It was Saturday. Which meant my fight with Matt happened nine days ago. Nine. And as far as I could tell, he’d just let me go. I rolled over and stared at the blank wall. I willed myself to not look at my left hand, where my engagement ring once sat. Because every time I looked at it, I started to cry.
The last voicemail I’d left Matt had been horrible. I’d called him a hypocrite. I’d said awful things. And I played those hateful words on repeat as I lay here in this hospital bed. I missed him. Desperately. And each day that passed made it seem like he didn’t miss me at all. How could I be reduced to so little in his mind when he was still my everything?
I quickly wiped away the tears on my cheeks. Maybe I did need to talk to a therapist. These mood swings made me feel like I was insane. It reminded me of when I went to the nurse at Empire High and she suggested I go see the school counselor. My uncle had just died and I was struggling. Honestly, I was still struggling. Some days it felt hard to breathe. It was like every time I thought my life was going to be okay again…something terrible happened. Something awful and irreversible. And I was so tired of waking up all alone in my misery.
There was a knock on the door.
I quickly sat up. It was definitely too early for dinner. Which meant…
“Princess,” my dad said. He was in one of his normal suits, and if it wasn’t for the cane he was leaning on…there would be no way to know he’d just had surgery. He looked healthy and the smile on his face made it appear that he was happy too. Great. He was the exact opposite of me. And just like that…I got angry again.
“Please don’t call me that,” I said. “That’s your nickname for Isabella. And I’m not Isabella.”
His smile faltered. “Of course you’re not. You’re my angel.” He sat down on the edge of my bed.
“An angel would have willingly given you a kidney. You had to steal mine.”
His smile disappeared completely. “Brooklyn, you have to understand…I thought you knew. I never would have…”
“Bullshit.”
“Language,” he warned.
He wasn’t allowed to be a kidney thief one minute and a good parent the next. “Fuck you!” Wow, this conversation was not going at all how I’d planned.
For just a second he looked ghostly pale. But he quickly recovered. “We’ve already been over this. You signed the contract and…”
“Dad! How can you not see my side on this? You gave me the world’s longest contract to sign. I couldn’t possibly have read all the fine print. And we never talked about it.”
“We did discuss it. I tried to talk to you about it at the diner that day I picked you up during lunch. Remember?”
What? I shook my head. “We were talking about me getting on birth control. Which was super awkward and I wish you’d stop…” Oh. Wait. I tried to remember the conversation. It had been super weird. And it had ended with him talking about staying in front of the issue. About getting it over with as soon as possible. Had he switched the conversation halfway through to talking about the weird kidney thing without me realizing it? “Wait…were you worried I would get pregnant and wouldn’t be able to do the surgery? Is that why you kept talking about it?”
“Yes, I told you that.”
“You didn’t tell me that! I had no idea what you were talking about!”
“Brooklyn, I even gave you an out. I told you if you weren’t comfortable talking about it with me, then maybe you weren’t ready to do the transplant.”
“I thought you were talking about birth control and sex the entire time!”
“Oh. What a misunderstanding.” He patted my shin.
“You even said I could see Dr. Wilson about getting on birth control. I know you did. I…”
“Good heavens no. Dr. Wilson is a specialist dealing with my kidney problems. He’s not an OBGYN.”
How could I have misunderstood everything so horribly?
“But I do appreciate you going through with it.”
“I was forced into it. It doesn’t matter that our discussion was a misunderstanding. You still tricked me. You sought me out after 16 years of ignoring my existence. All because you needed a kidney!” I slid away from him on the bed so he couldn’t touch me. “You made me believe that you loved me!”
“I do love you.”
“What’s the point of lying now? Do you need my liver too?”
“Brooklyn. I love you so much. And I hate to admit it, but I never sought you out. I never even knew you existed. Your uncle’s lawyer came to me. Because I’m your legal guardian. Do you really think I wouldn’t have found you sooner if I’d known you were out there?”
“Yeah, which goes back to the whole thing with how you wanted my mom to abort me. Don’t sit there and pretend you give a shit about me, Dad.” I put a scathing emphasis on his name.
He pulled his eyebrows together. “I loved your mother. I still love your mother even though she’s gone. I made some terrible mistakes when I was younger. Trust me, I don’t need you to remind me. But I never sought you out because I needed a kidney transplant. It was a happy coincidence that you fell into my lap. And yes, of course I thought about it when I found out you were alive…”
“Which is why you were so overly protective of me. And concerned about my health. And why you wouldn’t let me live in a bad part of town with Kennedy and her mom.”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t why I brought you into my home. It had nothing to do with that. I love you because you’re a piece of me and I will do anything in my power to keep you safe.”
“By cutting me open?”
“I thought you were giving me your kidney willingly. Because I’m your father. Because we were a match. Because you’re wonderful.”
I shook my head. “I’m not an idiot. All those tests you ran on me that first day when you locked me in that apartment? You were testing me to see if I was a match right away. Don’t sit there and lie and pretend that wasn’t the first thing running through your head.”
“No.” He stood up. “You know what the first thing I thought when I found out about you? I was ecstatic. I’ve regretted leaving your mother every single day since she left New York.”
I couldn’t even look at him. He was lying. He was a dirty fucking liar.
“And when I met you? All I could think about was how much you looked like your mother. And it was hard to look at you.”
I remembered being shoved in the back of his car. He’d acted distant and aloof. Had he really been struggling to look at me?
“And I knew that as soon as I brought you into my home that my life as I knew it would be over. The life I’d chosen over a life with your mom. And I did it anyway. Because I love you.”
I just stared at him. I didn’t know what to say.
“I didn’t think of the transplant at all. My whole world was turned upside down. I called Dr. Wilson because I saw where you were living and I figured you hadn’t seen a proper doctor in years. And yes, I wanted a paternity test. But as soon as I saw you…I knew. I knew you were my blood. Dr. Wilson ran the extra tests without me even knowing it. Apparently he assumed the worst of me too.” He stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked completely distraught.