Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 74379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 372(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
“Thank fucking Christ you finally admitted it,” Travis muttered. “It’s about fucking time.”
I looked over at my brother, surprised to see not just him, but my entire fucking family, standing there.
“What?” he asked.
That was when Baylor, my other brother, entered the conversation.
“Takes her almost dying for you to say something,” Baylor muttered.
“Y’all…” Baylor’s new woman, Lark, said. “This is not the time.”
No, it wasn’t.
I turned toward the doc. “Tell me what we need to do.”
“Insurance…”
I waved that off. “I don’t care. I don’t care who gets billed for it. Yes, I have an emotional attachment to the patient. No, I don’t care if it’s going to be a problem. Just get it done.”
“Get ‘er dun!” Travis teased.
“Umm,” the transplant specialist said to the family members in the room. “Would you mind waiting outside? We have some things to discuss.”
I flipped Travis off discreetly as he left, no longer in the same state of mind that I’d been in earlier thanks to knowing that I wouldn’t have to watch the love of my life die.
He started to laugh and went back outside, waiting for me to come out and let everyone know what was going on.
“Tell me what I need to know.”
***
Krisney
"Don't do this."
My eyes fluttered open, and I struggled to keep them open as I looked around the room.
"Give me one good reason, Mom."
A flutter of happiness flitted through me.
That was Reed's voice. It didn't matter where I was, or what I was feeling. The man's voice always made me happy.
Always.
Sad, hungry. Dying.
It didn't matter. The man had a way about him.
"You could die," Reed's mother snapped.
Silence followed that proclamation.
"If I don't do this, she'll die.” He paused. "I don't think I could survive her death, Mom,” he growled in frustration. “I could die crossing the street on the way to get coffee in ten minutes. Tomorrow, I could not wake up, having passed away in my sleep. I know better than anyone that life isn’t always promised. I have to do it. I have to save her, even if that means giving her everything I have to give.”
Something terrible started to churn in my belly.
What were they talking about?
"A hepatectomy is a big deal, Reed. This isn't just a surgery that you get up and walk away from. And we aren’t even mentioning the probability of a kidney transplant, also.
“Not to mention the potential bleeding problems you could suffer once you've gone through with the surgery,” she continued. "And honestly, you have two children now. It's time to stop thinking with your heart and using your brain. They need you."
Children? What?
And then it all came back to me in one huge blow straight to my heart.
I'd gone into labor. But the labor hadn't been normal. Everything had been wrong. The doctors couldn't get my contractions to stop. My liver and kidneys were failing. And I'd had to deliver our babies eight weeks early.
Oh, and I was dying.
My head moved, and I found him.
Reed was sitting at the end of my bed, pouring through a chart. His eyes were scanning the pages like only a doctor would. A doctor that was trying desperately to save a patient. He was searching for something that he wasn't going to find.
"Mom..."
"You haven't even seen them!” He hadn't?
"You haven't gone to see them?"
Reed and his mother's heads snapped toward me.
Reed was on his feet moments later.
"I haven't."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to see them without you. I want you with me when we see them for the first time. I don't want to experience that alone."
"Reed..."
"You're getting a new kidney, and part of a liver."
"Whose?"
If I remembered correctly, my prognosis wasn't good. And they wouldn't even put me on the donors list.
So, if I was getting a liver...it had to be from someone I knew.
Reed.
"Reed, no," I whispered. "You can't."
"It's not that I don't want you to live."
My eyes moved to his mother.
"What?"
"I have never blamed you."
Tears started to form in my eyes.
"I don't want him to do this, either." I swallowed. My voice sounded so weak, and it was scary.
"I love him more than life, but I would never be okay with this. And you're right. He has someone—two someones—to live for now."
She smiled at me sadly.
"You'll always come first to him.” She looked down at her hands. "He’ll do anything to make you happy. Even going to see his babies that he refused to see because he wanted to experience that with you."
I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
"I'm going to die."
Her eyes sliced to mine. "Then you'll take him with you."
I looked away. It was the hardest thing to do in my life.
"You never saw him like I saw him after he broke up with you. But he's never been the same since. He loves you. Has never stopped loving you." I heard the tears in her voice. "That day irrevocably changed so many lives. My daughter's. Your brother's. Yours. Reed's." She cleared her throat.