Hope Mired in Regret

After my older sister Rachelle came home from dialysis, the atmosphere at home was suffocating.

She curled up on the couch, thin as a rail. She was nagging me hard and telling me not to tire myself out too much at work.

Dad was by the door smoking. To get money to treat Rachelle’s condition, he had sold our old house and land.

Dirty and muddied, my fiance, who had always viewed Rachelle as a sister of his own, brought home his week’s salary.

They all lamented how unfair life was to already poor and suffering people who had to suffer even more.

I looked at myself in the mirror with my bleeding nose and flushed away the report with my acute leukemia diagnosis.

During dinner, Dad suddenly said, “Ryleigh, Rachelle needs a kidney. You’re healthy and young. You might be a match.”

I looked at Rachelle’s pleading eyes and coldly put my cutlery down.

“I won’t do it. I’ll be a cripple with one less kidney. How am I supposed to find someone to marry then?”

Dad slapped me hard, even as my fiance called me ungrateful.

I slammed the door shut as I left. I looked for the nearest room to the hospital to rent so that I could wait it out until I died.

The room I found was only five blocks away from the organ donation center.

My rented room was two floors underground.

The place had the smell of mold all year and only had one window barely big enough to be worthy of the name. I had to stand on my tiptoes to see the concrete ground outside.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was deathly pale.

I felt a warm trickle under my nose. I was bleeding again.

I tilted my head back expertly and grabbed some tissues to shove tightly into my nostrils.

This was my fourth nosebleed of the day.

According to the doctor, the prognosis for acute promyelocytic leukemia was very good if it was treated intensively. However, it took a lot of money.

Like, a LOT of money.

But my older sister, Rachelle, also needed money for her uremia. A new kidney would cost 500 thousand dollars, and there were still the fees for the treatments to make sure she did not reject the new organ.

The family had long ago been bled dry.

Our old home had been sold. Dad worked hard labor in construction, while Jonah Anders, my fiance, worked three jobs a day.

If I got treatment, Rachelle would die.

If I did not get treatment, I could leave my kidneys to Rachelle. She would be able to save on the cost of getting a new kidney.

I had done the calculations on this very carefully.

My phone vibrated violently in my pocket.

When I checked it, I found a text from Jonah.

[Ryleigh, where have you disappeared to? Rachelle’s just passed out from pain! What kind of a sister are you? It’s just one kidney. You won’t die! Come home. We won’t make you donate immediately, but at least go to the hospital to check if you’re a match. Please? I’m begging you!]

After I read the text, I laughed. The blood from my nosebleed went down my throat, and the taste of it made me gag.

Go to the hospital to check if we were a match?

The moment the hospital took my blood, the unusual markers in it would expose me and my condition.

When the hospital found out, my kidney would be disqualified, and Rachelle’s only path of survival would be cut off.

I had to be selfish.

With trembling hands, I typed out a reply. [There’s no discussion to be had if you can’t pay me. Give me 500 thousand dollars, and I’ll think about it.]

I hit send.

Three seconds later, Jonah called.

I did not answer it. I blocked his number instead.

It was obvious that he was cursing my name, calling me heartless and cruel. He was probably saying that I was a money-minded witch.

But that was alright.

It was better that they hated me. Hatred was better than guilt.

I curled up in my narrow and slightly damp single bed. The taste of blood on my tongue still made me nauseated.

But I did not dare to puke.

If I started throwing up, I knew I would not be able to stop.

I needed to protect the kidney I would leave for Rachelle. To do so, I had to ensure that the rest of my organs kept functioning.

I took the cheap bottle of vitamin B pills from my bedside table. Pouring out a big handful, I threw them all back into my mouth and swallowed them dry.

It did not matter that these pills did nothing to help my leukemia. At the very least, it gave me some comfort.