She Died Too Young (13 page)

“W
AIT
, D
J!”
K
ATIE
called out, but DJ jerked away from her and took off down the hall. She spun toward Josh. “Please go after him. I have to go to Chelsea. I should be with her in case she goes into surgery.”

“Go on. I’ll hook up with you later.”

She watched Josh head down the hall in the direction DJ had gone, then loped toward the elevators, grateful once again for Josh’s presence. She shoved away the feelings of guilt and separateness she’d experienced minutes before. No time to sort things out now, she told herself. She stabbed the elevator button, but when a car didn’t arrive, she went to the stairwell and jogged up six flights of stairs to the Cardiac ICU.

Once on the floor, she caught sight of a clock.
She’d known about the possibility of transplantation for hours—hours that had seemed to pass like minutes. Time was the critical factor. Surely, the organs had arrived by now.

Suddenly, she was struck by another thought. How many others had been paged? Dr. Dawson had said they could save three people if the decision was made to transplant the heart and both lungs separately. What if there was someone more critical or more compatible than Chelsea? What if Chelsea didn’t get the heart either? Hadn’t Dr. Dawson told her Chelsea was stabilized? That might mean more waiting for yet another donor.

Katie went to the ICU waiting room, but it was empty. She rang the buzzer in order to be admitted into the unit. A nurse answered through a speakerphone. “May I help you?”

“I want to know how Chelsea James is doing.”

“She’s been taken out of here.”

Katie felt a wave of panic. “Where?”

“Ask the nurse at the main duty desk,” the voice said from the small box.

Katie hurried to the nurses’ station. A nurse looked up from a pile of paperwork, and Katie introduced herself. “Your family’s been looking for you,” the woman said.

“Where are they? And where’s my friend, Chelsea James?”

“They’ve taken her down to the surgical floor. She’s going to have a transplant.”

Tears—part from relief, part from exhaustion—
welled in Katie’s eyes. “All her tests checked out then?”

“Yes, according to the head surgeon. The helicopter arrived at the roof landing pad fifteen minutes ago. We’ve got three operating rooms going at once. Three recipients are being prepped for surgery. It’s one of our biggest transplantation efforts to date.” The nurse looked pleased.

Katie didn’t wait for more discussion. She ran back to the stairwell and down the two flights of stairs to the surgical floor. In the surgical waiting room, which was made up of several small cubicles so that families could have absolute privacy, she found her parents and Chelsea’s. “Katie.” Her mother looked relieved when she came into the room. “Thank heaven you’re here. They’ve just taken Chelsea in.”

Katie’s heart sank. She wouldn’t be able to see her friend before the surgery. “I tried to get back sooner.”

“She wanted to see you before she went under the anesthesia,” Mrs. lames said, twisting a wad of tissue in her hands. Her face looked anxious and full of dread. “She’s so frightened. My little girl—”

“I told her you’d gone to visit with Jillian,” Katie’s mother said. “She’d seemed all right about it. She said Jillian needed you more now anyway. Any word on her transplant? Chelsea told us she was in line too.”

“Mom, Jillian won’t be getting a transplant. At least not at this time.” Katie didn’t add the information about the antibody test or that it was
Chelsea who’d bumped Jillian from her place on the list.

“I’m sorry. I know how her family feels.”

Katie’s dad patted the cushion between himself and Chelsea’s father. “Sit down, honey. You look ready to fall over, and this surgery takes at least four hours.”

Four hours!
Katie didn’t feel as if she could make it through four minutes in the small room. “I need to go find Josh and tell him what’s going on. I’ll be back soon.”

She didn’t wait for a response, but left the room quickly. Once in the corridor, she wasn’t sure where to begin looking. She went down to the main lobby, which now bustled with visitors, medical personnel, and staff. Suddenly, exhaustion overcame her. She sagged against a wall and might have sunk to the floor if an arm hadn’t slipped around her waist and held her upright. Startled, she turned and faced her benefactor.

