The Donor (13 page)

Me:
I miss you guys.

Mom:
Good to hear, sweetie. Can't wait to see you!

Jonah walked back into the room then. He was wearing dark grey pajama pants and nothing else, drying his hair with a towel. “Hi,” he said, smiling like I was the thing in his universe that made him happiest.

I set my phone down on the nightstand. “Hi,” I said.

He sat down next to me and tossed the towel onto the end of the bed. I hugged him and he wrapped his arms around me, kissing my forehead. “Are you hungry?”

I nodded against him. “No wine.”

Jonah laughed. “Not even a little?”

I snorted. “You want to clean up puke again?”

He kissed me, this time on the mouth. I kissed him back and it lasted longer than we probably intended, but when he pulled away I found myself feeling abandoned. Alone and cold. I wrapped the sheet around myself. “You get dressed and I'll make us something,” he said, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “No wine. I promise.”

I threw a pillow at him and he caught it, tossing it onto the floor with the other discarded blankets.

After I had showered and changed into my last pair of clean clothes—plain jeans and a long sleeved navy top—I headed downstairs. The two weeks’ worth I packed had stretched a week and a half more, and I was oddly thankful about it. Jonah had managed to throw a white T-shirt on and was leaning over the stove cooking something that smelled like chicken noodle soup, but it didn’t hold the salty smell the stuff from the can usually gave off. There were two candles lit on the table and the ceiling lights were dimmer than usual. When he realized I was in the room, Jonah smiled over his shoulder at me. “Sit down,” he said.

I sat so I could watch him. He took two bowls from the cabinet and spooned the food into them. He set down two glasses of water and then the soup on the table.

“Is this a
date
?” I asked, joking.

Jonah sat down across from me. “No,” he said sarcastically. “Never. Whatever gave you that idea?”

I pointed to the candles.

“These?” he asked. “These are not date candles. These are wax candles.”

“What's the difference?”

“Date candles are red and smell like roses. Wax candles are white and scentless, like these ones.”

I smiled, unable to contain it even though his joking was cheesy at best. “Good to know,” I said. “In case anyone else tries to light candles when I'm around.”

“Every woman should know the difference.”

We smiled at each other before we began eating in silence.

“But wax candles,” he said, just when I thought the joke had died. “Can be used for
I'll miss you
dinners.”

I looked up from my food, unable to say anything. When I looked into his eyes, he was sad, but smiling. Like he wasn't sure which emotion to show me.

I reached my hand across the table at the exact moment he did. I wanted to say so many things. That I would miss him too. That I didn't want to leave. That even though I knew it was hopeless and I had to go home that I was afraid of what my life would be like without him. I looked up at him and all of those things were already written in his expression.

So we didn't say anything, we just held hands and stared across the table for a long time.

***

We make it to the aquarium in about an hour's time. It’s late, but they’re open until eleven tonight, so we’re lucky. There are a few children running through the lobby, making excited sounds as they scatter in different directions. A replica of Megladon hangs above our heads, the plaster bones too white to look like they’ve been dug up.

“Wow,” Jonah says. “I'm already impressed.” He takes my hand and asks, “What should we see first?”

I immediately lead him to the tunnel of sharks. A small group of kids are already there, shouting when one swims over their heads. The rippling of the blue water illuminates Jonah's face as he watches the fish swim by.

“Everyone likes this one the best,” I say. Another shark, this one bigger than the last, swims close to the glass. Excited shouts from a little girl echoes around us. Jonah presses his hand to the glass. I watch him study the life beyond the barrier, lost in thoughts I can only guess.

I tug gently on his hand and he looks at me like I’ve woken him from a deep sleep. “Come on,” I say. “I want to show you my favorite part.”

He trails after me around the corner where I know the octopus won't be. Instead, there’s a tank of seahorses. “Dolly used to live here,” I blurt.

Jonah cocks his head to the side as we stop in front of the tank. “Dolly?”

I snort as I fight the urge to cover my face. “She was an octopus,” I explain. “She was my favorite thing before she was replaced.”

Jonah stares into the water as two yellow seahorses float past. “I wonder why they replaced her,” he says to himself.

I shrug. “Octopi don't live that long.”

“Neither do seahorses.”

I don't have a response for that. We just watch the fish in silence. He kisses me on the forehead, squeezing my hand.

“Are you any less scared?” I ask after a while.

He finally faces me. “No.”

“Me either.”

Jonah smiles. “It was nice to prolong it, though. For a little while.”

I fight the urge to cry. I know if I start, I won't stop. “Thank you,” I say.

He raises his eyebrows. “For what?” he asks. “If anything, I've made your life more complicated.”

I shake my head emphatically. “You gave me purpose.” As I say it I believe it more. “I'm not just a waste of time,” I say. “I'm not just a life ticking by anymore.”

Staring down at our hands intertwined, Jonah rubs my palm with this thumb.

His silence scares me. Like I had made everything too real again and ruined the slight reprieve we had given ourselves. “What is it?” I ask.

