Jay drives off. He doesn’t have to be so nice. The town doesn’t have a taxi service, so it’s Jay or walking. It’s adorable how seriously he takes customer service and how his Corolla is always immaculate. By the time we make it all the way up the staircase to my apartment I am beyond exhausted and fighting the urge to pant from exertion. I’ve only been on dialysis for nine weeks now but I swear my body feels like it’s been ten years. Oh God, I can’t even imagine what I’ll feel like if I’m actually still on it in ten years.
The last thing I would want right now is sex, even if I didn’t have a serious topic to discuss, but it’s clearly the only thing Tom wants. He is lifting my hair and kissing the back of my neck as I lock the apartment door behind us. I turn around and face him, placing a palm on each side of his handsome face. “Tom, I’m wiped out. And… I kind of think we need to talk about some stuff.”
He looks disappointed but nods. “Whatever you need, T.”
I am not a fan of the way he shortens everyone’s names to initials. I’m T. His sister is B. My brothers are F and L and D. “Okay let’s start with an easy one. Can you drive me to and from dialysis Monday, before you head back to New Hampshire? I know Logan has River and Finn and Nova are working at the restaurant. Declan has some marketing meeting in Boston or something. Dad has to go out on the boat and Mom… well she makes me nuts when she comes with me. She hovers and asks the nurses too many questions and tries to pray over me while the treatment is happening and it just stresses me out.”
He walks into the living room, ducking to avoid a beam the runs through the middle of the room, and I follow. When he turns to face me he looks contrite. “I can drive you there, but I won’t be able to drive you home. I know I usually leave late afternoon but I have to get back early this time because my bike club is doing a late afternoon ride, and I kind of organized it, so I can’t bail. Your treatment takes so long. I wouldn’t make it back in time for the ride.”
Oh. Okay. So much for that being the easy ask. “Okay…. I guess I can find someone else.”
“Ask the new guy,” Tom suggests as he walks past my breakfast bar that divides the kitchen from the living room and dips his head a little so he can walk over to the fridge where the ceiling slopes. He grabs my filtered water jug from there and makes his way over to the glasses stacked on the open shelf. “He’s probably got nothing to do.”
“Jake isn’t exactly the new guy.” I have no idea why I feel the need to explain that, but I do. “I’ve known him since I was twelve. He was born and raised in Ocean Pines. When he was emancipated from his mom, he lived above the restaurant and he worked for us for like seven years before he became a firefighter.”
“Wow. You know a lot about him. Are you President of his fan club or something?” Tom chuckles at his joke and takes two glasses off the shelf, flips them over and starts to fill them with water. “Anyway, whatever. Ask him.”
“I’ll figure something out,” I mumble and shake my head when he offers me a glass of water. “I pee enough as it is, I don’t need water before bed.”
He cringes uncomfortably because I brought up peeing. Tom is supportive as long as I don’t get into gory details of kidney issues and lupus in general . I have told myself repeatedly not to take it personally. His sister said she once cut her hand on a glass she was washing as a teenager and Tom bolted as soon as he saw the blood. Like, ran out of the house and left her bleeding all over the place. He did run to the neighbors, screaming, and got them to come over and help her and drive her to the hospital, but Tom himself was useless. And he was seventeen at the time.
“Okay. No water,” he puts the glass he poured for me down on the counter. “What else do you want to talk about? How about how you’ve never told me you know one of my favorite hockey players, ever?”
“No, not that,” I shake my head and dive head first into my next topic. “Did you get a chance to talk to your insurance company? About the testing and stuff?”
Everything about Tom suddenly changes. His shoulders tense, but his head sags. His eyes hit the floor and stay there. He doesn’t seem casual, calm and collected anymore. He seems… awkward, tense and maybe even a little… guilty?
“I just ask because you said last week when you couldn’t come for our regular weekend visit that it was because you were figuring out stuff with your insurance company and your work union about whether or not you’d be covered if you donated?” I say and I feel suddenly like a beggar on the street with my hat out. Which infuriates me.
“Yeah… Terra… listen,” he pauses, finally lifting his head. He looks at me. His wholesome, handsome face is suddenly void of warmth or that friendly easy smile he has that I found so attractive when we first met. “My family thinks it’s a lot to ask of anyone to donate a kidney.”
“I didn’t ask you,” I reply flatly. “You said you wanted to see if you were a match.”
“Yeah well what the hell else was I supposed to say?” Tom says, and now that guilty vibe has switch to annoyed. He puts his glass down on the counter behind him and runs a hand through his blond hair, which doesn’t ruffle because it’s too short to be displaced. “I mean I really like you. We’re a great match but we weren’t even dating all that long when you told me about the kidney problems. I just … I felt cornered.”
“You were not cornered,” I argue and I’m fighting a hot flush to my cheeks that is sheer and utter humiliation. “I was never going to ask you to donate. I made a pact with myself when I found out that I was only going to ask family, direct blood relatives, and I have stuck by that. You volunteered.”
“I know. But I never expected to have to do it. I thought for sure someone in your family would match.” he pauses. “My parents flipped out when I told them I was thinking about it. They said I was too young to live on one kidney.”
“Not scientifically accurate.” I can’t keep my mouth shut when someone spews misinformation about anything. It’s not who I am. But I should keep my mouth shut here because it makes it seem like I’m making an argument for him to donate. I’m not.
“Well, what if something happens in five or ten years to my only kidney? What if my parents need one in the future and I gave the extra one to you?” Tom asks, and in that very second I know that this relationship is over. Not because he won’t get tested or donate but because he’s made me feel so utterly unimportant and defective—like a burden.
“Those are all valid concerns.”
I walk out of the kitchen and back into the living room. Tom follows, still talking. “I mean they haven’t completely shut the door on Declan donating, right?”
“They have.”
“But he’s fighting it, right?”
“He is.”
“Maybe he’ll win,” Tom says, hopefully.
“Tom, is that hope dripping from your tone over the idea that I’ll be healthier if they allow Deck to donate or that you’ll be able to stop feeling like such a cowardly asshole?” I walk to the front door. He follows behind me.
“That’s not fair. I am not a coward because I have other family members to think about, Terra,” he tells me. “We’ve been together five and a half months. I just…”
