“Your intuition’s too sharp for your own good.” Katie felt tears edge her eyelashes.
Chelsea looked up at her pleadingly. “Never tell my parents this. Please don’t ever, but go find her, Katie. Tell Jillian for me, I hope she’s the one. Jillian deserves to be the one. Not me. Please, tell her, Katie. Please.”
Sixteen
IT WAS EIGHT A.M. before Katie could get into Jillian’s room to talk to her. Josh waited for her outside in the hall. Lying in the hospital bed, Jillian seemed as frail as a baby sparrow to Katie. Her face was ashen, and dark circles under her eyes made Katie think of a war refugee. Jillian’s mother was reluctant to leave her daughter’s side, but Jillian begged to have some time alone with Katie. “Even ten minutes,” she told her mother. Katie thought Mrs. Longado looked ready to drop.
When they were alone, Jillian reached for Katie’s hand. “Daddy called from the jet half an hour ago. They were still in the air, but he said that he and DJ will be here soon. That’ll help Mama.”
Katie knew that the organs would be arriving soon too. And that meant making the final selection. A film of perspiration broke out on her forehead. “Are you through with your tests?”
“I think so. How’s Chelsea? Does she know I’m here?”
“I told her.”
“I hate not being able to see her. We’re right here in the same hospital, but we may as well be on separate planets.”
“Well, that’s what I’m for—Space Cadet O’Roark on call.” Katie saluted and was rewarded by Jillian’s smile, although the effort sent Jillian into a coughing spasm. When it was over, she lay on the bed gasping for breath. Alarm shot through Katie. “Should I ring for a nurse?”
“No. I want to talk to you while I can. I want you to tell Chelsea I’m pulling for her. She needs that heart.”
A lump wedged in Katie’s throat. “That’s exactly the message she asked me to give to you.”
“Just like her,” Jillian drawled. “Always wanting me to go first.”
Katie smiled. Even now, sick as she was, Jillian imparted humor. “Good thing Lacey’s not in the competition. She’d insist she go first.”
“If she doesn’t shape up, she may be in the running for a pancreas transplant.”
“You discovered that about her quickly. She hates having diabetes so much, she denies it. I don’t know what we’re going to do with that girl.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Katie listened to the hiss of the oxygen tank. From outside the room came the name of a doctor being paged over the speaker system and the rattle of breakfast food trays being brought onto the floor. The trappings of the hospital never changed; the sounds had been the same when she’d been a patient.
“Thank you for taking me to Jenny House with you,” Jillian said.
“It wouldn’t have been right not to take you.”
“And for including me on Amanda’s mountain too.”
“I know she would have approved.”
“I wish I could see Chelsea,” Jillian lamented. “You know what all this waiting makes me feel like?”
“I know what it made me feel like,” Katie told her.
“But you weren’t aware you were in some kind of competition for the heart you needed.”
“That’s true. What you’re going through is worse.”
“I’ll bet this is what those Miss America contestants feel like while they’re waiting for the judges to call their names.”
“I don’t think I get your meaning.”
Jillian rotated her thin shoulders. “I’ve seen the girls on TV standing up on stage. They’ve been on preview for a million people. They’ve done their best, performed, looked their best. Then they just have to stand and wait for a computer to tally up a bunch of judges’ scores and call out the winning name.”
Katie was intrigued by Jillian’s analogy. She’d never much thought about how awaiting a transplant could compare to a beauty pageant! But she did agree that waiting for a transplant donor was a little like a contest. “You may be right. I’ve watched beauty contests. It must be tough to stand there and keep smiling while you’re waiting for your name to be called.”
“And think about the expression on the winner’s face when her name is announced.”
“Stunned disbelief. I know that’s what I’d feel.”
“Maybe because no one expects it to be their name. You always think it’s going to be the other girl’s.”
