S.O.S

Chapter Sixteen - Die or Alive

Steph hadn't returned home for five days, I assume her condition had gone worse but at the same time I wished she had not. I refused to visit her in the hospital, not because I don't give a shit about her physical condition, it's more because of what Tia offered me a few nights ago.

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"And your point of telling me that is..." I replied synically, trying my best to ignore the pounding heartbeat inside my chest. Wishing for what I had in mind wasn't true.

Tia took some deep breath before continuing, positioning her left leg onto the other. I could not sense any expression on her old tired face - since she's been commuting back and forth to the hospital, going through sleepless nights and getting home at dawn - I barely forecast what she's planning to utter.

"Since... you've found out quite a lot about how your dad ended up rotten in the cold, nasty cell of penitentiary, and since I've been considering about how pity your life has been all this time, I umm... I..."

I couldn't stand listening to her chit chat for any more millisecond so I cut the bullshit, "Just tell me what you're up to."

She looked surprised as I noticed a glimpse of gasping in her breathe.

"I was just trying to be friendly, if that was bothering you."

I rolled my eyes and lowered my gaze to the fallen saltines crisp on the floor, which caught my attention better than Tia's crap. I assumed Cody must have finished the last stock of saltines we had, I stared at it blandly as if I had telekinetic power to fly it right into Tia's eyeball.

"Well," she continued, "I'd like you to be the donor."

"What?!" I bulged both of my eyes and stared closely to that face stood before my sight, silently convincing myself that I misheard her line.

She exhaled before repeating her sentence while I was crossing my fingers real tight I could almost rip them off my hand.

"I want you, Janet whatever your middle name is Grant, to be the heart donor of my princess, Stephanie Theodora Winston."

Fuck.

"And in return," she hadn't finished speaking, "I'm going to bail Armand out."

"But it means I would have to die." I replied emotionlessly. I had completely no idea about how was I supposed to feel at the moment.

"Sadly yes," Tia stood up and made her way to her bedroom, "you got seven days to think about it, get back to me at the end of this week."

I sat still on the couch, barely felt the weight of my body because I was positive I just felt a giant thunderbolt hit me right on the head into my brain. Paralyzed, I forgot how to blink my eyes, maybe I had missed a few breathe, probably my heart had skipped a round of beat.

---

No, I didn't die. Well, I wished I did, at least if I died then I wouldn't have to let the surgeon rip my heart off my chest, fresh from the warm living body of mine. Why, God?

I wanted my father to be free, I'd like him to be able to breathe the fresh air of the mother nature. I wanted my dad to see how Baltimore has changed in fourteen goddamn years whether in a good or bad way. At the same time, I could not let him live free knowing that I had to die in order to save the life of the girl who wasn't even related to me, neither to him. He would be furious, I assumed, I knew he would. He loved Tia, but he loved her daughter more, I was positive about it. I could not die, but...

'Promise me you will stay alive.'

Ugh, that line of Danny's.

I buried myself under my blanket, the one I had been keeping since I was little. Lying on the couch, while everybody was out picking Steph up from the hospital. It was two days to the day I was going to have to decide if I should die or stay alive.