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I took a deep breath. “I’m calling my family.” I picked up my phone and went to dial, but he stopped me.
“Just hold up a second. Hold up,” he said. “Why don’t you just ask her?”
“Ask her what?”
He shrugged. “Ask her to be your date to the wedding stuff.”
“They think she’s my girlfriend. A date isn’t going to do it.”
He shrugged again. “Well, ask her to be your girlfriend.”
I stared at him incredulously.
“Not for real. Ask her to help you out.”
When I didn’t reply, he leaned forward on the table. “Look, Briana is cool as hell. She’d probably do it. Especially if you’re her brother’s kidney donor—” He bounced his eyebrows and grinned.
I stared at him a second. “I was a match?”
He shook his head. “You didn’t just match. It was perfect—well, as perfect as it can get, outside of growing your own organs. I mean this kid’s not gonna find anything better, I’ll tell you that.”
A match.
In the last two weeks Zander had sent me for a physical and a mental health evaluation, in addition to the labs. I guess that should have been a good indication that things were lining up. Still, the news surprised me.
“Give me the broad strokes.”
“Okay,” he said, leaning back in the booth. “Well, all the standard surgical risks. Pain, infection, hernia. Bleeding, blood clots. General anesthesia, two- to three-hour surgery for a laparoscopic nephrectomy. Afterward, a couple of follow-up visits. No driving for two weeks, no lifting anything over ten pounds for a month. That’s it. Donors have the same life expectancy as non-donors. You’ll go on with your life.”
I sat back in my seat. “I need to think about this.”
“Of course.”
“It’s not really a good time for me. I’ve got wedding stuff for the next few months.”
“We can schedule it when you want.”
“And I don’t know if Gibson will give me the time off—”
“He will. I already asked him.”
I snorted.
“Look, I’m not trying to pressure you,” he said. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope you did it. This is the best possible scenario for this kid. And Briana’s a friend of mine, and I want to see her relax a little bit. It’s been hard on her.”
Briana. That was a bonus to doing this, if I was being honest. I liked her. Not that she’d know it was me if I did decide to do it. I wanted to donate anonymously.
“I need to think about it,” I said. It was a big decision.
He nodded. “Okay. But I’m just sayin’. This would definitely get you a wedding date.”
“If I do it, I don’t want anyone knowing it’s me.”
He looked at me like I was speaking in tongues. “Why not? Man, you’d be the hero of the whole ER. They’d probably throw you a damn parade—”
“That is exactly why I don’t want anyone to know. I wouldn’t be doing it for the recognition. I’d be doing it to help him. I don’t like that kind of attention.”
I didn’t even tell anyone it was my last day at Memorial West. I didn’t want anyone to make a big deal about it. I didn’t even like people singing “Happy Birthday” to me. Getting tearful thank-yous from Benny’s family and backslaps and handshakes from strangers was my idea of hell.