“Garrison! What are you doing here?”

“There’s a chapel down the hall,” he said. “It’s quiet, and we can talk.”

She started to protest, but didn’t have the energy. He led her to a room carpeted in blue and softly lit with pale yellow light. A Christmas tree stood just outside the doorway, and with a jolt, she realized that Christmas was coming. She’d lost her sense of time. Of seasons. Only the night before, she’d been at Garrison’s party.

The chapel was empty, and she heard classical
music playing in the background. “Sit with me,” Garrison urged.

She slid into a pew and bent forward, resting her forehead against the back of the pew in front and trying to regain her composure. He massaged the muscles in her neck. “Please, don’t,” she told him.

“Katie, talk to me.”

She sat upright and twisted sideways on the cushioned bench until she was looking at him full in the face. “Why are you here?” she asked again.

“Looking for you.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I’ve been calling your house since eight o’clock this morning. I drove over about nine-thirty, and your neighbor said he saw all of you leave in the middle of the night. I remembered your sick live-in friend and figured something must have gone wrong. I just decided to try finding you in the waiting room at the hospital.”

“Chelsea had a heart attack. Once she was here, a possible donor became available. She was a match, and she’s up in surgery now.” Katie glanced around through bleary eyes, wondering what time it was. She couldn’t seem to keep track of time this day. “I should get back.”

“Not till we talk,” Garrison told her.

“I’m all talked out,” she replied with a sigh. “So much is going on….” She had no history with Garrison the way she did with Josh, as Lacey had reminded her. Garrison didn’t know about Jillian. He knew nothing about that part of her life. To
Garrison, she was an English project partner. A girl he’d invited to his party. A girl he’d kissed. She averted her eyes, remembering how she’d responded to his lips.

“I’m not going to go away, Katie. Not after last night.”

She was tired, but not too tired to catch the deeper meaning of his words. He wasn’t going to get out of her life simply because she couldn’t cope with him in it. “Garrison, I honestly can’t deal with you right now.”

He smiled and tugged his fingers through her long, black hair. “I won’t pressure you. I only want to remind you that once all this is over, you still have a life of your own.”

“Do I?” For so long, her “life” had consisted of hospitals and sickness and dying friends.

“Aren’t you going to run track in the spring?”

“I’m in training—”

“And how about a track scholarship to college? You told me you wanted one. Do you still?”

Katie shook her head to clear it. How long had it been since she’d thought about those dreams? She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know what I want, Garrison. I just don’t know.” Her sentence held a double meaning.

“No rush,” he said, standing and pulling her to her feet. He held both her hands and looked down into her upturned face. For an unguarded moment, she felt naked and vulnerable. “When this is over,” Garrison said, staring into her eyes, “and it
will
be over, I’ll be in touch.”

She didn’t doubt him for a minute. “I love Josh,” she said stubbornly.

He gave her one of his heart-melting smiles. “Loyalty is your strong suit, Katie. That’s one of the things I like about you.” He brushed the tips of her fingers with his mouth, sending a shiver up her spine. “Go check on your friend. I’ll call you later.”

She watched him walk out of the chapel, and once she was certain he was long gone, she left too. She was halfway to the elevators when she saw Josh. He stood by the gift shop doorway, watching her cross the lobby. Most certainly, he’d seen Garrison leave also.

“Chelsea’s up on the surgical floor,” she said as she came to him.

“I’ll go up with you.”

Katie braced for a fight, a barrage of questions about Garrison. Mercifully, none came. “How’s DJ?” she asked.

“Mad. Mad at the doctors, the world, the universe. We talked, but I don’t think I helped him much.”

“Thanks for trying.”

They stepped inside the elevator. The car was crowded, crammed with people on their way to visit sick friends and relatives. “How’s Garrison?” Josh asked.

