Chapter 19: What You Do For Your Friends

I felt pretty good the next day. I'd fooled around with my girls the previous night and it was fun, but I was definitely getting tired of being limited to oral only. I could hardly wait for Friday. I had to cross my fingers though; given all the trouble I'd been having lately, who knew what might pop up to prevent it.

Things at school were still strained but were becoming a bit more normal. I was gradually getting used to always being stared at, I mean. I made sure we got to school early, so I headed to where I knew Chalise's locker was. Grabbing her by her hand I asked her if she trusted me. She immediately said, "Of course," so I proceeded to pull her along, without a word, and led her down a few hallways until we came up to Darrell's locker.

When she saw where we were headed she hesitated, gently pulling against me. I stopped and looked into her eyes. "You still trust me?" I asked.

"You're sure about this?" she asked in response.

"I think the answer to both of those is 'absolutely', now come on, you're not going to have much time." With that I pulled her along as we came up to Darrell, who was unsuspectingly focusing on his locker.

"Darrell, I have someone here that I think you need to speak with," I announced. He turned and, upon seeing his sister with me, looked embarrassed and glanced away.

"Look, you both have a lot to say, so I want you both to go someplace private and have it out," I told them. "Don't get upset, but don't roll over either. And don't try to hurry. Skip a couple of periods if you have to. I think working this out is worth a detention or two. Now you'd better hurry, you only have so much time and I think you'll want to do this before anyone notices what's going on." Once I'd said my piece I simply headed off without looking back. They'd either work it out or I'd find Darrell's bloated corpse in a few days, either way I'd tried my best.

The rest of the morning went pretty well. It seems that word about Darrell and I having worked out our differences had spread. Mike was fit to be tied, however, but you just can't expect other people to do your dirty work if you can't afford to pay them a decent wage is the way that I look at it. Alice was positively giddy, dancing from foot to foot she was so anxious to speak with me, but we were finishing an assignment so we had to work with our original partners again.

At lunch I really had no particular plans to sit with anyone today, but figured I really owed it to Betty to sit with her for a change, since I'd been ignoring her lately. So I grabbed Kitty, to ensure she wouldn't have to sit alone and be miserable, and Cate dutifully followed along. I sat down with them at a nice quiet corner table all to ourselves, ignoring all the various looks we were getting. But after a bit a Japanese girl stood up from her table and came over and joined us, saying she was sorry to Kitty about all the nasty things being said to her, and would we mind having her sit with us. Looking at Kitty I told our new arrival it shouldn't be a problem and introduced her, remembering her from our initial meeting at her usual table.

"Girls, this is Akia Satō, although she goes by Ai," I told everyone as we all made our introductions. I'm not sure how I ever remembered her name, much less how I ever pronounced it correctly, but she didn't correct me so I assume I got it right.

Since I was now dealing with her on a personal level, as opposed to a group of her friends, I regarded her a little more seriously than I had previously. She was pretty, with short jet black hair that fell a bit below her collarbone and bangs that reached below her eyebrows. I'd wished I'd have thought of that look to hide my own eyebrows. She had a nice playfully pouty face with inquisitive eyes. She had flawless skin and was significantly larger than Cate across the chest, although certainly not big breasted by any stretch of the imagination.

I had just started talking to Betty again when a Goth girl I'd sat at another table with stopped by to tell us how sorry she was about how Kitty had been treated. Her name was Mia Amendez and she was, as expected, dressed in black with black eye shadow and black lipstick with a short skirt and lots of black lace. I'd never really been into the Goth look before, but she was cute so I wasn't complaining about her looks.

It wasn't long before we had a table full of young women expressing their support of Kitty and renewing their friendships, however tenuous they may have been. I wasn't sure just how sincere they were about their feelings for Kitty, but I figured I'd see if they stuck around long enough to convince us. They were all very friendly and talked to everyone, especially Kitty, as much as they tried to subtly flirt with me.

After school, just as I leaving the school building heading to my car, I was met by Chalise and Darrell.

"I just want to thank you for making me speak to Darrell," she told me. "We had a good talk. You actually believe his story?" she asked, just checking she wasn't being fooled. I just nodded my head.

"Good, then maybe there's a chance of repairing at least one of my family relationships. Of course I don't know what we're going to do about Kitty. I really want to tell her, but I understand what my brother was trying to do. Bad implementation of a bad idea, but still. So Alex, what do you think? Should we tell her the truth?"

"I think we need to," I answered, nodding my head. "I think the relationship between the two of you, and between your brother and you, is more important than Darrell's sense of embarrassment. Of course it's easy to catapult someone else's embarrassment. But maybe right now isn't the time to tell her. Give her another day or two to be mad at him."

"Thanks, man," Darrell stated, reaching out and shaking my hand. "You don't know what this means to me. You also don't know how much it means for someone to stand up like this for me. Not just once but a couple of times. Everyone pushing me to succeed in football wouldn't have taken this much of a personal interest."

"They're not your friends, Darrell. They're merely coaches and sycophants. Try to keep a good sense of balance. Develop friends who don't judge you based on expectations. Easily said, but difficult to implement."

"Well, I think I've made a start with you. Thanks, again." I used his handshake to pull him into me and surprised him by giving him a big hug. It took a second but he grudgingly returned it. As we separated I looked around and saw a very surprised group of onlookers.

"It's worth it just to see their reactions," I whispered, teasing them both. They looked around and laughed, breaking out in a blush. "Anyway, go hide for a bit. We'll introduce you in another day or three." We shook again and he hugged his sister, walking away happily. Chalise snuggled into my side, hugging me tightly.

"I owe you."

"And I'll collect on Friday," I told her.

