"My life's worthless. If I die, I die. How could I let you give me a transplant? Wouldn't that just be dragging you down?"
"Dawn, don't be sad after I'm gone. This is just my fate…"
I rolled my eyes inside.
I'd heard lines like this more times than I could count.
Ever since Joel Walker "got cancer," he'd given himself up for lost, refusing treatment, refusing a liver transplant, dead set on not being a burden to me, on dying quick so it would all be over sooner.
He didn't really want to skip treatment. He was just certain I'd never bear to watch him die, so he played hard to get on purpose.
Him going to the hospital at all was practically something I'd begged him into.
To keep him from getting upset, I'd even promised not to visit him there. Which was exactly why I hadn't known who was lying in that bed getting treatment, or who he was supposed to be matched with for the transplant!
But I wasn't buying it anymore.
I made a small sound of agreement.
"Fine. Then we're in agreement."
"You don't want treatment, so there's no reason for me to force you into it. This whole time, I'm the one who's been forcing everything on you anyway."
Then I said nothing more.
I didn't give Joel a chance to react, ready to hang up, but Victoria Jennings's furious voice came through the line first.
"How can you do this?"
"Joel's given up on himself, and you're supposed to help him. How can you just let him throw his life away?"
"You cut off his treatment costs, you won't give him the transplant. Are you trying to get him killed? Do you want to be a murderer?"
I didn't get angry.
If anything my voice went colder.
"Who are you, and why are you in Joel's hospital room in the middle of the night?"
There seemed to be a silent scuffle on the other end.
But Victoria won it.
"I'm just a stranger who couldn't stand by and watch."
"Joel's been in the hospital all this time, and you, his girlfriend, have never once come to see him. Now you're here trying to cut off his last chance to live. How can you do something so heartless?"
I cut her off.
"Then you've got it wrong."
"Joel and I were never in a relationship. We're just ordinary friends. By every measure, I'm perfectly within my rights not to pay his treatment costs and not to give him my liver."
Both of them went quiet on the other end.
Because that was the truth.
Joel was the son of our housekeeper, Naomi Henson. We'd grown up together, childhood companions of a sort, and I'd liked him since we were small, always trailing after him.
But Joel didn't like me. He just never turned me down either.
He'd even toss me a little sweetness whenever I was about to give up chasing him, letting me believe he'd finally started to feel something. And starting last year, he warmed up to me even more. Then, right when I wanted to make things official.
That was when he told me he had cancer, that he didn't want to drag me down. I'd been so moved at the time. But looking at the woman in the mirror who'd aged thirty years in just three, I realized how badly, how monstrously wrong I'd been…
"So what!"
Victoria's voice rang out, righteous.
"Even if you weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, there were feelings there. If you donate him a liver, you can be together out in the open. Isn't that exactly what you wanted?"
"You've got the chance right here. Don't take it, and you'll regret it for the rest of your life."
I hooked up one corner of my mouth in a sneer.
"Money and a liver are both no small thing. I'd hate to pressure him. But you sound like the warmhearted type, and by the sound of your voice you're about my age."
"If you can't stand me and you can't bear to watch Joel die, you can pay for it yourself. You can donate your own."
"If you're willing, I can arrange it for you right now. How about it?"
I hung up before Victoria could give me an answer.