He smiles slightly. “You act like you haven't done the same for me,” he says quietly. “That I wasn't just waiting for the end of Myra's life before you came along.”

Unshed tears choke my voice.

“You can't imagine all of the things you've given me,” he says, finally bringing me close in the dimly lit room. “You've given me life. I can breathe again.”

I shake my head under his. There’s no way I had such an effect.

He kisses me then, full on the lips. When we finally pull away from each other, my vision blurs. But only for a moment.

“Let's get back to life, I guess.”

He nods. “I couldn't agree more.”

***

We sat down in the living room after dinner, it being our routine as of late. I watched the tank across from us and Jonah placed a hand on my shoulder, pulling me into him. I rested my head against his chest as he smoothed my hair behind my ear. “Thank you,” I whispered. “For everything.”

His hand rested on the nape of my neck. “Don't,” he said. “Don't thank me for anything.”

I turned so I could look at him. “Why?”

He swallowed. “Because you sound like you're saying goodbye and I don't like it.” Jonah's voice was strained when the words came out and my throat felt like it would close up completely.

“Okay,” I whispered. “No thank you’s.”

He smiled.

The striped fish swam up to the glass and bumped its nose against it a few times before choosing a different direction.

“What will we do now?” I asked after a while.

Jonah stroked my hair as he thought, or maybe he just didn't want to answer and was stalling. “I have to contact Myra.”

My heart pounded at her name. I didn't even know her and she made me uneasy. She was the symbol for the end of my life, and I wasn't ready to make her real yet. I cleared my throat. “Do you know where she is?” I asked, looking up at him.

He held my hand in his lap, stroking my thumb with his. A small smirk formed in the corner of his mouth. “Los Angeles,” he said softly.

I snorted. I couldn't help it. Of course she lived there. It was one more reason Jonah had chosen me as his match—Myra's match. It couldn’t be more perfect.

“All of her doctors are there,” he said, adding more reasons to my mental list.

“Of course,” I said, my voice hollow. I wasn't upset, just tired. Too many things had happened so quickly in such a small amount of time. My head was finally beginning to spin with all of it.

“I have to find her and tell her the news.”

I paused for a long time. “She knows about you?” I asked. “Have you talked to her at all since your ex-wife told you to leave?”

He sighed and that was enough of an answer. He sounded tired too. “Nope,” he said without humor. “So this is going to be interesting, to say the least.”

I should have been hurt. Or angry. Something other than just going along with all of this. I should have been telling Jonah off for luring me here and having a plan to get me back to California from the beginning, but I wasn't. All in all, my time was almost up. I wouldn't be using my lungs and he needed them. It was simple and it was easy. When I didn't add any emotion to it, it was like a business transaction and nothing more.

“Why don't you live in California if she's there?” I asked. “It would have been a lot easier for you.”

Jonah's fingers trailed up and down my back, causing tiny goose bumps to form where ever his cool hand touched. “We lived here before everything,” he said. “Not in this house, of course. But here, in Boston.”

“You didn't want to leave?”

He shook his head. “I guess you could say I've been kind of stuck here. Pretending I can make things go back to the way they were.” Jonah blinked a few times, staring off into the distance like he was reliving everything that had brought him to this point.

I cupped his face in my hand and turned it so he was looking at me. “Time,” I whispered. “Doesn't stop for anyone. Not me or you or her.”

He nodded once.

“You can't stand still, either.”

The life returned to his eyes then, like I had awoken something deep within him. He nodded again. I kissed him and he kissed me back.

“I'll book our flights tomorrow,” he said. “Okay?”

My lips left his for a second so I could agree, but other than that, we didn't speak.

***

We’re quiet on the ride back from the aquarium. There’s nothing to say, really. And everything. But it’s easier to stay quiet. There isn't enough time to talk about everything that we both feel. There never would be. But that’s okay. We don't have to.

We hold hands as we walk up the driveway to my house. We kiss one last time before he opens the door for me.

We would act like a couple. We would talk and he and my parents would get to know each other more. Then he would leave. He would see Myra, tell her the good news. I would tell my parents the bad.

Then we would deal with what came next.

We could go back to the aquarium again, maybe. If there was time. We could watch the fish swim past our faces in their safe little tanks. We could imagine what it would be like if I wasn't dying, if his daughter wasn't dying, either. We could pretend we were only walking through a tunnel and on the other side everything would be okay. The darkness would fade away and we'd be able to see each other again.

That's what I want as the clock ticked above our dining room table. It's what I want as I watch him drive away.

And as I close the door and faced my parents, I think of nothing else but the seahorse at Jonah's house, alone in its tank.

I wonder it’s still alive.

The End

Afterword

I’ve never done anything like this before in a book, but I thought it was important to write something after this particular story.

The Donor began, like so many of my other pieces, while I was trying to do something else. I was going to college, sleep deprived, stressed out, and I had workshop the next day. I was in a 9AM Spanish class, supposed to be conjugating verbs when this snippet popped into my head:
There are worse ways to make money. And I remember thinking, were there?

