Chapter Twenty
Brock
My whole left side was numb. It was like right after my first surgery on my head, I couldn’t move my left arm, and my left leg was completely uncooperative as well. Except that time I had a brain tumor and this time I have the most beautiful girl in the world laying on me, naked. This time wasn’t like that one at all. I just wanted to mention the part about the most beautiful girl in the world being naked in my bed.
“Good morning,” she said with a sleepy smile.
“Good morning beautiful,” I said, kissing her on top of the head. Even first thing in the morning she was gorgeous. She looked happy and peaceful. I was glad. I had been afraid that she would be having regrets after last night. I ran my fingers up and down her arm. Her skin was so soft. She was lying against me and I took my hand and started running it down her back. When I got to the lower right side, I could feel a tiny little scar. I wasn’t thinking, just running my fingers across the texture of it and she said, “That’s where they took my kidney out.” I didn’t say anything; I just kept rubbing her back. I had seen the scar on her chest last night from her Meta-port. I knew that’s what it was, because I had the same one. Mine had refused to work how it was supposed to though, and after a while they had just taken it out and started using PICC lines or IV’s to give me my chemo. It ruined my veins and scarred up my arms. As far as surgical scars go though, I was lucky…once my hair grew back.
“Hey Molly,” I said. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at my face. Smiling she said, “Since I’m naked in your bed, I certainly hope so.”
“Have your doctors ever thought about putting you on the transplant list?”
Her face changed…just slightly, and I was afraid I had upset her. Then she said, “They haven’t talked about it yet. As long as one kidney is functioning, I’m not really eligible anyways.”
“Is the other one okay?” I asked her.
“So far,” she said. She looked away from my eyes and down at the pillow on the bed when she said it. I suspected there was more to it, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Then she said, “Actually, the one I have left is acting up a little, but we’re taking care of it.” I hugged her tight and said, “Good. I’d like you to be around for a while…a long while.” She smiled then and said, “What about yours? Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah, not bad,” I told her. “It goes away and comes back. Right now, it seems to be shrinking some, so not bad.”
“Good,” she said, making my stomach flutter with her next words. “I’d like for you to be around for a long while too.”
I hugged her again, God she felt good. “Do you have class today?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said, “But not until noon. I have Physics lab this afternoon. That’s the only class I have, but it’s three hours long, ugh!”
I smiled. “You can go to my Music History class and I’ll go to Physics lab for you,” I told her.
“Really?” she said.
“Yeah,” I told her. “I think I really would. It would do you absolutely no good though. I blew up every beaker I touched in high school. My science teacher was not amused.”
Molly laughed, “I was the nerd that everyone wanted to partner up with. Then they’d sit back and let me do all of the projects.”
“That’s terrible,” I told her.
“That I was a nerd?” she asked.
“No, that you didn’t go to my high school so I had someone to do my projects for me.”
She laughed and said, “So what was Jake like in high school?”
“Exactly like he is now,” I told her. “Jake is good at every sport he ever tried out for, just naturally, and for whatever reason the girls all loved him too. He does nothing for me. Anyways, somehow he never let any of that go to his head though. He was just always Jake, and he was the only one who never treated me different after I got sick.”
“Megan was like that for me. She would come to the hospital every day and tell me what was going on at school and who was dating who and who hated who and who was wearing what. She made me laugh and forget about everything that I was going through for a little while. She loved me, but she didn’t feel sorry for me. She just always stayed close until I was better, and then once I was we went on with life as we had always known it.”
I laughed softly.
“What?” she said.
“I was just thinking how weird it was that it seemed like we were living parallel lives all of those years before we even knew each other.” She thought about that for a minute and said, “Maybe it was all leading us to here.”