“Good choice.” She smiles. “And for you?”
“A Sprite and blueberry pancakes.”
“That shouldn’t be long.” She taps her pen against her notepad and goes to put our order in.
“How are you feeling?” he asks me. “I mean, it hasn’t been that long since your surgery, right?”
“No, it hasn’t been long. I feel great. Still a little sore at times, depending on what I do, but other than that it’s been smooth sailing. I can’t complain. I still have to go to the hospital a lot, but again I can’t complain. They’re making sure the kidney works and that’s all that matters. Gotta make sure I don’t end up back on dialysis. T
hat would … Well, that would suck.”
“What’s dialysis like?” he asks.
I shrug. “I was on hemo-dialysis in the beginning since I had to start immediately. I was on it for a good year, actually, while we were trying to find a living donor match. It was hard on my body. I felt sick and tired all the time. I hate feeling like I just wanted to sleep and stay in my bed all day. Plus, everybody in there is sick. I hated seeing that and not being able to do anything about it. I’m a doer. When I was little I always wanted to save any sick or injured animal I ran across. That hasn’t changed.” I pause and gather my hair into a ponytail, securing it with a band from around my wrist. Talking about this always makes me hot as my temperature rises, so getting my hair off my shoulders helps. “I finally switched to peritoneal dialysis. It’s done through a tube in your stomach at home every night. I could do it myself and I felt a lot better doing it. That’s not the case for other people. I believe you have to find the right fit for you and that’s what worked for me. It wasn’t ideal, none of it is, but it gave me a sense of normalcy again.”
“Wow,” he whispers, letting out a breath. “I never realized it was like that.”
“A lot of people don’t.”
I offer a smile to the waitress as she drops off our drinks.
I rip off the paper from around the straw and dunk the straw in my drink.
“And what about transplant? What’s that like?”
I sigh heavily. “Exhausting. Mentally and emotionally exhausting. The doctors and hospitals are great, they are, but the process is slow. When we were doing living donor workups it was taking months and then eventually everyone got weeded out. And I … I didn’t want to keep feeling like I was begging, you know? It’s a big deal to ask someone for an organ, and I was beginning to feel like a broken record, I resigned myself to the fact that I was just going to have to wait for someone to die. Which wasn’t easy either, to come to terms with the fact that I was waiting for someone to die so I had the gift of living. Do you know that one person donating their organs when they die can save around eight lives? Maybe even more? It’s a beautiful thing, but a lot of people freak out when you bring up the topic of organ donation, but wouldn’t you rather save lives?”
“We donated my brother’s organs,” he says softly.
I gasp, for a moment I forgot where I suspect my kidney came from.
“We thought if … if T.J. had to die, others should get to live. We didn’t want his death to be in vain. We wanted something good to come out of it.”
My heart clenches and my throat closes up with the threat of tears.
Maybe he won’t be mad. Maybe … maybe he’ll be grateful you got his brother’s kidney.
I’m saved from saying anything by the arrival of our food. Pancakes stacked five high rest on each plate.
“Enjoy, guys.”
I drench my pancakes in syrup and for a brief second my heart stops in panic that I don’t have my binders to take with my food, but then just as quickly I realize I don’t need them anymore.
“I think that’s … beautiful,” I tell him finally.
He gives a small smile but there’s sadness in his eyes. I hate that his brother is gone, and I hate that I might finally be able to live because of it.
I decide to change the subject in the hopes of getting the sadness out of his pretty blue-green eyes.
“Do you think you could teach me to surf?”
He chews and swallows a bite. “Of course.”
“Even if I’m really—like I mean, really—bad?”
He chuckles. “Even if you’re the worst I think I can handle it.”
We smile at each other and warmth spears my body. I love spending time with him. A few short days and I’m becoming addicted to it—to being around someone who I can be myself with, who gets it, who’s incredibly easy to talk to.