All at once, Katie got an inkling into what Jillian was trying to say. “You’re convinced it’s going to be someone else,” Katie said slowly. “You expect it to be someone else. But down in your heart, you want to hear them call out your name.”
“The announcer goes through the list of runners-up until he’s down to two contestants. They stand there under the lights, wearing their hopes and dreams on their faces. They hang on to one another’s hands. The announcer says, ‘If for some reason the winner can’t fulfill her duties as Miss America, then the first runner-up will be crowned in her place.’ ’ Jillian paused to take deep breaths of fresh oxygen.
“Of course, no one wants to be second,” she continued. “Everybody knows second-best never gets to wear the crown. But the announcer looks at his card anyway and says, ‘First runner-up is …’ Then the camera cuts to the winner’s face, and the loser fades into the background. Because nobody ever remembers who almost won. Miss America is the important one. And that’s the way it should be.”
Katie considered Jillian’s words carefully, feeling the girl’s anguish. Jillian wanted to be a transplant recipient. She wanted to be the one chosen. But not at the expense of her best friend. “No matter how it turns out,” Katie said to Jillian, “I believe something good can come out of the worst of situations.”
“Like you and Josh?”
“Yes. That was a good thing that came out of a bad thing. Another was the One Last Wish Foundation coming out of Jenny Crawford’s dying. And Jenny House coming from her grandmother.”
Jillian sighed. “And if I hadn’t been born sick, I’d never have met Chelsea. No matter how things turn out today, she was the best part of this whole thing.”
“I’ll tell her you said so.” Katie knew their discussion had sapped Jillian’s remaining strength. She said her goodbyes, promising to return once she’d checked on Chelsea.
Jillian’s parents and brother came through the door. Katie hung back while they each hugged Jillian. She heard DJ say, “I brought you something.” He dug in his jeans pocket and took out a piece of tissue.
“What is it?” Jillian wanted to know.
Katie couldn’t help noticing that her brother’s presence perked Jillian up substantially.
“Unwrap it and see.”
The paper rustled. “It’s hair from Windsong’s mane, isn’t it?”
DJ looked pleased with himself. “I curried him last night, braided the longest hairs together, and wrapped it up for you.”
“You always know how to make me happy.”
DJ looked pleased with himself. “I was planning on bringing it to you this weekend, but when Mom called this morning at the crack of dawn …” He didn’t complete the sentence.
Again, Katie started toward the door. She stepped aside for two doctors entering the room. She felt her heart begin to hammer and knew something important was about to happen. Jillian’s family instinctively gathered around her bed, like wagons circling a homestead for protection, and looked at the doctors expectantly. Katie was the outsider. She made herself leave so the doctors could talk freely.
She tossed Jillian a lingering look. Jillian’s haunted eyes told her, “I can handle whatever they say.” Katie stepped into the hall, where Josh still waited.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I think the decision’s been made,” Katie whispered. She felt lightheaded, as if she’d run too fast in a higher altitude. “Do you think they’ve come to say she’s the one? Oh, Josh, if she is, then I have to get back to Chelsea.”
“Hang on,” Josh declared, grabbing her arm to keep her from bolting off down the hall.
Katie began to shiver as if a frigid wind had blown down the corridor. “I’m scared. Josh. Really scared.”
He wrapped her in his arms. “There’s nothing you can do, Katie. Just like there was nothing I could do when they told me my brother was brain dead. Nothing except give away his body parts.”
She realized that he was reliving the horror of his brother’s death all over again. She felt awful, somehow responsible for making him go through it one more time because she’d asked him to come to the hospital in the first place. “I’m sorry,” she said, through chattering teeth.
They clung to one another, but the holding didn’t bring them closer together. Instead of a bond of sharing, she felt as if a blade of pain were dividing them. Separating and slicing them apart. Feeling shredded emotionally, Katie pulled away.
