The day before I was supposed to give Joel Walker my liver match.
An older version of myself suddenly appeared in the mirror, and I was overjoyed. I spoke at once.
"Are you me at sixty? Tomorrow, will the match and the surgery afterward go through?"
"Did we get married? Where did we hold the wedding? Was it a boy or a girl?"
The me on the other side of the glass touched her face and laughed at herself.
"The one who actually has liver cancer is Joel's one true love."
"Not only did the surgery succeed, they used the money stolen from you to throw the wedding. Happy. Perfect."
"You, though, are eaten alive by post-op complications. Twenty-six and you look sixty-two, and you don't even have the money for tomorrow's medication!"
I stood there for a moment.
Then I rushed straight to the hospital, wanting the truth.
But what I saw was Joel in the room, holding his one true love's hand, explaining.
"She thinks I'm the one getting treatment, that I'm the one who needs the liver. She's about to do the match."
"Right before the transplant, I'll trick her into signing over her assets. Then we'll have the money to be happy for the rest of our lives."
My throat closed up. I couldn't say a single word.
By the time I came back to myself, I first stopped Joel's treatment payments, then sent him a message.
"I'm not coming for the match tomorrow. Find someone else."
"……"
I sent it, and for a long time no reply came.
It had always been like this. Whenever I messaged him, there was never anything close to an instant reply.
Before he got sick, he'd say he was too busy, no time to check his phone. After he "got sick," the excuse became that he wasn't feeling well, that he was in treatment. But now I knew. All of it was a lie.
It was exactly like they say online. With how attached people are to their phones these days, not replying just means they don't want to deal with you.
Hours later.
Joel finally saw the message and called me.
"Dawn Coleman, what did you mean by the text you just sent me?"
His voice sounded terribly weak.
Nothing like the man who'd just been in that hospital room, glowing, planning with his one true love Victoria Jennings how to hold the wedding, where to go for the honeymoon. Two completely different people.
But I didn't call him out on it.
He'd kept me in the dark for all these years. It was only fair I let him spend a few days clawing at his own heart.
"It means no match, no liver for you. Is that so hard to understand?"
"You've got liver cancer, not brain cancer."
In the twenty-some years I'd known Joel, this was the first time I'd ever spoken to him in a tone this cutting.
So Joel went quiet for a second too.
"Then... then the hospital just came by and said the payments were cut off. Was that you as well?"
So that was why he'd called.
He hadn't seen the message. The hospital had gone and started pushing him out.
"Yes. That was me."
Joel waited a few seconds and got nothing more from me, and he couldn't help getting anxious.
"How could you cut off the hospital payments without saying a word to me? You know my condition, I can't be discharged right now. Doing this, are you trying to get me killed?"
I sneered a few times inside, but my voice stayed perfectly calm.
"Why can't you?"
"Isn't this what you've always wanted? Isn't this exactly what you kept asking for?"
Joel froze for a moment.
But he couldn't find anything to argue back with.
Soon enough, though, he laughed, as if letting it all go.
"Dawn, it really makes me happy that you can think this way."
"I told you long ago, I don't want you to give me a liver transplant, because there'd be no joy for me in surviving. I'd only ache, knowing you lost part of your liver because of me."
