Need

by Joelle Charbonneau

  “Mom needs to get a grip.” DJ lets out a dramatic sigh. “I didn’t have a fever the last four times she asked you to check. I think we can officially give it up for dead and move on.”

  “It’s not that simple.” The hospital tests showed no relapse—yet. With his immune system so compromised, it wouldn’t take much to threaten that status. Each time a patient experiences a nephrotic syndrome relapse, the prognosis is scarier. There’s a greater chance of fluid retention. Pneumonia. Clots. Additional kidney damage. For DJ the next relapse could mean complete kidney failure. If we don’t have a donor by then . . .

  “Yes.” DJ sits up and turns toward me. He doesn’t look at the TV as a car explodes. “It is that simple. But it sure feels as if you and Mom are more interested in proving that I’m dying instead of fighting off a cold. I expect that from Mom. It’s what she does. But you’re supposed to be on my side.”

  “I am on your side, and you’re not dying,” I say, wishing my stomach didn’t twist as I speak. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “There’s nothing you can do to stop it, Kaylee. I wish you could. Then I wouldn’t have to be scared. And I’m tired of being scared.” In his eyes I see the little boy I used to play blocks with who cried when he stacked them too high and they fell down. And I see the fear that he’s so good at hiding because he wants to forget that there’s a chance his immune system will give out. He deserves to forget and be happy. Even if it’s just for a few hours.

  I tuck the thermometer in my pocket, lie down on the floor next to the couch, and say, “Do you mind if I watch the movie with you?”

  “Okay. You didn’t miss much. Just the bad guys taking money from the other bad guys, and that guy chasing them in the car is a suspected cop who thinks he killed his partner and hasn’t been able to forgive himself. Only, he didn’t kill him and I think the partner is working with the bad guys, but we haven’t gotten there yet.” A truck rams a car off the road and there’s another explosion as some guy jumps out of the truck and fires his gun. I haven’t a clue what’s happening, but it doesn’t matter because I’m not really watching. I’m listening to DJ cheer and watching him bounce up and down when the good guy finally confronts the partner who supposedly was dead.

  The house phone rings and I have no problem lying to Mom about taking DJ’s temperature. Because DJ wants normal.

  Not long after the first movie has ended and a second one begins—because apparently every bad action flick needs a sequel—I notice that my brother has fallen asleep on the couch next to me. I place a blanket over DJ and then lie down next to him and brush his hair off his face.

  While he sleeps, I watch and wish. Finally, when it looks like he might wake up, I stand and go up to my bedroom so he doesn’t have to feel embarrassed about his big sister watching over his sleep like he’s a baby or something.

  I shuffle through the folders in my desk drawer, ignoring the paper on top. I know I should toss it. It only proves how terrible people can be. Like I really need a reminder of that. But I leave it there as I pull a list of names out from underneath it, hoping that at least a few of these people are more compassionate than those I have contacted in the past. The list is comprised of all the people I can think of who might know where my father is. Fifteen have lines drawn through them, which is disheartening. When I made the list, the names at the top were my best hopes. Shows how much I know. So far, only one of them, Mr. Bryski, has admitted to hearing from my father since he left for a fishing trip last spring.

  The doctors told us from the beginning that a close family member with the same blood type would make the best donor for DJ. Family donors have the highest probability of making a six-point match, which would give DJ’s body the best shot at accepting the new organ. As far as I am concerned, Dad is going to be that donor whether he likes it or not. No matter what my mother says, he owes us that much.

  I log on to the email account I created for this project and check in with Mr. Bryski to see if he’s heard anything else from my father. He promised to keep me updated, but I trust nobody. Not even him, which is why when I finish the email I don’t sign my name. He probably thinks he’s talking to my mother. Most of the people I contact this way do. I selected my email address specifically with that misdirection in mind. People like making assumptions, and for once it’s working in my favor.

  I send six more emails and then start making phone calls to hotels in the Kenosha area and surrounding towns. There are dozens, so every day I call a different group of them. The people who answer the phone aren’t allowed to give out guest names, but occasionally I find myself speaking with a receptionist or concierge who feels sorry for a girl who is looking for her missing father, or who thinks I might be willing to pay for assistance. I don’t really believe that any of these people will lead me to my dad. No one has stepped up so far, no matter what I’ve tried. But since promising money on Craigslist is out and my attempt to steal medical records from the school to help me target potential donors landed me in therapy, looking for a needle in a haystack is better than my mother’s plan—which from what I can tell consists of doing nothing.

  At least, that’s what I attempt to remember as the man on the phone cuts me off with a tirade about prank calls and hangs up. And I try not to think what it says about me that this is what I’ve come to expect.

  I make a few more phone calls and then one by one search the social media sites for my father’s name. As always, I feel a twinge of disappointment when I come up empty. Dad never liked to spend his time in front of a computer screen, which made it easier for him to disappear from our lives. The police might be able to find him. The courts can search too, if Mom decides to file for child support. But so far she refuses to pursue either route, insisting that she knows best and that Dad can’t help us. I’ve tried to get DJ to push her because she can’t say no to him, but he avoids talking about Dad. I know he thinks it’s his fault that Dad left. Just three weeks after learning that DJ’s most recent relapse had damaged his kidneys to the extent that he would soon be in desperate need of a transplant, Dad was gone. He certainly knows how to kick someone when they’re down.

