She leaned in and kissed him again. “I’ll be fine, but yes, of course I will.”
“I’ll miss you,” he told her.
“It’ll only be a couple of days.”
He arched an eyebrow. “So?”
She couldn’t help laughing again. “You’re right. I’ll miss you, too.”
AN HOUR INTO THE JOURNEY, and Sophia had only just left Cornwall.
She was starting to doubt how sensible making this trip on her own was. She knew her parents wouldn’t approve, but she needed to get back to London and she didn’t want to appear incapable in front of Rocco. If she’d told him she wasn’t able to do the drive alone, then he might have started to question just how sickly she was, and she didn’t think she could stand that. She loved how he saw her just as she’d always been—fun-loving Sophia, not the girl with the failed kidneys. But wanting to feel like a normal girl wasn’t going to help her get back London.
The fog of fatigue was already clouding her mind, and she still had hours to go. She had to keep going, however. She couldn’t risk missing her dialysis session that afternoon. She could feel it was time for another one. Her skin had started to itch, making her antsy, so she shifted in the driver’s seat, and her calf muscles twitched, threatening to cramp. She’d drive another hour and get through Devon, and then she’d take a break. Yes, that was how she needed to think of it. That she just had a couple of two-hour drives ahead of her, instead of one long one. She prayed she wouldn’t hit roadworks or an accident somewhere along the way.
To keep her thoughts from her body’s failings, she turned her mind to Rocco. She hated to leave him alone down there, having to deal with his father’s estate, but she hadn’t had any choice.
Yes, you did. If you’d just been honest with him, you could have arranged to have this session done at a local dialysis centre instead of coming all the way back to London on your own.
She sighed and scrubbed her hands across her tired eyes. She would have to tell him soon, she knew that, but she wasn’t looking forward to it. Would he treat her differently if he knew what he was letting himself in for? People on long-term dialysis could be fragile. They had complications, and it simply wasn’t as easy as living with a healthy person. They’d never be able to just go on a spontaneous holiday because she’d always have to make arrangements for her dialysis first, and she’d always have to avoid drinking too much alcohol and be careful with her diet. She was making assumptions about their relationship, but she knew how they were together. They’d known each other their entire lives and, from the way he looked at her, she didn’t think this was just a fling.
Sophia squeezed her thighs together as she tingled at the memory of their time together. He’d always known exactly what she liked, and that hadn’t changed. There had been a couple of other men over the past ten years, but nothing came anywhere close to how she felt when she was with him. She hoped he was all right dealing with everything down in Cornwall by himself, and wished more than anything that she hadn’t needed to leave him.
An hour later, she stopped off at some services and took a break. She was hungry, but takeaway food wasn’t a great thing for her, as most of it was too high in salts to be good for her. She settled on some fruit and a coffee for the caffeine, though she could have used something more substantial. She took the time and stretched out her legs, trying not to wince at her swollen ankles or scratch her nails across her itchy skin. There were only a couple more hours to go now, and she just had to push through. She’d go straight to the hospital, and the dialysis would put her right again.
Sophia got back on the road again.
She fought off the exhaustion and ignored the leg cramps, watching the miles being eaten away by the car. A tickle started in her throat, and she coughed to try to clear it away, but phlegm stuck like glue to her pipes. She did her best to ignore it as well, taking sips from the bottle of water she had in the holder beside her, though she knew from experience that too much fluid at this stage wasn’t going to do her any favours.
A surge of impotent anger boiled up inside her. Why did it have to be her who was going through all of this? Why couldn’t she just have been born into a healthy body, and be reunited with the love of her life, and live happily ever after? Plenty of people had it worse, but right now it all seemed so unfair, and she blinked back angry tears.
As she approached the outskirts of London, her cough grew worse, and she found herself breathless, her chest tight. She was trying not to worry about what it meant, knowing it was most likely the result of the long drive and pushing herself physically right before a dialysis session. Three days ago, right after her last session, she would have been fine, but her non-working kidneys meant that toxins had been building up in her system for the last three days, and her body didn’t have any way of getting rid of them by itself.
By the time she reached the hospital, she was exhausted and felt as though she wanted to sleep for a week. She made it to the clinic to check in. Linda was behind the reception desk, and the nurse’s eyes widened as she took in the sight of Sophia.
“Sophia, are you feeling all right? You look terrible.”
Sophia nodded. “Just tired, and my chest feels tight.”
Linda frowned. “You haven’t missed any sessions, have you?”
“No, I’m right on time.”
“Then what have you been doing?” She frowned at the swelling in Sophia’s hands and feet.
“I had to go down to Cornwall with my boyfriend. His father died, and he needed to arrange the funeral. I wanted to support him.”
The nurse gave a tut of disapproval. “Well, I’m sorry to hear about his father, but it really has been too much for you.”
A fresh volley of coughing clutched at her lungs, and she doubled over, trying to dislodge the phlegm caught in her throat. Her eyes streamed, and she couldn’t catch her breath. A rush of heat flooded over her, followed by a drenching in cold. A firm hand pressed to her back, and she was vaguely aware of Linda saying her name. But she couldn’t catch her breath, and the room around her suddenly felt distant, as though she was drawing inside herself. Her legs buckled, and she hit the floor, but she was barely aware of it.