Josh’s expression was one of devastation. Like someone who’d seen something too horrible to relate. My fault, Katie thought. All of it—from needing Aaron’s heart to forcing Josh to be with her right now—was her fault. She might have turned and run away except that DJ came barreling out of his sister’s room, almost knocking them over.
Katie seized his shirt. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“The doctors said she has antibodies in her blood.” DJ looked stricken, on the verge of exploding.
“I don’t understand—”
“From transfusions during the surgery they did on her a long time ago.” Katie vaguely recalled hearing Jillian explain about an operation on her heart when she’d been a child. Surgery that hadn’t worked. “She needs an extra test to check it out. The test will take another four or five hours.” DJ’s voice was shaking, and his fists were balled. “She won’t be getting a transplant today. Not today.”
Katie stood, stunned and rooted to the floor. Jillian Longado had just been named first runner-up in the contest for her life.
Seventeen
“WAIT, DJ!” KATIE called out, but DJ jerked away from her and took off down the hall. She spun toward Josh. “Please go after him. I have to go to Chelsea. I should be with her in case she goes into surgery.”
“Go on. I’ll hook up with you later.”
She watched Josh head down the hall in the direction DJ had gone, then loped toward the elevators, grateful once again for Josh’s presence. She shoved away the feelings of guilt and separateness she’d experienced minutes before. No time to sort things out now, she told herself. She stabbed the elevator button, but when a car didn’t arrive, she went to the stairwell and jogged up six flights of stairs to the Cardiac ICU.
Once on the floor, she caught sight of a clock. She’d known about the possibility of transplantation for hours—hours that had seemed to pass like minutes. Time was the critical factor. Surely, the organs had arrived by now.
Suddenly, she was struck by another thought. How many others had been paged? Dr. Dawson had said they could save three people if the decision was made to transplant the heart and both lungs separately. What if there was someone more critical or more compatible than Chelsea? What if Chelsea didn’t get the heart either? Hadn’t Dr. Dawson told her Chelsea was stabilized? That might mean more waiting for yet another donor.
Katie went to the ICU waiting room, but it was empty. She rang the buzzer in order to be admitted into the unit. A nurse answered through a speakerphone. “May I help you?”
“I want to know how Chelsea James is doing.”
“She’s been taken out of here.”
Katie felt a wave of panic. “Where?”
“Ask the nurse at the main duty desk,” the voice said from the small box.
Katie hurried to the nurses’ station. A nurse looked up from a pile of paperwork, and Katie introduced herself. “Your family’s been looking for you,” the woman said.
“Where are they? And where’s my friend, Chelsea James?”
“They’ve taken her down to the surgical floor. She’s going to have a transplant.”
Tears—part from relief, part from exhaustion—welled in Katie’s eyes. “All her tests checked out then?”
“Yes, according to the head surgeon. The helicopter arrived at the roof landing pad fifteen minutes ago. We’ve got three operating rooms going at once. Three recipients are being prepped for surgery. It’s one of our biggest transplantation efforts to date.” The nurse looked pleased.
Katie didn’t wait for more discussion. She ran back to the stairwell and down the two flights of stairs to the surgical floor. In the surgical waiting room, which was made up of several small cubicles so that families could have absolute privacy, she found her parents and Chelsea’s. “Katie.” Her mother looked relieved when she came into the room. “Thank heaven you’re here. They’ve just taken Chelsea in.”
Katie’s heart sank. She wouldn’t be able to see her friend before the surgery. “I tried to get back sooner.”
“She wanted to see you before she went under the anesthesia,” Mrs. lames said, twisting a wad of tissue in her hands. Her face looked anxious and full of dread. “She’s so frightened. My little girl—”
“I told her you’d gone to visit with Jillian,” Katie’s mother said. “She’d seemed all right about it. She said Jillian needed you more now anyway. Any word on her transplant? Chelsea told us she was in line too.”
“Mom, Jillian won’t be getting a transplant. At least not at this time.” Katie didn’t add the information about the antibody test or that it was Chelsea who’d bumped Jillian from her place on the list.