  Since my attempts to find my father are going nowhere fast, I take a break and log on to my normal email account. Wow. Twenty-three unread messages.

  VICKI BOCKNICK HAS INVITED YOU TO NEED.

  QUINCY HANSON HAS INVITED YOU TO NEED.

  MARTYN UDDEN HAS INVITED YOU TO NEED.

  JOSE ALVARADO HAS INVITED YOU TO NEED.

  VERA PETZEL HAS INVITED YOU TO NEED.

  One after another. All invitations to NEED. All since I went to bed fourteen hours ago. And most of the people who sent these emails aren’t what I’d call friends. Why would they bother to invite me?

  I click on the NEED bookmark I created, log on, and read the main screen twice when it appears. Either I wasn’t paying attention yesterday or this page is new. Line after line of need requests.

  COMPUTERS

  PHONES

  CLOTHES

  CARS

  JEWELRY

  SKIS

  AN EXTRA WEEK OF WINTER BREAK

  There must be over a hundred requests. Under each one is a comment box where network users can click either Need or Want and add an anonymous comment. Some requests have a star, and judging by the congratulatory remarks beneath them, I figure it signifies the ones that have already been fulfilled.

  Some requests have dozens of comments. Others, which must be the newest, have only a few. The messages range from I need that too and I should have said that to Are you kidding? You need a life. Most of the needs are generic enough or expressed so often that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to figure out who posted them. But mine won’t be. And I can only imagine the comments I’ve gotten, especially since the people behind them get to be anonymous.

  I tell myself that I don’t care. That after all the insults and snide comments and dismissiveness from my peers, I am immune to anything they do or say
. But clearly I’m not, because my insides curl as I scroll down through the requests and comments, looking for mine. Only, I don’t find it.

  I go back to the top and scroll through again. I see Nate’s request for his physics final grade followed by a bunch of snarky comments, but my request isn’t there. Whoever is in charge of NEED must have decided to remove my post because it was too outlandish or because it gave away my identity.

  Relief fills me until I click on my profile page. Under my assigned user ID are the words:

  NEED REQUESTS SUBMITTED:

  KIDNEY FOR BROTHER—WAITING FOR FULFILLMENT

  Nothing else. No comment box. No mean quips or snarky remarks. But wait. At the bottom of the page is an asterisk followed by a message that wasn’t there before.

  *THIS PROFILE PAGE IS CURRENTLY HIDDEN FROM OTHER NETWORK MEMBERS.

  No one will see what I’ve asked for.

  Why? I click off my profile page and on another member’s request for a new pair of skis. Immediately, the screen changes and I can see the member’s anonymous profile, personalized with a big, yellow smiley face background. The request status is Waiting for fulfillment, and there is no asterisked message at the bottom.

  The network must have locked my page to protect my identity. After all, who else at our high school would ask for a kidney? I’m safe from additional ridicule . . . for now. But what if that changes? Almost every social media site I’ve been a part of has rolled out updates. The number of users on this network is growing fast. What happens if NEED stops being anonymous and my profile becomes viewable to all members? The comments about my being pushed over the edge by a deadbeat father and an almost-dead brother won’t just be whispered in hallways. They’ll be printed in captial letters on my screen and on the screens of everyone in my high school. Some will defend me. Not everyone thinks I’m an attention whore using my family problems to get sympathy. But those who do will be relentless when they stumble across my NEED profile. They’ve done it on other social media sites. They’ll do it here. I should never have gone on this site.

  If I have to sit around waiting for the site to revoke my anonymity, I might totally lose it. I have to delete my account. And I have to do it now.

  There’s no Delete feature on my profile page, so I click on the home page and look for a My Account tab or a way to navigate to Settings. Or maybe a Privacy button? Something. Anything. There has to be a way to get rid of this account. Only, no matter how many places I click on, I can’t find a way to wipe my profile from the system. I must be missing something.

  Desperate, I pick up the phone and call Nate.

  “Hey,” Nate says. “I was just going to call you. How’s DJ doing today?”

  “Better. Frustrated that Mom keeps calling to see if his fever is back. The usual.”

  Nate laughs. “Well, usual is better than unusual. Whenever things get unusual at your place all hell breaks loose. So, this is good.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “That’s why you keep me around. To do your thinking for you. Speaking of that, I had an idea about how we can get more people around here to get tested as a possible donor.”

  Nate might actually be able to swing getting more people tested. While his family ignores him because he lacks athletic prowess, at school he’s considered very cool. But I doubt even he has the ability to convince our classmates or their parents to undergo elective surgery to help someone else.

