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***
Renal failure.
The words she understood. Hell, it was a concept that had scared her and her mother for decades—that gnawing fear that one day the insulin problems her sister struggled with would eat through her kidneys. She just didn’t expect that day to ever actually come. Soon she’d have to call her mom, but right now she was numbly trying to process everything that Dr. Singal was telling her. The biggest problem was that her sister would be on dialysis for a long time as she navigated the transplant list. Unfortunately, neither she nor her mom had the right blood type. They’d always joked about being A’s, but her little sister was a B negative.
“I…but she’ll get one if she’s on the list, right?”
“That can’t be guaranteed. With dialysis, she can live at least five more years and that might open her up to a donor or to even other advancements in treatment. We’re making them all the time.”
“That’s not what I asked. What are the odds she’ll get her donor to give her a kidney in time?” she asked, balling her hands up at her side, wishing she could beat up the whole damn world for how unfair everything was, how twisted.
Dr. Singal looked down at his clipboard and then back at her. “She’s young and she’s managed her condition well. She doesn’t have other complicating factors should she stay compliant. I’d say at least a sixty percent chance.”
“I…”
She didn’t even know what to say to that. It was an even greater than one-in-three chance that her sister wouldn’t get better and she’s lose her within the next five years. It was as if someone saw her have five minutes of damn happiness last night and decided that was far too much for Jennifer Wilde to have. God, the devil, Zeus…whoever…had decided to curse her all at once and rip everything out from under her. But a job was just a job. This was her baby sister.
Suddenly, it was like a jolt of electricity had whizzed through her. Standing up from her chair, her hands still balled into fists at her side, she glared at the doctor. “There has to be another hospital, though, or a foundation that can help her. Syd isn’t going to die.”
“Miss Wilde, I didn’t say that’s what was going to happen.”
“But you’re telling me percentages, giving me an estimate of when her time runs out. That’s not good enough,” she said. “There’s got to be something else. Isn’t there any way to get up higher on the list?”
“No, it’s not manipulated like that.”
“Then we have to figure out a better treatment, Dr. Singal. I know she’s on Mom’s crappy stuff from working at Walmart, but we have to do something, please.”
“Miss Wilde, I advise you call your mother and take some time to digest this news. What I can tell you is that as we stabilize her, the staff here will do the best job we can, and we’ll help you find a good regime back home in Kentucky. The university is in your town. That should help. UK has its advantages.”
“But it’s…there has to be something else we can do.”
“Call your mother. You both need to understand how fully this is going to impact your family.”
“Believe me,” she said, “I couldn’t be more aware of it. Not at all.”
When he was gone, she slipped into the hall and went first to Rose, standing guard like the perfect and most loyal sentinel outside of her sister’s room. Her friend looked up at her and reached out and held her tightly.
“What did he say?”
“I…she’ll need dialysis until they can find a donor. Mom and I have the wrong type.” Suddenly all those jokes about being A-plus people because of their blood type weren’t funny anymore. She’d do anything if she matched with her little sister, but she didn’t. Hell, if they were the same type, she’d strap herself to the gurney right now and ask the doctors what they were waiting for. “I need to call Mom but I can’t even think. It’s like my brain’s on this weird, fuzzy autopilot, like none of this is real.”
“But I’m here for you, and I’m not the only one,” she said. “It seems someone’s sheikh is here, and you so have tons more to tell me about Bahan later, girl,” she said, pointing Jennifer to the waiting room in the corner.
Bahan was there, sitting alone. Maybe he’d arranged for that—another rich-guy trick that she couldn’t fathom. Or maybe it was just the way the world was today. She and her sister alone and feeling adrift in a cold, cruel universe. Either way, she’d only left him a few hours ago. It seemed like it had been longer. Her life had fundamentally changed since their night together and the relaxed brunch they’d shared with his brother, Fareed. Still, it warmed her heart to see him there. It was something her dipshit of a father had never done for her or Sydney, and it was nothing that Dustin would have done either. It gave her hope that her heart hadn’t chosen poorly this time around.
“You’re here,” she said. Then she looked back at Rose. “Can you go and watch over Sydney? I’ll be there in five minutes. I just need to talk to him and then call Mom.”
“You know I can, boss,” Rose joked, winking back at her before she hurried back to Sydney’s room.
Bahan didn’t say anything, just swept her up in a fierce hug. She needed that, needed to feel the steel cage of his arms around her, giving her the security that the rest of her life lacked. Inhaling deeply, she took in that addictive scent of him that seemed to follow him everywhere. It was already like coming home, and she wasn’t sure what that said about her. She’d tried her whole life not to be dependent on anyone else, and she barely knew this man. But he felt so safe, like he could give her the shelter she seemed to lack currently.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s my sister…I…she has kidney failure. Mom and I aren’t a match.”
“Then we can get her a new kidney,” he said dismissively, almost as if he could go buy one at the local grocery store.
That made her angry.
