I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out. The words were stuck, my mind reeling at what I’d done. She was in there…dying…
“How long…?” I managed through trembling lips, my body suddenly shaking from the chill in the air.
I watched as his eyes closed, his head shaking slightly as he considered my question.
“A day…maybe two if we can keep her stable enough. She isn’t critical…she’s terminal… “
“But what about a heart transplant? Surely there’s one out there…? Someone dies every second of the day somewhere in this world and she doesn’t have to be one of the them!”
My voice was hysterical now, my mind working overtime to think of a solution he hadn’t considered yet.
“It’s impossible. Even if her insurance covered it, getting on the list takes days if not weeks or months! Actually getting a new heart…sometimes years,” he shrugged, his head shaking again. “Even then, she has a rare blood type. A+… Less than thirty-three percent of the world has that blood type. We’d have to have the exact blood match, and more importantly an exact or near exact tissue match! These things take time, and time…she doesn’t have. I’m sorry. I know you’re her friend, but she really needs family right now.”
Less than thirty-three percent of the world, and my mind chose that moment to remember eighth grade science class: blood typing. I’d fainted during the finger prick, and had been absent the day the results came back, but it was mailed to me, straight from the lab. A+. That was me. The certificate still hung on my bedroom wall in my parent’s house. I’d looked at it every day for four and a half years.
My stomach was sinking as guilt settled even deeper. She needed a new heart, and I had one. I owed her.
“So…what if you had a heart that someone wanted only her to have? Forget the list. What is someone –with the same blood type-died right now and said okay…I’ll donate my heart, but only if it goes to Rebecca Waters… Then what?” I asked in a rush as he turned to head back down the hall.
It was enough to stop him, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“It would be nice wouldn’t it…? To have the perfect heart magically appear…made just for your friend…” his eyes locked with mine, his face stern when he spoke this time. “She’s already beaten a million to one odds Miss Barns. The chances of that happening…a billion to one…maybe more. Please…if you really want to help her, then I urge you to speak with the police if you haven’t already. Maybe you can assist them in finding out some personal information so that her family can be contacted. You won’t be able to see her without their consent. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t wait for me to reply. I watched as he strode down the hall, already giving instructions to the orderly that followed behind him. In a fair world, he was right. Becca’s chances were probably one in a billion, but I was that one and I wasn’t going to let her die because of something I’d done. I knew what I had to do. I just wished I had one last fix to get me through it.
Chapter 24*
The drive back to my dorm took an hour longer than it should have. By the time I made the turn into the student parking lot, thick white smoke billowed from under the hood of the Jetta, the engine coughing and hissing one last time before giving out completely. I left it where it stopped, the front end cocked half way into a parking space. It didn’t matter if it was towed. I wouldn’t need it anymore anyway.
My shoes felt as if lead weights had been put in the bottoms, my feet dragging as I trudged up the hill and towards the stairwell. I could feel the pounds piling on as I walked, the sweat pants I wore stretching and then tightening around my legs until I heard the sound of the seam ripping. The extra large t-shirt that had hidden my jiggling gut just hours early, now fit like a belly shirt, the rolls of my stomach and sides bulging outward until it hung like a donut around my waist.
I’d killed a person. I no longer cared about the weight. I deserved to be worse than fat. I deserved to be dead. My body moved without any conscious command from me, my mind already set on what I had to do. My clothes were in tatters by the time I locked myself behind my bedroom door, my tennis shoes so tight that I barely got them off my swollen feet.
Michael had taken my box of razors, but he hadn’t taken the used ones from my trash. Dirty or not, it would work for what I had to do. With trembling fingers I managed to grip the pen long enough to scribble the note I’d written in my head during the drive. Two sentences. It was all I could say without writing an entire letter…a letter I might have never finished if I took the time to apologize for every single thing that I’d done wrong.
I’m the reason why Rebecca Waters is at County Memorial Hospital dying. I’m donating my heart to her and only her…please give her my sincerest apologies.
Reading it over to myself it brought fresh tears to my eyes. I pinned it to what was left of my shirt, pulling the scale out one last time. I wanted to hate myself even more than I already did. I knew without confirming in the mirror that I was once again Evelyn Renee Barns.
Plain. Invisible. Ugly. Fat.
My eyes closed as the numbers beeped by at a steady pace, the three final chirps sounding long before I was ready to look.
Three hundred and fifty-two pounds.
I stared down at the blinking red number, self loathing filling me as I stepped from the scale with a sigh. There was no wishing it away this time. One chance is what the witch had said. I’d fucked that up… just like everything else in my life.
**********
The RA’s room seemed as good as any since that’s where this had all started. I half expected it to be locked up tight, but the knob gave on my first turn, the darkness within beckoning me to enter. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I took the first step and then paused, my eyes on the sliver of light that suddenly appeared in front of me.
“Michael…?” I whispered as I moved forward, anger shooting through me as I prepared for another intrusion.
