Evelyn had told me years ago that her mother’s blood type was a huge hurdle. Type O organs can be donated to anyone; but if you’re an O, you can only receive an exact match. Evelyn is type A and I’m a B, so we were both useless to her.
“Son, listen,” the doctor continues. “Her condition is extremely critical, and I’ve got her moving up the list to receive a kidney. We’re doing everything humanly possible to get her through this. I don’t know if you’re a religious man, but we can send the chaplain by if you’d like to pray with him.”
“Yeah, do that,” I agree. “I’m not too religious, I guess, but it might make Rita feel better. Thanks, doc, for all you’re doing,” I tell him with a heavy sigh as I turn to go back to her room. Before I can get to the door, Evelyn practically runs into me coming out.
“She’s asleep,” she whispers as she gently pulls the door closed behind her.
“Doc says they’ve got her moving up the transplant list,” I reply, filling her in on the rest of the conversation. As I’m talking, Evelyn hangs her head; and when I move in to try to hug her, she jerks away from me.
“Ev? What’s going on baby?” I ask in confusion, as she suddenly glares at me, her jaw clenched in anger.
“This is our fault. You know that, don’t you, Cedric? We never should have moved her back up here. It was too much for her to take.”
“Ev, we don’t know that…” I try to argue lamely, my heart breaking from her putting the blame on me.
“I know it!” she snaps at me. “You can see how much worse she has gotten, how she’s deteriorating! This isn’t a coincidence, Cedric! God, I was so fucking stupid, so caught up in what I wanted, so happy to see you again…we did this to her,” she mutters as her shoulders slump, her body practically sinking in on itself.
“Ev, that’s not true. You’re not thinking right, and you’re letting all this guilt eat you up inside. This is not your fault, all right?”
“Yes, Cedric, it is. I pray to God this transplant comes through for her,” she says, then shakes her head and swipes at the tears that have begun to trickle from the corners of her eyes. “Christ, listen to me. I’m praying that someone dies, so my mother can live. This is so fucking impossible.”
“Ev, I…is there anything I can do or…” I trail off weakly.
“Just take me home Cedric,” she sighs in defeat as she wraps her arms around herself and marches down the hall away from me. “Just take me home.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Evelyn
I’ve been lying in bed for hours trying to get to sleep. It’s always harder for me when Cedric is working his night shift in the surveillance room. When my phone suddenly lights up and dings, I sit up immediately and snatch it off of the nightstand, terrified it might be my mother having a crisis. The message that shows up is almost worse.
Lowell: Time to come back to me.
“Oh God, no,” I mutter, staring at the screen in horror. I debate not replying at all, but knowing that he’s out there, lurking somewhere, is more terrifying than ignoring him.
Me: I thought you were in jail.
Maybe he just has access to a cell phone in there, somehow. Before that thought can even begin to comfort me, my phone dings again.
Lowell: Now I’m out and your ass is mine, WIFE.
This is what I feared the most. That he would make bail and come right back, determined to claim me for himself. Before I can think of anything to say or to threaten him with, I’ve typed out:
Me: My mom is in the hospital.
His reply is again almost instant.
Lowell: Sorry babe but you never should’ve left me. Come back so I can take care of you and I won’t kill your little fuck boy.
When I finish reading his last message, I hurl the phone away from me, the spasm of pure revulsion in my arm sending it flying across the room.
He couldn’t do it, could he? Hurt Cedric again?
Who am I kidding? I know what Lowell is capable of doing. I’ve seen it firsthand.
Sitting on the edge of bed, I rock myself back and forth, the anxiety and fear building up inside me, and overshadowing it all, the horrible, all-consuming NEED. God, I need to get high so badly, to get this pressure out of my head, this weight off of my chest. I would do anything to keep Cedric safe and to just make this pain go away. Anything for a moment of respite from the constant, nagging agony.
I slap myself with both palms on the top of my head, trying to knock the pounding of my skull. I can’t think in a straight line, my thoughts are just a jumbled swirl chasing each other around one central point, my NEED. Without even making a conscious decision, I rise from the bed, grabbing at whatever clothes are close at hand, and begin getting dressed. I’m not even sure where I’m going, but I have to move, have to do something to try to escape these feelings.
Cedric
“Evelyn?” I call out when I walk through the door and she’s not in bed. “Evelyn?” I yell again as I move to the bathroom to search for her.
She’s not here.
Rushing back to the apartment door, intending to see if she’s upstairs, a piece of paper flutters off the bed and lands on the floor.
I already know what it is going to say before I read it.
Cedric, I’m so sorry. Love, Ev.
“Fuck!” I shout as I slam my fist through the wall, leaving a jagged crater in the white plaster.
She’s gone.
She actually left, sneaking out right under my nose while I was ironically monitoring the security cameras. I can’t fucking believe that I didn’t see her.
After all the weeks of torture she’s endured to get better, and just like that she’s gone, no doubt looking to score something, anything, and throw her sobriety in the garbage. Just because she can’t handle the possibility of losing her mother.
And she’s right. It’s all my fault for being so selfish, wanting Ev no matter the cost.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Evelyn
I don’t really remember making the decision to walk to my mom’s place to take her car, driving it to her old apartment that Lowell was paying for. Part of my brain tells me that, of course, he wouldn’t be there. There are plenty of other places he could stay…but the junkie knows. The junkie has a sixth sense, a true north, if you will, a magnetic pull towards their next fix.
At least, that’s what I’m thinking as I stand in front of my mother’s old apartment, watching a hand I don’t think I can fully control reach up and pound on the door.
The door cracks open as far as the chain lock will allow, and a bloodshot swollen eye that I don’t recognize peeks out at me. The door slams shut as I stagger backwards in confusion, before it’s suddenly thrown wide open.
“Well, well, well, look at this,” Lowell’s voice sneers from a face I barely recognize. He’s been beaten horribly, his eye swollen grotesquely, his nose displaced, and at least two teeth that I can easily see missing. He’s standing before me in a ripped pair of jeans and an oversized wife-beater that hangs sickly off his frame. His denim cut, which he was never without before going to jail, is nowhere to be seen. “I knew you’d be back. But I have to say, this is freaky-fast even for my most devoted customers.”