Everything That Makes You(21)

       

He dropped her hand and cast an angry look out the window. "I just want  to be normal. I want to be eighteen. And then nineteen and twenty-five  and forty and eighty, just like everybody else."

"But you're not." Fi knew it wasn't what she should say, but she said it anyway.

"I was until you found out."

"Lying to me doesn't make it go away!"

"I don't need you to point that out, Fi," he snapped. "I know I can't go  up a flight of stairs without getting light-headed. That I can't go  four hours without a nap. I'm not trying to hide from it. I just want to  live outside of it sometimes."

"Everything was fake then. We're not even real."

"Yes we are!" he shouted, sitting up quickly. The machines began a furious round of pinging.

"Marcus, stop! Lay back down!"

He collapsed back, breathing heavy. Her hands still shook, but she grabbed his. They were frighteningly cold.

"I don't want you to die," she said, crying.

"I'm not going to die," he said.

"Do you promise?"

With a small smile, he nodded.

"What has to happen?" she asked.

"Well, we're still trying to figure that out. I'm on medication now. But a new heart would help."

"Is that hard to get? A heart?"

"I'm O negative, which makes it a little harder. But I'm on the list."

They stared at each other a little bit after that, Fi perched on the  edge of her chair; Marcus reclined on the semi-upright bed. Their hands  stayed clenched together in Marcus's lap.

"I'm so mad at you," she said.

"I know," he said. "I'll make it up to you. I promise."

"Don't die. That'll make it up to me."

"I'm not going to die," he said again.

"So what do we do now?"

"Wait, pretty much."

"Well, how long can you, you know, wait?"

His fingers still tracing lazy patterns against the back of her hand, he said, "Don't worry. It'll be fine."

But that wasn't really an answer.





MAY


FIONA


Mrs. Doyle peeked her head into Fiona's room. "Almost packed?"

Pretending like this wasn't the biggest, scariest thing she'd ever done,  Fiona calmly gestured to the clothes on the bed-sweatpants and some  button-down shirts she stole from Ryan. "I think so. I won't need much,  right?"

Her mother looked at the piles on the bed. "You'll be in a hospital gown  most of the time. Underwear. Socks. The button-downs are a good idea."  She looked at Fiona's desk. "Do you have anything to read?"

Fiona tossed a few books and a Moleskine into the bag, folding the  clothes on top. She looked over at her guitar resting in the corner. She  felt like a mother abandoning a child. "Yeah, but I probably won't get  the chance. It sounds like the bandage will be pretty big."

Perching on the end of the bed, her mom patted the space beside her.  Fiona eyed her warily but sat. "We don't have much time, Mom. They want  me there in an hour."

"I know. I just wanted to talk a minute."

Fiona stiffened. "Okay. What about?"

After a long, slow exhale, her mother spoke to the wall across the room.  "You don't have to do this, you know. You can change your mind."

Fiona looked at her mother. "What? I thought you wanted-"

"What I want doesn't matter. What do you want?"

"I want this."

"It's a major procedure, Fiona. It could be great, but there's always a risk."

"I know that."

Her mom nodded slowly. "You have great instincts, you know. Not many  kids your age have that." She laughed a little. "Not many adults have  that."

Fiona stared hard at her mother, looking for signs of illness, head trauma, alien abduction. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just worried. My little girl is going into surgery."

Fiona shook her head, confused. "It's the miracle cure you've always wanted. I'm getting fixed."

Her mom gave her a weird, sideways look. "When did you get so brave?"

Brave? The girl who sat mute in the coffee shop? "Mom, we don't have a lot of time."

Being a scarred girl with a beautiful mother pretty much sucked. It  happened all the time-teachers, other kids at school, even her mom's own  friends would tell Fiona things like "She couldn't be old enough to be  your mother," or "Your mom's so pretty." And then the complimenter would  look suddenly mortified, like Oh no, I've called attention to this poor  girl's unfortunate condition.                       
       