There was no response, and no movement that I could hear. Peeking through the crack I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The light had come on by itself. Or maybe it had been on and I hadn’t noticed. I wasn’t scared of being attacked. I was scared of being caught before I did what I had to do. The door creaked slowly open as I pushed with my foot and then froze. This was all wrong…scary…familiar even. Razor in hand, I let my eyes wander down to the faint scar on my right wrists, and then to the dripping bloody one hanging over the edge of the overflowing tub. It was me that I saw. My eyes closed, my soft round body lifeless in the water.
How could this be…?
I was choking, my stomach heaving as nausea hit me in waves. My cell phone fell to the floor with a clatter and I was backing away as quickly as my feet would allow.
“Oh shit!” I exclaimed, turning around as I stumbled over another pair of feet.
It took a second to get my bearings in the dark, but there was no mistaking the wild mass of midnight black hair framing that tiny face. The witch was back.
“You!” I shrieked, my fingers pointing towards the tub. “What’s happening to me?! How am I there yet here? What did you do?!”
I was screaming now, grabbing at her arm when she only looked back at me, her eyes on the razor in my hand.
“Have you not learned?” she finally murmured, following my gaze to the tub.
What did she mean? Of course I’d learned. I’d tried killing myself before because I hated my life. I was killing myself now to save someone else’s. Couldn’t she see that?
“She’s dying…” I whispered as if in explanation, my eyes meeting hers. “I don’t deserve to live. Three hundred and fifty-two pounds! I gained it all back. All of it! One wish, one blessing…it’s all been a curse! I don’t want it anymore. I never wanted it!” I gritted out, letting the tears come this time.
“Never…?” the witch mused, her brow lifting as she looked towards the tub again.
“You tricked me!” I accused, my finger pointing
at her now. “I wished to be skinny…not for…for…this!” I sputtered waving my hands wildly between the bathroom and myself.
“So…if you could do it all over again…?”
“Then I’d want my life back… This isn’t fair! She shouldn’t have to die because of something I did. There must be something you can do! You’re a witch!”
“But I’m not a witch,” she countered, her lips sealing into a firm line.
“But you said…”
“I said you could think of me that way… I’m more of a glimpse…”
“A glimpse…?”
“Yes…” she nodded, stepping into the bathroom so that we were both bathed in fluorescent light. “A parallel created by your greatest desire. Your old life ceases to exist and you continue on, living in your glimpse until it expires. You wanted so badly to be skinny. You thought it would solve all your problems. You’ve spent your entire life blaming other people for your unhappiness when you had the power to change it all along. You have friends, but you list them according to popularity and body type. You have family, but you treat them like an unwanted mark on the bottom of your shoe. You call yourself a victim when you’re really the bully. Some of the greatest people in the world have been given glimpses, and many of them have ended up just like you…right back where they started. So I ask you again…have you not learned anything?” she questioned, this time taking the razor from my hand and weighing it in hers. “You say that you’d want your life back. I can’t give it to you because I never took it away. I also can’t help your friend. That’s a decision that you’ll have to make. You have three choices. Your glimpse will only end once your life has. It cannot be destroyed, but it can be passed on…” she looked at me now, taking my hand as she brought the razor to meet it.
I barely flinched as she nicked the blade across the pad of my thumb, pulling free a tiny glass rose from around her neck. The design was intricate enough that I could see a thorny vine wrapping around it, turning into twine to form a necklace that it hung from. I watched as she pressed until the blood dripped freely, the rose twisting open to catch the flow.
“Put a few drops into a drink of your choosing. Give to it someone that really deserves it,” she explained, snapping the rose shut before hanging it around my neck. “Your glimpse will pass on to the next and become their glimpse. What that means for them depends on their own heart’s desire, but you’ll be free to accept the fact that you are fat once again. The weight gain will stop and as it has always been…your fate is in your own hands.”
It seemed too simple. But what about…
“Becca…?” I whispered, clutching the rose in my hand now. “Will she live…?”
“Depends on your choice,” the witch shrugged, her gaze meeting mine again.
“And that is…?” I barely managed, my heart pounding in my chest at her next words.
“Commit suicide,” she answered simply, placing the razor back in my hand. “Donate your heart and save your friend. Some say the heart is the soul of a being, but life… It’s in the blood. Either way the glimpse would still be passed on. At least then your selfish acts would not have been all for naught.”
It was a lose—lose choice. I’d save Becca, but curse her at the same time. Even in death she’d eventually hate me…maybe. What was her heart’s desire…?
“And the third choice,” I whispered, somehow knowing that it would be worse than the two before it.
“Do nothing,” she answered softly with a wave of her hand, the tub suddenly pristine white again and empty.
She’d disappeared, her image fading just as suddenly as she’d appeared. It was a shitty hand I was holding, but it was all suddenly so clear to me that I sank to the floor overcome with realization. I couldn’t decide without knowing. I had to go back to the hospital.