“I’m sorry. I know how her family feels.”
Katie’s dad patted the cushion between himself and Chelsea’s father. “Sit down, honey. You look ready to fall over, and this surgery takes at least four hours.”
Four hours! Katie didn’t feel as if she could make it through four minutes in the small room. “I need to go find Josh and tell him what’s going on. I’ll be back soon.”
She didn’t wait for a response, but left the room quickly. Once in the corridor, she wasn’t sure where to begin looking. She went down to the main lobby, which now bustled with visitors, medical personnel, and staff. Suddenly, exhaustion overcame her. She sagged against a wall and might have sunk to the floor if an arm hadn’t slipped around her waist and held her upright. Startled, she turned and faced her benefactor.
“Garrison! What are you doing here?”
“There’s a chapel down the hall,” he said. “It’s quiet, and we can talk.”
She started to protest, but didn’t have the energy. He led her to a room carpeted in blue and softly lit with pale yellow light. A Christmas tree stood just outside the doorway, and with a jolt, she realized that Christmas was coming. She’d lost her sense of time. Of seasons. Only the night before, she’d been at Garrison’s party.
The chapel was empty, and she heard classical music playing in the background. “Sit with me,” Garrison urged.
She slid into a pew and bent forward, resting her forehead against the back of the pew in front and trying to regain her composure. He massaged the muscles in her neck. “Please, don’t,” she told him.
“Katie, talk to me.”
She sat upright and twisted sideways on the cushioned bench until she was looking at him full in the face. “Why are you here?” she asked again.
“Looking for you.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“I’ve been calling your house since eight o’clock this morning. I drove over about nine-thirty, and your neighbor said he saw all of you leave in the middle of the night. I remembered your sick live-in friend and figured something must have gone wrong. I just decided to try finding you in the waiting room at the hospital.”
“Chelsea had a heart attack. Once she was here, a possible donor became available. She was a match, and she’s up in surgery now.” Katie glanced around through bleary eyes, wondering what time it was. She couldn’t seem to keep track of tim
e this day. “I should get back.”
“Not till we talk,” Garrison told her.
“I’m all talked out,” she replied with a sigh. “So much is going on….” She had no history with Garrison the way she did with Josh, as Lacey had reminded her. Garrison didn’t know about Jillian. He knew nothing about that part of her life. To Garrison, she was an English project partner. A girl he’d invited to his party. A girl he’d kissed. She averted her eyes, remembering how she’d responded to his lips.
“I’m not going to go away, Katie. Not after last night.”
She was tired, but not too tired to catch the deeper meaning of his words. He wasn’t going to get out of her life simply because she couldn’t cope with him in it. “Garrison, I honestly can’t deal with you right now.”
He smiled and tugged his fingers through her long, black hair. “I won’t pressure you. I only want to remind you that once all this is over, you still have a life of your own.”
“Do I?” For so long, her “life” had consisted of hospitals and sickness and dying friends.
“Aren’t you going to run track in the spring?”
“I’m in training—”
“And how about a track scholarship to college? You told me you wanted one. Do you still?”
Katie shook her head to clear it. How long had it been since she’d thought about those dreams? She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know what I want, Garrison. I just don’t know.” Her sentence held a double meaning.
“No rush,” he said, standing and pulling her to her feet. He held both her hands and looked down into her upturned face. For an unguarded moment, she felt naked and vulnerable. “When this is over,” Garrison said, staring into her eyes, “and it will be over, I’ll be in touch.”
She didn’t doubt him for a minute. “I love Josh,” she said stubbornly.
He gave her one of his heart-melting smiles. “Loyalty is your strong suit, Katie. That’s one of the things I like about you.” He brushed the tips of her fingers with his mouth, sending a shiver up her spine. “Go check on your friend. I’ll call you later.”
She Died Too Young Page 9