Shouts of alarm surrounded her, but she wasn’t able to figure out what they meant. All she knew was that a sweet darkness was surrounding her, and the only thing she had the energy to do was give in to it.
Chapter Thirteen
“She’s opening her eyes.”
Rocco sat by Sophia’s bedside, holding her hand, when her eyelids fluttered.
Her parents had got his phone number off Sophia’s phone and called him while he was still in Cornwall to say she’d collapsed in hospital and was unconscious. He’d dropped everything and jumped on the next train back to London, sick with worry, and furious with himself for allowing her to make the journey back on her own.
When he’d arrived, they’d told him how serious her condition was. He’d been filled in on her dialysis treatment—both of them expressing annoyance with her for not being truthful about how badly she needed to have it—and that she’d had a build-up of fluid which had in turn caused pneumonia. She was on treatment now, and should recover fully, but it had been a worrying twenty-four hours.
Why hadn’t she felt she could tell him? Had he given the impression that he wouldn’t want to know? He was angry at himself for not asking more questions, as well. He should have asked more about what was beneath the bandage she always wore on her arm. Maybe a part of him hadn’t wanted to know. He hadn’t liked to think of the girl he’d grown up with being so sick it could kill her. He couldn’t imagine a world now where Sophia wasn’t in it, and the thought of having her torn away from him again so soon was torture.
But now she was waking up, and he was determined to make her see that she could be honest with him, no matter what.
Her parents crowded into the room, taking up the space on the other side of her bed.
“Sophia?” her mother said. “Sop
hia, sweetheart. Everything’s okay. You passed out at the hospital, but you’ve been given treatment and you’re doing better now.” She took her daughter’s other hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Rocco?” Sophia mumbled.
“I’m here, baby,” he said, holding her hand tighter. “Everything’s okay. I’m right here.”
Her eyelids flickered again, but her fingers tightened around his. It was as though her touch on his hand had a direct link to his heart, as it contracted, flooding him with emotion. He hated seeing her like this. How could it have happened so fast? Only two days ago, they were sitting on the beach and making love in bed. She’d gone downhill so quickly.
One of the nurses came into the room. “She should probably get some rest now, folks,” the woman said kindly. “She knows you’re all here for her, but sleep is going to be what helps her most now.”
He nodded, not wanting to leave her, but wanting to do what was best for her. He couldn’t stand the thought that he might have lost her. First his dad, then Sophia. His heart wouldn’t have been able to take it.
AS THE WEEK PASSED with Sophia still recovering in hospital, Rocco had no choice but to go back to work. He spent every minute possible outside of work at Sophia’s bedside. She was growing stronger every day and was able to sit up in bed and talk to him.
But he’d already taken most of the previous week off because of his dad, and even though Art had been more than understanding about the situation, Rocco knew that every day he wasn’t there was another day where the tattoo shop was losing money.
“Hey, how’s things going?” Art asked him when he went in that morning.
“Better, thanks. She’s awake for longer periods now, so we can talk.”
“Has she said why she didn’t tell you about the dialysis yet?”
He shook his head. “No, we haven’t spoken about it, and I don’t want to upset her.”
“I get that,” Art said, nodding. “But you guys are going to have to talk about it soon. It’s a pretty big deal.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He’d done some research over the past week, and he couldn’t pretend it didn’t make him nervous. The idea that she would die within a week or so if she stopped dialysis was terrifying, but he also held on to the possibility that a donor kidney might become available. If that happened, and her body didn’t reject it, she could go on to live a relatively normal life and wouldn’t have to be plugged into a machine every three days. This new knowledge didn’t change his feelings towards her. If anything, it only made him admire her more. In the ten years they’d been apart, while he’d been partying and studying, and working here at the tattoo studio, she’d been fighting this horrible illness. In his eyes, that made her a far braver person than he would ever be.
He worked on that day’s clients, trying to focus on the artwork rather than his thoughts drifting to Sophia all the time. He checked his phone a hundred times over, terrified he’d get a call to say she’d taken a turn for the worst. When the day was finally over, and he was getting ready to go back to the hospital, Tess stopped him and gave him a massive hug.
“Everything will be all right,” she told him. “And I’m so sorry about your dad.”
“Thanks, Tess.”
The people here at the studio felt like a little family to him. He’d never had much of one, not with his dad always drinking and his mum having left when he was too small to even remember her.
At least Sophia’s parents hadn’t been too angry at him because of what had happened with Sophia. He’d thought at first they’d blame him for not looking out for her, but when he’d explained that she hadn’t told him how ill she was, they’d been more than understanding.
Chapter Fourteen
The days in hospital were long, mind-numbing, and monotonous. If it wasn’t for the visits from her parents and Rocco, she thought she’d have gone mad with boredom. Rocco hadn’t yet pushed her for a full explanation of why she hadn’t told him the truth about how sick she was. She was sure her parents had filled him in on the details, but he deserved to hear it from her, too. After losing his dad only the week before, he hadn’t needed this kind of stress put upon his shoulders.
