Away (31 page)

I unlocked the door and walked inside. The house was quiet, almost too quiet, but at least he wasn’t sitting in the front room waiting for me. I let out a breath of relief, shut the door behind me, and made my way to my room. My door was still closed as I left it this morning. I opened the door, ready to just lie in my bed and cry the night away when my heart jumped into my throat. He sat on my bed with his head in his hands. He heard me come into the room and lifted his head. His eyes puffy and swollen, his face had agony written all over it.

“We need to talk,” he said quietly.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to do this now; I didn’t think I could handle anything else filtering my brain. The words
‘kidney failure’
were taking up too much space in there. Unfortunately, words came spewing out without even giving me a chance to fight them back.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why would you fucking keep this a secret from me?”

“I was going to tell you tonight. That’s why I wanted to take you out. I knew I needed to tell you.”

“You could have told me sooner. You had every opportunity under the sun to say,
“Hey Cassandra, by the way, I have kidney failure.”
You don’t just keep something like that from me.”

“You really want to know why I kept it from you for so long?”

“Yes. I think I’ve made that very clear.”

Jason stood up from my bed and made his way over to me, coming close, but keeping a good amount of distance between us. I crossed my arms over my chest, gripping my hands on my arms as tightly as possible as I waited for his answer.

“I didn’t want you treating me like I was sick like everyone else in this fucking town. I loved the way you looked at me as if I was
your
hero. For once, I had someone treat me like Jason. Not the guy who was sick and had to be treated three days a week, and not like I was going to shatter into pieces every time I took a step on the sidewalk. You made me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt before. I should have told you, but I didn’t want to because I love the way you made me feel.”

I shook my head. Nothing in me comprehended the words coming out of him. All I could concentrate on was what happened when I saw him at the hospital. Finding out the way I did completely surprised me, and in the worst possible way.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t even know what to say right now. I need to be alone. Please get out Jason,” I told him as I turned my head so I was looking at anything but him.

“It’s
Jase
,” he smirked before slamming my door shut on his way out.

He could have slammed it a thousand times, harder each time and it still wouldn’t match the anger and pain I felt inside. My heart ached, burned, and felt speared by the sharpest of daggers. I felt each and every slash it made as my heart was being ripped slowly from my chest. I threw my phone on the bed and then followed it. As my head sank into the pillow face first, I bawled my eyes out for the pain my heart was enduring and for the way I just spoke to Jason. Neither of which I wanted to feel or do ever again.

After the salty tears had soaked my pillowcase and the sobs had stopped, I took a moment to breathe. I grabbed the drenched pillow, tossed it to the side, and rolled myself over on my back. I took in each breath through my nose and exhaled it through my mouth. I closed my eyes and placed my arms on either side of me. My body felt paralyzed as I laid there, unable to think of what to do or where to go next. Unfortunately, I knew what I needed to do and I could feel the pull my brain was having on my heart, telling me, yelling at me to go speak to him, to find out more of what was really going on. Little by little, I pulled myself up from the bed and perched on the edge, letting my feet touch the floor. They were coming; the tears and sobs were back and approaching quickly as I thought about what I was going to do. What I was about to let myself hear if he would tell me. I honestly wasn’t going to give him a choice. He owed me the truth; he owed my breaking heart the truth. I stood up and tried fiercely to keep the sobs back as I walked out my door and through the empty house, making my way to his room. The further I went, the harder it was to contain myself, and when I finally reached his door, the control I had over my sobs had vanished. I let myself have a few moments before I grabbed the handle to his door and turned it, pushing it open.

I
LOOKED
AT
HIM
. His eyes were swollen and red, and his face was splotchy like mine. We were a pair right here. A pair of sobbing, frightened people who were no longer strangers. We were brought together by my accident and now I understood why. We had a connection far greater than mutual attraction; we were both brought together for deeper reasons. I was running from my past because it threatened my future and he was hiding from his future because of his past and the threat it had on his unknowing future. We could have been strangers or best friends, but nothing would bring us closer than this moment we were about to share. I took in a deep breath as I approached his bed.

“I need to know everything,” I told him through the hard cries that were convulsing through my body.

“Come here, Sweetheart.” There it was, his soft voice. The one that let me know he was going to tell me, that I didn’t even have to fight him for the truth.

“I want you right here.” He lifted his blankets for me to get in. “In my bed with me. If I’m going to tell you what’s going on, I need you right next to me so I can hold on to you.”

If that didn’t make my already soaked eyes release more tears, I didn’t know what could. I was a blubbering mess and beyond consolable. I climbed in bed, putting my body so close to his that there was barely any room between us for a blade of grass. I laid my head down on the pillow and looked up at him. His arm bent and his head was resting in his hand, he was lying on his side, his body open to where I laid next to him. He looked deep in my eyes, and pulled me even closer.

“I didn’t mean to yell at you,” I told him quietly as he kept his hand on my waist.

“It’s okay. You’re scared. Believe me; I get it.”

“Is that what you meant when you told me you knew scared eyes when you saw them?”

He closed his eyes as a few tears trickled down his cheeks. “When we first found out my kidneys were failing, all I ever saw in everyone’s eyes, including my own looking back at me in the mirror, was fear. It was horrifying, and then when I saw the same damn look in your eyes, I knew it wasn’t just the accident that had you scared. I knew it was something else and I didn’t want you to have to be alone, because it always helped me and my family that we had each other. You needed someone with you and I wanted it to be me.”

“I don’t even know what to say, but you have no idea how grateful I was to have you there.”

