A security guy in his early twenties, who looked like a bouncer in a nightclub, escorted me out of the hospital. “Sorry, kid,” he said. “It’s just my job. I don’t usually have to hassle girls. Just stay away, okay? You must’ve done something to make them unhappy.” I felt like a criminal.
Martha was sitting in the lobby. She saw me being ushered outside and followed.
“Leave the kid alone, Muscle Breath,” she told the guy.
“She’s out of here,” he said. “I’m done. Good-bye.” And he disappeared back into the hospital.
“What’s up?” Martha asked. “My shift was over so I thought I’d hang around.”
“Oh, God,” I said, trying to hold back the tears. “First Kurt. Now Jason.”
“Need a ride?”
“No, I don’t know where to go. I sure don’t feel like going home.”
“Well, what do you feel like?” She was trying to be nice.
I wasn’t thinking about Kurt right then. I was thinking about Jason. I’d seen him on the stretcher. It looked bad. “I feel like a vampire,” I told her.
“I don’t get it.”
“I asked everybody I knew what their blood type was. Kurt is B negative. They said he was going to need lots of blood for transfusions. Guess who was the only person I found with the right blood type?”
“Jason?”
“Yeah. And what I think Jason was trying to tell me before the accident, in his own weird way, was that he wanted to help. He really did care about Kurt and was willing to donate his blood.” What I was thinking just then was scary and awful enough that I felt ashamed.
Martha said it out loud for me. “And if he dies, you’ve got yourself an organ donor.”
I couldn’t look at her. A flood of tears came out of me and I hung onto her shoulder, sobbing.
“Tina, whether Jason lives or dies has nothing to do with you. And whatever we think right now will make no difference to Jason’s chances.”
“I guess I know that. And I don’t really want him to die. It’s just that this may be Kurt’s only opportunity. Especially now. I think that maybe he’s worse off since he ran away from the hospital. More damage.”
“I’m gonna see what I can find out about Jason,” Martha said. “Stay here.”
The minutes dragged on while I waited. Martha returned as promised. “Severe head injury,” she said, looking first at her hands and then down at the floor. “If he’d worn his helmet, he might have been okay, but it’s very bad. He’s on life support, the sort they use for patients that are what they call ‘brain dead.’ If his parents agree, they’ll pull the plug in eight hours. Absolutely nothing they can do.”
I closed my eyes and found that already I missed Jason. I missed his obnoxious macho jokes and his stupid antagonism. I thought about how he and Kurt had grown up in the same neighborhood. Their parents were old chums, and the two kids had often been thrown together. Kurt had always called Jason a friend, though I’d never seen Jason do anything to deserve the title. Jason made fun of Kurt and tried to break him down whenever he could. Guys were funny that way.
Suddenly, I saw something that made me suck in my breath and cover my face with my hands.
We were standing near the glass doors. Outside, a car skidded to a stop. I knew who was inside. I’d met them before. Jason’s father and mother got out and ran past us. I’ll never forget the panic in their faces.
Martha understood before I said anything.
“What will happen?” I said. “I feel so helpless.”
Martha put her arm around me and began walking me out the doors of the hospital. “You go home. I’ll tell Bennington what you told me about the blood type. When the time is right, he’ll talk to Jason’s parents about a transplant. That’s all we can do. Now go home.” She gave me a gentle push.
But I didn’t go home right away. I ran again, all the way back to the Ledge. I watched the sun set over the water. It had a sad beautiful quality that made me think of Jason and Kurt and how stupid life was. When it started to get cold I went home, but I got up at dawn and left a note for my mom. Then I ran all the way back to the hospital.
The morning was gray and cold. The sky was full of bad news, and I kept hoping it was all a dream. It wasn’t.
I got as far as the waiting room in the Outpatient Clinic before someone came up from behind me and grabbed my arm.
“This way.” The voice was not unfriendly. It was Martha.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“You need a friend, Tina. I’m all you’ve got. And they were serious about keeping you out. By the way, you look like hell.”
“Thanks for the news,” I said. I let her lead me outside to the ambulance loading bay.
“Get in,” she said when we got to her ambulance.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
I got inside and she told me to lie down on the gurney. “I’ll take you up to see Bennington.”
I lay down and covered myself with a sheet. Martha opened the back door and wheeled me out onto the ramp and back inside the hospital.
“I’m not supposed to be doing this,” she told me. She sounded nervous.
We traveled up in a crowded elevator, and I pretended to be unconscious. When she wheeled me off on the fourth floor, she asked a nurse where Dr. Bennington was.
“He’s in his office,” the nurse said, looking through the glass door. “Don’t knock. Just go in.”
When we got there, I pulled off the sheet, jumped up and went in through the door, closing it loudly behind me.
Bennington was startled. He looked up from a pile of papers on his desk. “How did you get in here?” he asked, more annoyed than angry.
I shrugged. “How is he?”
“The same,” Bennington said. “We’re doing everything we can. You know that.”
“Did you talk to Jason Evans’ parents?”
Bennington seemed surprised. He rubbed his hand along the desk. “Yeah, I just talked to them about half an hour ago.” I waited for him to say more, but he sat silently with his fingers locked together in front of him.
“Jason told me his blood is B negative.”
“He wasn’t lying. It’s a perfect match.”
“Is Jason alive?”
“The family has decided to discontinue the life support.”
I closed my eyes and thought about Jason.
Bennington knew what I wanted to ask next, and he knew it would be hard for me to ask. I didn’t have to. “I’m not really supposed to be discussing this with you,” he said.
But I just stood there, staring at him. “Please,” I begged.
He let out a sigh. “They refused,” he said. “It’s their right. They’ve suffered a big blow. That’s hard enough and they can’t face a decision like this.”
“But they can’t do that!” I said. “If Jason is going to die and Kurt has a chance to live, then he deserves that chance.”
“That’s not for us to decide.”
“Can I talk to them?”
He snapped immediately. “Absolutely not.” He turned cold and professional again. “You leave them alone.”
“Sure.” I was afraid he’d call somebody and have me thrown out. And I didn’t want to be thrown out, not while there was still hope.
“We’ve got calls in to over thirty donor hospitals. Something will come up.”
“Right,” I said. I didn’t believe a word of it. Finding a donor with B-negative blood was nearly impossible. Nothing had come up so far. The odds were stacked against it.
“We’re doing all we can. You just have to trust us.”
“Sure,” I said again.
“Go home and get some rest. You can call me if you like and I’ll have the nurses keep you posted on Kurt’s condition. But you know Kurt’s parents don’t want you here. We’ve been through all that.”
Bennington picked up the phone. I knew he was calling for security to escort me out.
“I can find my own way,” I said.