She was feeling much stronger now. She’d had two more dialysis sessions and had been on antibiotics for the pneumonia. Hopefully, she’d be discharged from the hospital soon and things could get back to normal. She was nervous about how things would have changed with Rocco now. He was still visiting her, but maybe that was just because he didn’t want to let her down while she was still in hospital. He’d had a glimpse of what life would be like with her, and she wouldn’t have blamed him in the slightest if he wanted to run for the hills.
When he came in to see her that evening, after he’d finished work, she was feeling strong enough to sit up in bed.
“Hey,” he said as he approached, giving her that lop-sided smile she loved. “You’re looking better.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m feeling better, too.”
“That’s great.”
He sat on the edge of her bed and leaned in to plant a kiss on her forehead. She gave him a smile, but her stomach churned, knowing the time had come for them to have the conversation.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the dialysis and how bad things were.”
He gave her a tight smile. “I wish you had. You’ve got no reason not to trust me, Sophia.”
“I know. I was just enjoying us being together again. I didn’t want to spoil things.”
He scooted closer and took hold of both of her hands. “Hey, you’re not spoiling anything. I’m here for you. I want to know everything.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Everything?”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
“Well, I have bilateral renal dysplasia.” She sighed. “It should have been picked up during my mother’s pregnancy with me, but it wasn’t. It was only when the cysts on one of the kidneys were getting worse that we even knew there was anything wrong. One of the kidneys was better than the other, but then I got an infection in the bad one so I had an operation to remove it. The one remaining kidney started to go downhill, and I was getting cysts, just the same as with the first one. I kept getting infections, but I battled through. Then, a few months ago, my one remaining, crappy kidney failed, so now I have to have dialysis three times a week, which does the job my kidneys should have done. I’m on the waiting list for a transplant, but I’m not expecting anything.”
“How long can you be on dialysis for?” He held her hand, his expression pinched with concern.
“Oh, years. Lucky me, huh? Because I’m young, they say I can live another twenty years spending three days a week for all those years hooked up to a machine.”
She was complaining, but the dialysis had quite literally been a life-saver for her. If she hadn’t started dialysis, she would have died. It was as simple as that. Though she hadn’t wanted to think about the possibility of spending the rest of her life on dialysis, she’d been surprised at how positively she’d ended up about it all. Almost right away, she’d started to feel better. Her energy levels were back, the swelling in her limbs had gone down, and the frustrating itching went away. She felt as though she’d been given a new lease of life. But sometimes it was hard when she was with people at the dialysis centre who’d been on dialysis for years, whose fistulas were swollen and scarred and ugly, and they just looked like they’d given up. It was easy for her to be positive only a few months down the line, but would she still feel this way in a few years? Or ten years? Or twenty? It was impossible for her to say.
“Until a donor comes along,” he added, and she could see he was trying to be encouraging, but she’d lived with this all of her adult life, and it was hard to stay positive sometimes.
“Yeah, until a donor comes along.”
“And how long is that likely to take?”
She shrugged. “Can be up to three years, possibly longer. The good thing is that because I’m young, I’m hi
gher on the list. The people who make the decisions figure I’ll get more years out of a donor kidney than someone who was say, in their sixties. But it’s still a strange thought, knowing that if it does happen, it’s because someone else has died. I’ll have a piece of another person inside me, and that’s a weird thing to get my head around, too.”
His voice softened. “I wish you’d told me, all those years ago, when you moved away. I can’t believe you’ve been going through this on your own all this time.”
She gave him a wan smile. “You were a seventeen-year-old boy with your whole life ahead of you. You were always so talented and carefree, even with your dad trying to drag you down. I didn’t want to be the one to tie you down and give you more to worry about. And how was it going to work anyway? I was stuck in hospital hundreds of miles away.”
“I’d have come up and visited.”
“And what would have been the point in that?”
“To show you I loved you. To show you how much I cared.”
“I didn’t want you to see me like that. I was swollen up like a balloon. I was embarrassed.”
“I wouldn’t have cared. I loved you, Sophia, not the size of your limbs.”
She reached out and placed her hand on his cheek, the scrape of his beard against her palm prickly. “I know, and that’s why I couldn’t tell you. I knew you’d give up everything, and I didn’t want you to do that.”
“You broke my heart when you didn’t contact me.” He covered her hand with his, pressing her fingers closer.
“I’m sorry, but you got over it.”
He lifted his gaze to hers, fixed her in his dark stare. “Did I?”
Her breath caught in her chest, and her eyes filled with tears. What was he trying to say? That he still loved her?
He moved in closer still, his grasp tightening around her fingers. “Sophia, nothing’s changed for me. I still feel the same way about you as I did when I was seventeen. I’m crazily in love with you, even with all this going on—perhaps even more so because of it. I know we haven’t been reunited for long, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve known you my whole life, and I want you to be in my life for however many years I have left.”
Forged with Ink (London Inked Boys Book 3) Page 7