  “Anyone who likes DJ or our family enough to donate one of their kidneys already went through the process.” It was a pitifully small number. A few family friends. A couple of my dad’s co-workers. And Nate. Turns out his blood type is right, but none of the six antigens in the tissue typing is correct. His kidney has a high risk of being rejected by DJ’s body, which means Nate isn’t a match. Just like me. So I faked my own illness to spend time in the nurse’s office and check blood types of fellow students in the hope I could target the ones who were most likely to be a match. I thought it was a good idea. I was wrong.

  “Yeah, but what about all the people who don’t know you? You appealed to this town, which is not only small, but filled with a lot of small-minded, self-important jerks. I know you have issues with social media because people are idiots, but not everyone on the Internet is as simple-minded as the people we go to school with. A good social media campaign could build awareness and maybe encourage other people outside of this community to get tested. You just need something to make the campaign go viral. I’ve been working on something I think could get people fired up. It just takes one to be a match.”

  And that one has to be willing to go through the rest of his life with only one kidney. Most people aren’t that selfless without getting paid for it. My mother will also hate the public aspect of this idea, but I don’t really care. Maybe if she hates it enough she’ll actually do something to help find my father. “Let me talk to DJ and see what he thinks.” Before Nate can push, I say, “Speaking of social media, I can’t find a way to delete my NEED account.”

  “Why would you want to do that? I’ve been playing around with the site most of the day. It’s really wild.”

  “Wild how?”

  “Well, to start with, the person who put this thing together is an evil genius. From what I can tell, the site went live three days ago. When I sent myself the invitation yesterday, there were only 26 users. It’s up to 407 now. Make that 410. I’ve gotten almost sixty email invitations to join since this morning. I finally had to put a status up on my other social media accounts telling everyone I was a member and that they should send requests elsewhere. I’m guessing by tomorrow everyone from school who checked their email will be on NEED.”

  I click on the NEED Network Statistics screen.

  NETWORK MEMBERS—410

  NEEDS PENDING—398

  NEEDS FULFILLED—48

  “The almighty Jack’s already had his second request fulfilled. He told Mom that he ordered a slide board with the gift card he got from our grandmother, but I checked out the box it was delivered in after he pitched it. No label or postage. Just his name written in black block letters. I doubt Mom believes him, but of course she’d never question her team captain son.”

  “What’s a slide board?” I ask.

  “Some sort of agility workout thing. He and his football friends are trying it out in the family room now. If you need a laugh, you should come over and watch. They’re all tripping over themselves and pretending they meant to do it.”

  I type slide board into Google and hit Enter. Wow. Depending on the brand, those boards range from $250 to $500. New phones could cost just as much. NEED has shelled out a lot of money just on Jack’s requests. And his were only two of the forty-eight requests that have already been fulfilled.

  “Where’s the money coming from?” I interrupt whatever Jack-bashing story Nate is telling this time.

  “What money?”

  “The money being used to buy the slide board and all the other things people are asking for.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Because nobody gives away tons of expensive gadgets without getting something in return.” Things like this don’t happen in Disney movies, let alone real life.

  “Fair point.” I can picture Nate running a hand through his hair while he thinks things through. After a few seconds he says, “People do strange things for all kinds of reasons, you know. Maybe it’s someone who played Santa Claus at the mall this year and decided it was so much fun he didn’t want to stop. Or maybe some rich dude learned he has only two months to live and has decided to give his money away to a worthwhile cause.”

  “You call indulging Jack’s every desire worthwhile?”

  “No, but getting me a passing physics grade is. Although, now that I’m considering all the options, I realize how short-sighted my choice was.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Because you don’t think your physics teacher can be bribed by a terminally ill rich guy?”

&nb
sp; “Everyone has a price, Kaylee. You just have to be willing to push until you figure out what it is. Whoever’s behind this website knows that. But it’s occurred to me that my request can’t be fulfilled for another two and a half weeks. If I’d been more materialistic like Jack and almost everyone else, I’d already have my first order in hand and have moved on to my second. Now, thanks to the rules of the site, I have to wait until the first request is fulfilled before I can ask for anything else.”

  “By then you won’t be able to ask for anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there won’t be anyone left to invite to the network.” I click on the screen and see the member number has risen to 424. “That’s the catch. Right? You invite people on to the site and get your need fulfilled? Once everyone has joined, the whole thing will be over.”

  “I don’t think so,” Nate says. The mocking humor is gone. “Think about it. Whoever’s behind this wants all of us on the site. They set the bar low so it’s easy for the user to leap over and get their reward. That’s not going to last much longer. Now that the network is up and running, I’m guessing they’ll raise the price from a couple of emails to something more.”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  The silence stretches for what seems like forever until finally Nate says, “I don’t know, but I doubt we’ll have to wait very long to find out.”

  Gina

  THIS ROYALLY SUCKS.

  Gina shoves back her chair and scowls at the screen. How can she invite twelve friends on to this dumb site if everyone who’s eligible is already on it? And how is it that she ended up one of the last to be invited? That should never happen. She’s always the first to know about everything—parties, breakups, hookups. So, how did this happen?