           



       

So Fiona dressed like a boy and wore her hair in her face, like she  couldn't have cared less about the "beauty" thing. Even though deep,  deep down, she did care. She carried around her vanity like a secret,  shameful addiction.

Now some twisted form of fate offered a new option-with conditions.

One: acknowledge her secret vanity. Two: sacrifice part of herself.

And she said yes.

Then she spent months of waiting for-she was horrible-someone to just go ahead and die already.

Now, hours before she was going to do this thing that took twelve years  to happen, her mother was, once again, making the fight impossible to  win.

"I still want to do it," Fiona said.

"All right." Her mother kissed her forehead and stood up. "The timing  really couldn't be better, could it? Two days after graduation, with the  whole summer to heal?"

"Yeah." Very thoughtful of this person to die so conveniently.

"Don't forget your toothbrush," her mom said. "Meet you downstairs in five minutes."

The next three hours, Fiona sat in no less than seven deceptively hard  upholstered chairs and answered the same questions over and over  again-Nothing to eat since breakfast. No prescription drugs. No other  history of illness. Her hand ached from signing all the forms. She  nodded as doctors went through the organ transplant rules again and  again. She got her blood pressure taken at least three times and smiled  falsely at all the nurses who smiled genuinely at her.

She was trapped in a cycle of administrative hell when all she wanted was to move forward already.

Finally, doctor number three gave Fiona the all clear to go back for  prep. An enormous male nurse, hunched slightly to reach the handlebars  of the wheelchair in front of him, told Fiona to "Saddle up and bring  your posse with you."

Looking gray, her father picked up her bags while her mother gathered  all the forms together into neat piles. Ryan stood statue-still, a deer  in the headlights.

Craning her neck up to the ginormous smiling nurse behind her, Fiona asked, "What do they do back in prep?"

"You'll get changed, we'll sterilize the area, start fluids in the IV for anesthesia-"

Fiona looked at Ryan. "You can wait in the room. It's okay."

Ryan tried-and failed-to look calm. "Don't be stupid. Of course I'm coming."

"Ryan-"

He held up a hand. "I should be there. I need to be there."

"Why? To watch me get poked with needles?"

Ryan wobbled and leaned against the wall. The enormous nurse took a few  steps toward him, hands held up like he might need to catch Ryan at any  moment.

Fiona shook her head. "Lord, you're pathetic. You don't have to come."

"No. It's okay, I'll come."

Their mom took over, loading all the bags-Fiona's suitcase, a tote bag  of magazines and books, her own overnight bag-into Ryan's arms. "The  point is moot, Ryan. I need you to handle all these. Take everything to  Fiona's room and stay there until we come."

"But-"

Mrs. Doyle snapped, "I can't manage everything, Ryan. Just do it, please."

With loaded arms, Ryan walked over to Fiona and kissed the top of her head. "See you soon. Good luck."

Then the giant nurse took charge, pushing Fiona from the room and  leaving the pack-muled Ryan behind. Her parents followed, the lot of  them heading down a cold, white hallway. Buzzing overhead fluorescent  lights provided background music for the world's smallest, most  stressed-out parade.

She looked over her shoulder to her mother. "Thanks for sparing Ryan."

Mrs. Doyle winked her right eye. Fiona wondered if a few weeks from now, she'd be able to do that, too.

Prep took a long time. Fiona answered the same questions, this time in a  hospital gown and from a bed. Nurses swabbed her face at least four  times. She watched, fascinated and repulsed, as the skinny needle poked  through the surface of her flesh and sank in-her first, and hopefully  last, IV. She fiddled with the bed controls, when they finally left her  alone. The bed grinded and whirred as it followed her fickle  commands-up, down, back, forward, high, low-until her mother groaned at  her to stop.

The surgeon and anesthesiologist were the next crew to ask the exact  same questions as the nurses already had. The anesthesiologist went  through her shpiel-risks of side effects and death, et cetera, et  cetera. Her dad turned an as-yet-undiscovered shade of gray.