If Not for You (Completed)

Chapter 19: Kazzi

19 Kazzi

Twenty-four hours passed without Kale waking, and eventually, he stopped breathing on his own. Doctor said he had fallen into what he was calling a 'preservative coma', which meant the end was nigh, and his body was making one final effort to preserve itself. I was grateful for the primitive survival instinct in the human body. People like Darwin would chalk it up to some form of adaptive evolution, but I knew it had been God that instilled these defensive mechanisms within His people. I was scared to lose Kale. There was no denying it, but the more I prayed, the more I assured myself that God was in control.

Still, I choked on the lump in my throat as I sat at his bedside, watching his near-lifeless form. He'd been connected to a breathing machine again, and the sticky pads on his chest counted his slow, rhythmic heartbeats. His hand was warm in mine, but I didn't know if he could feel our fingers entwined. I doubted it.

It'd been seven days since he'd fallen to that quiet place in his own mind. Seven more, and the doctors said it would be wise for me to contact his kin and begin settling his affairs. Especially if a liver didn't come in, and it didn't look like one would be coming anytime soon. Every day, I prayed and hoped that that would be the day of the miracle, and the next doctor or nurse that walked into the room would do so with joyful news, but no one had. Not yet.

Rather, they all looked at Kale with pity, a few even with contempt, as though he were wasting hospital time and resources when there were others who could actually be helped. I didn't call them on their attitudes. What purpose would it serve? They would get paid regardless.

I was fronting the bill for all his treatment since Kale obviously had no insurance, but the last I'd checked, he'd already racked up over a hundred grand. Even if I made a payment every month for the rest of my life, I'd never pay it off. Granted, there were some resources Kale could use, given his social status and broken childhood, and I had people at the office looking into them for me, but I would still be responsible for the immediate payments, which would rob me entirely. And I wasn't about to ask my Dad to pay the bill for a man he didn't even know.

Even though a hundred grand was practically pocket change to my father, I had yet to tell either of my parents about Kale, or about our relationship. I'd tried once to introduce him when we were kids, back when I was still invisible to them. After Kale's 'death', I'd tried again to tell them how much he meant to me, and why I didn't want to live without him.

They hadn't understood, and though my relationship with them was better now, I wasn't ready to drag Kale into a position of pretending he was upstanding and well-off just to meet my father's approval, or worse, let Kale just be himself, be honest, and have my Dad chase him off.

If and when Kale and I ever had a date set for a wedding, then I'd come clean to my parents. But as I looked at Kale just then... my hopes weren't all that high. He was dying, and I was sitting helpless, praying for a miracle that I was beginning to doubt the longer I waited. The enemy sure loved to shake people's faith, and the possibility of death was always a sure way to do it. I was ashamed but so scared I couldn't pray any harder than I was already.

Mo had come to visit Kale the previous day, and after speaking to him about my concerns, he'd prayed with me, then opened Kale and I a GoFundMe account, and had shared it with everyone he knew. With any luck, he'd said people would donate and help, but I was still concerned, regardless.

I let out a tired sigh as I released Kale's hand and sank back into the chair, scraping my fingers through my hair, feeling exhausted. The chair I sat in pulled out into something that could barely pass for a rock-hard bed and I'd been sleeping in it for a week, helping myself to the bathroom shower and hospital-provided toothbrush and paste. I was exhausted, and so far beyond overwhelmed, I wasn't sure there was even a term for my emotions anymore.