If she needs help, it can only be one thing, and I’m right. She says she needs three hundred dollars because she’s short on rent. Jeremy got fired again and he hasn’t been able to find anything new. It’s a lot of money for someone like me, even without the debt, but I still give it to her. Because I always lend her money, even if it meant picking up extra shifts at the strip club. Because she’s my mother, and even if she doesn’t love me, I love her. And now as it turns out, everything wrong in her life is because of me.
Finally, my mother is leaving three hundred dollars richer, and I decide to go check on Snow first. Except when I call out for her from the hallway, she doesn’t answer. And when I find her sleeping in her bed and try to wake her up because it’s not really bedtime, she doesn’t wake up. And I realize I don’t have to wait to fall apart in the shower because I already am falling apart as I call 911.
Chapter Fifteen
Transplant rejection.
That’s what’s wrong with my sister. That’s why she won’t wake up even after twenty-four hours. That’s why her fever came on quickly and spiked so high that now she needs help breathing. Apparently, there’s some swelling in her extremities as well that we never saw. ThatInever saw. If I had, she wouldn’t be in such a dire situation. A situation of life and death. For the second time in her short seventeen-year-old life.
But the doctors are saying it’s not really my fault. Sometimes symptoms aren’t clear or drastic enough for us to notice. Sometimes things just happen. While there’s always a chance of rejection, most patients show symptoms within the first six months after surgery. So I couldn’t have known. No one could have.
What do they know, though?
I’m supposed to be looking out for her. I’m supposed to be the one taking care of her, protecting her, making sure she’s healthy and happy andliving. And now because I didn’t do my job, she might…
No, I can’t think like that. Not right now when I have so much to do. When I have to climb a whole freaking mountain.
So apparently, this time around she needs bone marrow. They said her blood is unhealthy, and she needs new blood, a new source for her to combat this and live a long, healthy, happy life. And of course, just like a heart transplant, you need a match for a bone marrow transplant too. Siblings are always the best bet.
Here is where the mountain climbing comes in, because I’m not a match. Probably because I’m only her half-sister. But she has other siblings, doesn’t she? And yes, they’re half-siblings too but I can’tnottake the chance. If there is even the slightest possibility they can save her, I have to take it.
So I am. I’m going to tell them who I am. I’m going to tell them who Snow is and that she needs their help.
It may not be easy. In fact, I think it may be very close to impossible, given all the lies I’ve told. Not to mention, I remember what he said to me that night. He told me he’d ruin my life if I didn’t stay away from him and his family, from Callie. And honestly, I have. I’ve been dodging her calls and texts for the last three weeks. I’ve been dodging all of my friends’ calls for the past few weeks. I’ve been making excuses when they ask me to hang out.
Which is why I think Tempest is both surprised and relieved to hear from me. When I tell her what’s happening with Snow and what I need to do, she tells me I’m doing the right thing. She tells me she’ll help me if I want. She can ease my way in, prepare Callie and Ledger for what’s coming. But I tell her I don’t want her to. This is my doing, all the lies, and so this is my battle. The time has come anyway for them to know. I can’t keep lying to them for the rest of my life. I just hope they don’t hate me so much that they refuse to help my sister.
I’m standing in front of their house like I was nine years ago, ready to walk up the cement pathway, climb those steps and knock on the door. While I’ve known Callie and the Thornes for a few years now, I’ve never been inside their childhood home. We usually meet up at the house where Callie lives with Reed and their babies. In fact, that’s where I wanted to meet Callie in the first place, but when I called her a couple of hours ago and told her I had something to talk to herandher brothers about, she told me to come here. To their childhood home. Apparently they’re having some sort of a family night and everyone’s already gathered here.
So I guess it’s natural for me to think about that night from all those years ago, when I first showed up here. Unlike that night, it’s a decent hour and not midnight, and I can see lights streaming through the windows. The house mostly looks the same. Same brick façade and slanting roof, but there are differences. The yard looks mowed. The steps aren’t rickety-looking anymore. I think the front door has been recently painted as well. It looks like someone is taking care of this house, trying to bring it back to life.
And I think I know who.
The man who took care of me, who wouldn’t want me to be here. He wouldn’t want me to be walking up to the steps of his house, let alone climbing them and knocking at the door. But I do it anyway. Because I’m here not for myself, but for my sister. And what my mother had said was right: a mother has to make sacrifices, and while I’m not Snow’s mother, I’m as close to one as I can get.
It doesn’t take more than five seconds for the door to snap open after I’ve knocked. It’s Tempest. Even though I told her she didn’t need to help me, she still told me that she’d be here for me no matter what.
I guess this is her way. Because as soon as she opens the door, she wraps me into a tight hug. I hug her back because I need it. I need some extra strength, even though I probably don’t deserve it right now, after how I’ve fucked up by missing the signs with my sister, and well, all the lying and hiding.
“Hey,” she whispers.
“Hey,” I whisper back.
She breaks the hug and tells me, “I didn’t tell anyone anything.”
I swallow. “Okay, thanks.”
She watches me with concern. “Are you sure? I can help you.Pleaselet me help you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
My eyes sting so badly that I have to take a moment to myself. But I remind myself once again that falling apart right now is not an option. I’ll fall apart later,laterlater, once I get what I came here for. “No, it’s okay. I can do this. I have to do this.”
Tempest looks at me for a second before closing her eyes and mumbling, “God, you’re so stubborn.” Then, opening her eyes, “I’m still going to hold your hand though. As we walk to the dining room where everyone is, okay?”
I let out a small chuckle, because she’s the very best friend a girl could ask for and that somehow gives me the strength I need to enter the house that I’ve thought about a million times ever since I came to know about it when I was twelve.
She grabs my hand and pulls me through the living room, where I spy a ton of leather couches and a giant bookshelf from the corner of my eyes, and into a hallway. There are stairs at the mouth of it and then several doors on either side that I think lead to bedrooms. If I was here under different circumstances, I’d be soaking everything up, trying to solve mysteries and make conclusions about my stepfamily. But not right now. Right now, it’s all I can do to keep walking.
Abruptly we come to a halt, just shy of where the hallway seems to be opening up into a larger, open space, and Tempest turns to me. “Well, do you want me to tell you about, you know, other things? He’s been living here. In the house, for the past month, and I could tell you?—”