Chapter 25*
I’d dressed as a nurse last year at the Halloween party. Not the cutesy, tight white dress kind. The green scrubs, blue booties, and matching green cap kind. It had been the only thing I could find big enough to fit me, and I wore it now, my head down as I walked right pass security towards the bank of elevators. I’d called from the cab on my way here, pretending to be Becca’s sister, and had gotten more information over the phone as a perpetrator than I had in person as her friend.
I’d been told to come immediately to the west wing of the fourth floor, terminal care. It was easy enough to find, and instead of asking at the nurse’s station I made a circle past each room, slowing to read every name. Eight rooms down I found her, the door closed, but the chart outside stamped in bold with her first and last name.
Visiting hours were almost over, but no one paid me any attention as I slipped into the room, my mask lowering as the door clicked shut behind me. There was only one bed in this room, machines decorating both sides. Her face was paler than the sheet that covered her, her bright red hair hidden by a wrap that covered her head. I’d expected to see a tube in her mouth, one of the machines breathing for her, but she was free from the neck up, all of the lines leading in, disappearing under the sheet.
My breath held as her lids opened slowly at my footsteps, her eyes blank as they stared at me. The words I wanted to say the most stuck in the back of my throat, and I stifled a gasp when she finally spoke.
“Are my parents here yet?” she rasped, her voice barely audible above the constant whir of the machines.
I shook my head once, my hand on her shoulder as I took the final step to stand beside the bed.
“No…not yet… I didn’t know their names, and I didn’t see your purse in the car…” I explained, my voice catching as her brows furrowed together.
She had to be in pain. Why wasn’t she sedated…?
“I’m sorry… Who are you?” she asked, confusion filling her features now.
She didn’t recognize me. Understandable considering the sudden weight gain.
“It’s me…Evelyn…” I answered softly, sinking into the chair beside the bed. “Eve…your friend,” I added when she shook her head slightly.
It looked as if she were considering what I said, a taken aback look on her face now.
“I’m thirsty…” she finally replied, nodding her head towards the cup of juice on the tray at the end of the bed. “Would you mind…?”
“Are you in pain? Should you even be drinking? You just had surgery…” I whispered, my eyes falling to the spot where her chest rose and fell under the covers.
I wasn’t expecting the forced laugh that caught in her throat, tears filling her eyes as she met my stare.
“Haven’t you heard…? I’m dying…” she shrugged, her face twisting with sadness. “They said I can eat or drink anything I want. I don’t have long. Yes…” she nodded, her hand lifting to wipe her running nose. “I’m in pain, but I wanted to see my parents one last time. Tell them… I don’t know,” she shrugged again, this time swiping at her tears. “I fucked up…bad….”she murmured, her hands covering her face now.
“Don’t cry…” I whispered, moving from the chair to hold one of her hands. “It’ll be okay… I know it doesn’t seem like it now…but…”
“How can you stand there and say that?! Don’t you get it? There is no hope, no surgery, no nothing. Without a heart I’m…”
“You’ll make it… You’re strong…” I insisted, squeezing her hand harder.
I couldn’t sit back and watch her die. I just couldn’t do it.
“And how would you know what I am?” she snapped, jerking her fingers free. “You say you’re my friend, but I would remember having a friend as big as you. Kind of hard to miss,” she added with a grimace, my heart plunging into my chest as I took a step back.
It was the pain talking. She hadn’t really meant it. Or I was in denial. The witch’s words haunted me as I sank back into the chair at a loss for words.
“You have friends, but you list them according to popularity and body type. You have family, but you treat them like an unwanted mark on the bottom of
your shoe.”
I’d come to the hospital hoping to find truth there. It hadn’t taken me long to realize that Abbey, Michael and Buster had been there for me since we’d first met. I’d shunned them in favor of a prettier package, and had probably lost them by doing so. Becca and I had shared something I’d never had with June and her friends. She’d looked out for me, and until a moment ago I was going to give my life to save hers. Until a moment ago I’d fallen for what true friendship wasn’t, but what I wanted it to look like…a mirror image of what I’d always hoped to be. Skinny.
Plain. Invisible. Fat. Ugly.
That’s how Becca saw me without the thin body I’d met her in. She looked right through me now, even with death looming, her ugliness showed. For a moment resentment rose through me, and I suddenly wanted to see the look in her eyes when she realized that I was the reason she was lying here now. I was no longer sorry. I was pissed.
“It was my f…”my words stopped as the door to her room creaked open, an older woman rushing in, already crying.
She looked just like Becca. Bright red hair was cropped close to her head, pixie like features almost mirroring her daughters with the exception of a slightly wider nose. She stopped just short of the bed, her head shaking as she looked around at the machines and then behind her. Two more people filed in holding each other, a younger girl with the same matching bright red hair, and an older man that I could only assume was Becca’s father.
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