stupidity. If you’re not up to it, I’m happy to do it for you.”

  I found her observation unsettling. “How did you know that? Did you have someone spy on me?”

  “Nope. No need to with you, Janelle.” She pointed to her temple. “Twinsies, remember? I know you. I might even know you better than you know yourself.”

  The call had come in forty minutes ago. Alyssa and I parted ways as a nurse escorted me to the opposite side of the hall in the transplant unit. The nurse led me into a small, private room where I’d stay for the next two nights. I was relieved; I’d never had a problem with sleeping in strange places, but the last thing I wanted was a hacking, coughing roommate.

  The nurse did the usual tests: blood pressure, pulse, and last-minute samples, as if my vitals from four hours ago weren’t accurate enough. They put an IV catheter in my arm, so they wouldn’t have to keep pricking me whenever they needed to draw blood or inject me with fluids. Once she was all done, the nurse handed me a paper gown wrapped in plastic, then left me to change.

  The next hour was a parade of doctors. First came Dr. Brighton and his floppy hair and Hollywood smile. “So are you having any anxiety or reluctance about the procedure?” he asked.

  “A little,” I admitted. Cold air glided over my skin like fingers as Grandma Trina helped me tie the back of my gown. She sat behind me on the bed and pulled my braids back into a bun and twisted it so it laid flat. A hundred memories of sitting at her kitchen table flashed in my head and helped thaw some of the chill of the room.

  “Some hesitancy is to be expected. It’s perfectly normal and again, you are under no obligation to continue,” he warned.

  After everything I’d gone through? Was he serious? Even Grandma Trina stopped braiding and looked at the man.

  “I’m fine. Just got the jitters,” I assured him.

  “Good. Most of it is anticipation and buildup. The other half is the fear of the unknown. Just know you’re in the care of one of the best surgeons in the country. You’re in excellent hands.” He wished me well and quit the room.

  “You sure he’s a doctor, baby?” Grandma Trina craned her neck to watch him leave, then shook her head. “That boy don’t look real. He might be CG like that prince from them Shrek movies.”

  “I know, right?” The muscles in my face felt strained when I laughed, like I hadn’t done so in a while.

  Twenty minutes later, the last thing I wanted to do was smile. Humming a gospel tune, Grandma Trina sat in the chair next to my bed and fiddled with a piece of peppermint she always had stashed in her purse. The candy wrapper crinkled like TV static and shredded my concentration.

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten, then twenty, and getting nowhere. Everything seemed amplified. The walls were too white; the furniture and sink area was too boxy, too sterile to be a real room. Medical equipment lay everywhere, complicated and impersonal.

  My mouth was dry; my heart felt huge in my chest. Pop-Pop would say that you only noticed the heart when you’re in trouble. Boy, did I notice it now! Its beat rolled thunder in my ears, the mother of all countdowns.

  Two nurses came in with the stretcher that would transport me to the operating room. “Okay, Janelle, are you ready to go?” the first one asked, and sounded too cheery, too eager, too suspicious.

  No. No. No! NO! “Yeah,” I told her.

  Was it too late to back out? There had to be someone else who could do this other than me. This wasn’t like getting a tooth pulled. This was major surgery where I’d be knocked out for hours. I no longer had power over the situation.

  It’s not too late to change your mind. There’s no obligation. You need to be certain this is what you want.

  Dr. Brighton kept telling me that. So had an entire army of specialists. It was their catchphrase that never caught on, because I was too stubborn to see things for what they really were. But then that was always my problem.

  Alyssa had mentioned karma. Well, maybe this was mine kicking in for being a smart-mouth, and a coward, and thinking I was better than everyone else because I gave more and cared more. Was I any different than Alyssa? Was there even such a thing as a good cause? None of this was feeling good right now. This was not what I ordered and I just wanted to go home.

  I felt hands transfer me from one bed to another. Soon, I was being wheeled toward the elevator in the hallway. Blind terror rushed over me once the elevator doors opened and I was wheeled inside. When the car began to drop, so did my stomach. My breath released in shallow, labored pants.

  It was happening, the eleventh-hour second-guess
ing they warned me would come right before surgery. After weeks, days, hours of waiting for calls and lab results, stares in school and the comments online, the highly anticipated freak-out was finally here, folks.

  This was the real reality show—not that fake crap the Borg slapped together. I wasn’t watching destruction, pain, and injustice on TV. It wasn’t secondhand accounts of a hurricane ruining lives while only howling past my own. It was the phantom I felt in Alyssa’s hospital room, the cold skin of Pop-Pop’s cheek. It was death paying me a visit and I. Was. Not. Prepared.

  On the sidelines of my panic, I heard Grandma Trina’s voice.

  “Baby, I’m right here. You’re gonna be just fine.”

  A slight pressure forced me to glance down at my hand. Had she been holding it the whole time? My grandma had worker’s hands: thick skin corded in raised veins, capped off with bright-red nail polish. I would need those strong hands to get through this.

  The doors opened again and we rolled down a white corridor. The overhead light sped across my vision like broken lines on a road. The bed stopped at some pre–operating room docking port where the anesthesiologist waited for me and began busying herself with my left arm.

  “Okay, I’m injecting the anesthetic,” she said.

  “I thought it was a mask you put over my face,” I said.

  She smiled, her eyes studying the needle in her hand. “No. This will tunnel into your IV and in a few minutes, you’ll feel a little woozy and then you’ll drift off. I promise, you won’t even realize you are under.”

  “Okay.” I nodded as she leaned in with the needle. “Wait, you’re doing it now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Okay.” I looked away, not for fear of pain, but in some vain attempt to delay the countdown that had already started.

  Everything was hitting me at once. I was going under the knife. People with sharp, pointy things would dig into my skin, touching parts of me that I’d never even seen. And what if I did wake up and feel all of it? They said it wasn’t likely, but I could be that 0.00001 percent that starred in that horror show. What if the surgeon left something inside me, like a scalpel or chewing gum? What if they took the wrong kidney and I’d be stuck with the smaller one? What if I died while under anesthetic? How would I know that I was dead? I wouldn’t graduate or see my family or kiss Mateo again …