Katie stiffened. “Please—not now.” Several people glanced curiously at her and Josh. She ignored them, shoved in more tightly so that her shoulder
was pressed against Josh’s. They stood that way, shoulder to shoulder, all the way up to the fourth floor, but they couldn’t have been farther apart if they’d been standing on opposite ends of a gymnasium.

T
HE FIRST SENSATION
Chelsea experienced when she awoke for the second time was excruciating pain. In the recovery room, she had wanted to tell her doctor to let her die, that it hurt too much to wake up, but there had been a tube down her throat, and she couldn’t speak. Now, at least, the tube was gone. But not the pain.

“Wake up, Chelsea.” The voice called to her from somewhere above her head. “It’s me—Katie. I only have five minutes, so wake up.”

Chelsea forced her eyes open. When she could focus, all she saw was Katie’s blue eyes above a green mask. Katie’s hair was covered with a green paper cap, and she was wrapped in a green paper gown. “Your outfit’s tacky,” Chelsea managed to
say. Her throat felt raw and scratchy, her voice sounded hoarse.

Katie’s eyes crinkled, so Chelsea knew she was smiling. “You made it,” Katie whispered. “You came through. You did even better than me.”

Somehow, that notion pleased Chelsea immensely. “I feel awful.”

“But you’re
alive.”

“How long?”

“Until you wrinkle with old age.”

Chelsea could vaguely recall her parents’ faces. They must have visited her too. “I want out of here.”

“They’ll move you to your own room tomorrow. Then we can visit longer.”

“I hurt so bad.” Tears of pain pooled in the corners of Chelsea’s eyes.

“I know. Have you seen your hands?” Chelsea felt Katie lift her hand off the bed and bring it closer to her face. “See,” Katie said.

Chelsea worked hard to refocus. She saw her own fingertips in Katie’s hand, the nailbeds bright and pink. “Did they paint them?”

Katie giggled beneath her mask. “No, silly. That’s oxygenated blood pumped from your new heart all the way to the tips of your fingers. Your toes too.”

With wonderment, Chelsea stared. She’d never seen her nails glow pink. Other sensations began to pour through her. The pain, yes, but a deep underlying feeling of coursing blood and a pumping heart. “I’m alive, Katie,” she whispered.

“You sure are.”

A cloud passed over her memory. “Jillian?”

“She’s still in the hospital, and she sends her love. I’m the messenger. Got anything for her?”

“Tell her she’s next. And it’s worth it.”

Katie’s expressive eyes clouded momentarily. “She knows. She’s waiting. Now, go back to sleep and heal quickly. So you can go tell her yourself.”

Chelsea’s eyelids slid closed, but the last thing she heard was the heart monitor beeping loud and strong and in perfect rhythm to the thumping of her perfect heart.

Chelsea continued to recover quickly. She tolerated the new heart amazingly well and adapted easily to the regime of antirejection medications. Dr. Dawson fairly crowed whenever he checked her over. She was transferred to her own room and was up walking three days after the surgery. Although in isolation, she was able to see her parents and Katie for longer periods at a time.

On the sixth day after the surgery, Lacey called. “Got time for an old friend?”

“Oh, Lacey! I feel so good. Sore and achy still, but wonderful anyway. I wish you were here.”

“I’d love to see you too, but you know how it is—two days before Christmas, and what with my social calendar and all …”

“Don’t do too much partying.”

“There is no such thing.”

Chelsea wanted to lecture Lacey about taking care of herself, but knew she’d ignore her. “So, I
guess we’re on for certain this summer with a return to Jenny House.”

“I never doubted that you’d come through,” Lacey said breezily.

“It was easier to go through the surgery than face your yelling at me,” Chelsea joked.

“Smart choice.”

“How’s your home life?”

“No change.” The line went silent, and for a minute, Chelsea wasn’t positive Lacey was still on it. But her voice came through with a change of subject. “I sent your Christmas present to Katie’s. You can open it when you go home.”

“Gee, I completely missed out on shopping this year.”