Then the very first scene of Jonah and Casey meeting in the airport began to unfold. I realized right away that something was odd about their relationship; I just had to keep writing to find out what it was. This is probably one of the reasons the story is told in past and present sections. I wanted the reader to feel like they were always uncovering something--the way I did while writing it.

This was only supposed to be a twenty page short story. Something I handed in for workshop last minute that I would never touch again. But, like so many other things that pop out of my subconscious, this story became something more. It stretched and grew and took on a life beyond a short story.

I’ve always written for a few core reasons:

1. I have to. I feel weird if I don’t.

2. Something bad happens to me, a friend, in the world, etc. and I don’t know how to deal with it.

3. To understand something I never would have otherwise.

The Donor definitely falls into all three categories, but I found myself slipping into number three on most days. This was something I struggled to write for many reasons. Usually, these are the stories I’m most proud of. Not only because I can look back and see how much I learned or appreciate the hard work I put into it, but because oftentimes, the things that are hard for me to write are difficult because they come from a place of confusion, fear, or darkness. These are things I don’t often think about, let alone want to stick with for the six months or so it takes me to write a draft.

But it was important for me to write this story because I had questions I needed to answer. These were things I couldn’t ask anyone, things that I had to find within myself, and pull out piece by piece.

Cancer is something that touches everyone on some level. It is one subject I’ve always wanted to write about, but every time I started something, I found myself choking on the details, unable to form them into words, incapable of dealing with such a tough subject, one that was so personal to me.

When I was fifteen, my stepfather died of cancer. He was a huge part of my life and it scared me that in a few months’ time, everything in our lives changed. Cancer is something
I’ve
always tried to write about but couldn’t. It was always too painful or dug up too much. I wish I knew what it was about The Donor that kept me going, despite how hard it was to write at times.

Disease in general is hard to deal with for the people who are experiencing it directly, but I was only a bystander. I could not fathom the decisions that were made or how quickly things could change from day to day.

Although this is a paranormal romance story, it was important to me to capture what cancer is like realistically--to understand from a first person perspective how it works, how it causes everything to change.

I wanted this to be a story of time. Time for Casey and Jonah, you and I. Life is measured in time. Days, months, years. When you have a limited amount of these things, it becomes even more measured and calculated. Time is something that can’t be manipulated. When you have a clock set on your life, you can’t stretch the minutes, you can’t turn days into months. You can’t beg your loved ones to stay when they have no choice but to go.

For Casey, time is of the essence. She needs to make money fast. However, she also needs purpose. She’s given a horrible diagnosis at an age where everyone else is just starting their lives. Suddenly, she is forced to stand still. The same can be said for Jonah. He’s been standing still for a long time, and he finds Casey to be the thing that moves him forward. Their relationship isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t have a typical happy ending, but that’s not how their lives were set out to be.

They try to stretch time in their own ways, Casey trying to ignore the situation completely while Jonah places all of the care he can’t provide his daughter with into his seahorses and Casey. Their story is no doubt a sad one, but I also believe that there is hope, in the shortest of time, in the darkest of places
.
These two characters are forced to make decisions they would not otherwise make, live in ways they would hesitate to live, change their minds on the turn of a dime, because the minutes are counting down. There is no time for hesitating, debating, or worrying about what may come tomorrow. They get to have their own small life together, and happily take comfort in each other for a short time.

They may not have a happy ending, like so many others who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses, yet I think, as bystanders or outsiders, we tend to give these people little to no hope for a future because theirs is so limited.

When my stepdad was sick, for example, he lived his life the same way he always had. Work seven days a week, smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, go to chemo, quit chemo, go fishing on the weekends. At first, I was so angry that he wouldn’t just admit that he was unwell. He didn’t act like a sick guy. He should have been sleeping or in the hospital or getting his affairs in order. Instead, he was making me grilled cheese when I broke my knee, driving me to my school dance, making small talk with me about music and TV.

It took me a long time to understand that this was his time to do what he wanted. Some people wait their whole lives to push for what they really want because they think they can accomplish it sooner or later. My stepdad wasn’t one of those people who had big dreams. He just liked what he liked, and he liked his family. I think to him, he was using his time wisely.

So the question is, did I clear up my confusion about this illness? Did I learn anything new in pushing myself through this story? Yes. Of course. You wouldn’t be reading it if I hadn’t. I also believe that I still have more to learn, more to heal and grow in writing this little novella.

But more than that, I want you, dear reader, to take away something from this story that you didn’t have before. It can be something small, some tiny piece of Casey or Jonah that you liked, some sliver of hope that their story goes on.

Or it can be what I took away: There is no future. You are already there. Work towards your goal every day, and do what makes your time well spent.

My step father has been gone for more than ten years, but I miss him every day. I can still hear his laugh, still smell him. I’ve healed a lot since his death, but there will always be small puncture wounds left in me that will never fully disappear. This story, in its own small way, helped heal some of them. I hope it can do the same for you.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for being here.

Now spend your time wisely.