“I know.” His hand moved from my waist and cupped my cheek, his thumb caressing my skin. “Are you ready for the story?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I told him. I was scared. No, I was
fucking
scared of what I was about to hear. I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to just close my eyes and fall asleep in his arms again, smell his familiar scent the whole night as I dreamt of what it would be like to stay with him forever. That was not the reality though; this was. I had to hear
his
story.

He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “You remember when I told you about my brother?”

“Yeah,” I said confused as to where he was going with this.

“He’s fine, well, not fine. He and my parents are not on speaking terms right now. That’s why he remains unseen. That’s a story for another day. But the point I’m trying to make is that…” He inhaled again, struggling to get the words out. “Sorry, it’s just been a long time since I’ve talked about this.”

I snuggled closer to him, grabbed the hand that was cupping my cheek, and held onto it tightly. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

He let a smile spread across his tear-stricken face as he squeezed my hand. “My brother was big into sports. He was really good at them too. We always went to his high school games to cheer him on. My parents were busy with work, the farm, and my brother. They were trying to get him a scholarship for college. The money wasn’t there to send him without one. I was only fourteen when he started his senior year of high school. Mom and dad were busy, and I didn’t mind because I kept busy helping at the farm and our hardware store. I kept getting more and more exhausted, but I didn’t stop working because I knew our parents needed my help if we were going to get my brother into college. I wanted him to go, probably more than he did.” He started to chuckle a little. “I was a very proud, younger brother and I couldn’t wait to go visit him at college. In the meantime, we were busy taking care of Grandma Maggie because a year prior we’d lost my Grandpa Art.” He peered down at me. I nodded, letting him know I remembered whom he was talking about. I could never forget Maggie. “He died of a stroke. He rarely took his medication, and they believe that his high blood pressure led to the stroke.” He paused to take in a breath. “I’m sure you get the point that we were a busy family, so when I started to feel pain in my back and on my sides, I didn’t say anything. I kept trudging on. I didn’t want the family to have to worry about me on top of everything else.”

I put my hand over my eyes. I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to hear how he felt he was a burden to others so he kept his pain inside. “I can’t hear this, Jase,” I said weeping.

His hand pulled mine away from my eyes and he gripped it tight in his, placing it between us. “It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here,” he whispered. “It wasn’t until halfway through the school year that it got worse. I had blood in my urine, and the pain was now excruciating, so I had trouble hiding it. I finally went to my mom who took me to the emergency room. She thought it was a urinary tract infection or possibly a kidney stone. After testing for those and coming up with nothing, they did an imaging scan and saw two cysts on my kidneys. With a lot of doctor visits, probing and prodding, and too many tests to count, we learned the cysts are from a hereditary kidney disease that came from my father’s side. Even though Grandpa Art died from a stroke, the problems were created from this disease he didn’t know he had because he was too stubborn to go to the doctors. My father then passed it along to me. He has the gene but hasn’t developed the symptoms, which is why we never knew about it. My case is rare since I developed symptoms so early. I spent the remainder of high school in and out of the hospital.” He stopped to wipe the tears pouring out of my eyes once again.

I clung to him as he spoke, unable to fully digest it all, and yet completely understanding why he was the way he was. My heart was hurting, breaking at the seams as each word slipped out of his mouth.

“So what will happen to your dad?” I asked, scared to hear the answer.

“I don’t know. He may live the rest of his life without ever having the symptoms and then again, he could. He goes for regular checkups with his doctors and monitors his blood pressure, which could increase with his symptoms. So right now, he’s good.”

“This is a lot to take in. I couldn’t imagine hearing all of this when you were so young.”

“You have no idea. I’ll never forget being in the hospital as they were trying to figure out what was wrong with me, thinking that I should have spoken up sooner. But I had the family with me and that helped. I grew to hate that damn place though.”

“It makes sense now. I wish you had told me. I could hit you. I’m so mad that you kept this from me, but I understand. I really do,” I told him.

“I know. I should have told you sooner.”

“What happened next?” I asked him.

“My brother did get a scholarship but he declined. Toward the end of his senior year, I needed a kidney transplant because mine were functioning at less than ten percent. He stayed with me every step of the way, and then he did the bravest thing he could have ever done. He offered up his kidney. At first, we weren’t sure if it would work because he could be a carrier of the gene too, but as luck would have it, he wasn’t. I was thankful too. I didn’t want to have to watch my hero, my brother, go through this same disease. After match testing, we found out his blood type and mine were the same, so the kidney transplant was a go. My brother gave me his kidney. He acted as if it was the easiest thing in the world for him to do, but to me, it was the most courageous thing he could have ever done for me. I thanked him every day for giving me a piece of him that improved my life. He always told me it was nothing, that it was the least he could do, and that he would give me any organ I ever needed to save my life. It broke his heart and mine when just last year the kidney stopped functioning. It was quick for a living donor kidney to go that fast, but I guess it was just in the cards I was dealt. I’m on the waiting list and now under full dialysis until I get another kidney.”

“The errands you’ve been running? They’re because of dialysis?” I closed my eyes, seeing him back in the hospital hooked up to the machine.

“Yeah, I have to go three times a week for about four hours each time. I am lucky that, even though it’s a small hospital, I was able to get a dialysis machine there. They bring in a special technician three days a week to be there with me for the treatments. It costs a lot of money. That’s why we had to sell the farm. I couldn’t work there anymore because of the pain I would be in some days because the cysts were growing and making my kidneys larger than normal. We had to pay for everything, and the only way to do it was to start selling off things, the hardware shop included.”