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“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.
28
HOLLY
“Holly, put the plate down. You’ve done enough,” Pops scolds me, his voice gentle and low.
“I don’t mind cleaning up.”
“No. You made dinner. I’ll do the dishes. Talk to your brother.”
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been convinced that Pops is a mind reader.
I arrived at Pops’s house Saturday afternoon, still recovering from my public-bus sob-fest, and the first thing my adoptive father did was pull me into a tight hug. If I could hand out awards for the best hugs, Pops would get the blue ribbon every time.
Apparently, Marcus had already called him, so he knew what my surprise visit was about. Pops made me a strong cup of tea, and we spent the rest of the evening playing chess before ordering Chinese takeout. The familiarity of the situation calmed me. Until my sophomore year of college, I lived at home, and there were plenty of nights Pops and I filled the time with board games and greasy food.