"No, honestly. You keep doing amazing things and all I manage to do is cause you trouble. First Darrell, then Brandon and my father, and you return all that trouble by giving me love and accepting me into your weird but interesting extended family. You give my Mom and me a place we can safely stay, you rescue my new best friend, and you give me a brand new brother that I've been missing all my life. How can I ever repay you?"

"Just keep being you, beautiful," I said, giving her a quick kiss, "and see if you still feel the same way after I choose Kitty as my girlfriend on Sunday." She promptly hit me on the shoulder and giggled. Really hard, too! I rubbed my arm the whole way to my car as I escorted her out. We found Kitty there with my sister. Just as I walked up, Anh pulled to a stop beside us. Have I mentioned how well telepathy serves for making an impact?

"Look, girls," I told both Kitty and Chalise. "I got some bad news yesterday and I'm going to have to go to the hospital again. I don't want to upset or burden you, so I arranged—"

"Is it Mary or one of the others?" Kitty asked worriedly. "Oh, no, she didn't die on you? Alex, you can't just tell us that and march off. Hell, we've all gotten—"

"No, no," I assured them, as they both looked stricken by the news. "Mary hasn't died. Not yet at least, but she doesn't have much longer. So I really wanted to see her before it's too late. I take it from your responses that you're both interested in coming as well?"

"Hell, yes," Chalise announced. "You'd better take us with you. Besides, knowing you, you'll probably need a shoulder to cry on afterwards." I had to glance over their shoulder at Cate when she said this, but she just shrugged in acknowledgment of what she said. Without another word Anh drove off and I waved goodbye to her as she left.

"OK, then, let's get to the hospital, pronto," I told them.

"You've got to tell us how you do that," Kitty said, before she thought about it. "Yeah, yeah, I know, we don't need to know." They all seemed to think that was quite funny.

So the four of us made the long drive to Carbondale again. Of course, Chalise didn't mention anything about her meeting with her brother, but everyone talked about the odd new group at our lunch table. Chalise, not having been present, was intrigued and asked about everyone there. I thought I had made a good start on fixing Darrell's bad move, but I'd have to continue to handle it delicately.

The girls all thought my eclectic mix at the lunch room had much more to do with me than it did Kitty. "They'd never have said anything if they didn't all have an interest in you. The way you handled my situation might have cemented their attachment to you, but I don't even know those girls," Kitty announced.

"When did you ever sit at the Goth's table?" Chalise wanted to know.

"You must not have been paying attention," Cate informed them. "He's slowly been working his way around the whole school. He's sat with the stoners, the geeks, and any other table he can think of. The only tables he hasn't been able to crack yet have been the cheerleader and sports tables. Apparently being an ex-gymnast doesn't count for much at school."

"Well, I doubt you'll be able to crack that particular nut, seeing as how they all practically worship Darrell," Kitty said. I glanced back and saw Chalise biting her lip over that statement.

As I pulled into a parking space at the Carbondale Memorial Hospital the group quickly became quite dour, considering what we were about to encounter. We entered in silence, with Kitty and Chalise both holding my hands, my poor sister having to relegate herself to walking silently behind me, her role in comforting me having been usurped.

As we entered the lobby we were met by Ryan, this time without his ever present assistant, but accompanied by both Allison and Shani.

"Alex, I'm so glad you could come. Mary isn't doing very well and probably doesn't have much time left," he informed me. I simply nodded, so he went on as we began walking towards the elevators. "We've also been discussing Jennifer's case, and there isn't much that we can do until something is confirmed."

"Jennifer? Did something happen to Jennifer?" Chalise asked. "Did she have complications or something?"

I figured there was no good reason to beat around the bush. "When she broke her arm it released all the cancer cells in her bone marrow into her bloodstream. Her cancer is spreading quite rapidly," I informed them.

"But doesn't cancer take months or years to form and develop? How'd you ever diagnose it this quickly?" Kitty asked Ryan.

"He was just saying they couldn't confirm it yet," I told them. "It takes years for a cancer to be diagnosed, but it begins spreading immediately, given the right circumstances."

"Alex is right," Allison confirmed. "It seems to be concentrating in her major organs right now; her lymph nodes, her kidneys and her lungs."

"So how long after it starts to spread does it take before it becomes apparent?" Chalise asked.

"We've no idea," Ryan told her. "We've never been able to see inside the human body at this level before. This is completely unprecedented. I'm trying to think of any way of heading it off, and then I'm trying to figure out how to justify any actions we might take. I'm completely in the dark about how to proceed." He turned and looked at me.

"Do you think you could, you know, give her another treatment and possibly provide her some protection?" he asked.

"I'm not sure that would work. I can't specifically target the immune response, and it wouldn't be able to identify the cancer cells yet anyway. If I simply try to strengthen the infected organs, I'd probably boost the blood flow to the area, which is what the cancer needs to grow. I'm at a loss as well," I told him. Kitty and Chalise made no comment about how unbelievable the general discussion was, and didn't ask why Ryan was asking me for treatment options.

When we arrived outside Mary's room and began donning our protective apparel, I could see Mary lying on her bed. I couldn't see much, but I could tell she wasn't as robust as she had been. We all got prepared quickly, Ryan once again giving us the standard warnings, even though he didn't bother to warn Kitty and Chalise about entering the room to see their friend again.

As I drew up to her, I could see how gaunt and drawn she was. Her cheeks were hollowed and her skin literally looked gray. When she noticed me, she looked up with tired eyes and tried to sit up. I made a motion to stop her from moving, then thought better of it. With her infections running rampant, she was highly infectious now.

"Alex ... I'm glad you ... came," she gasped, clearly having trouble drawing enough breath. "I don't ... have much time," she got out.

"I know," I told her. "That's why I came. I'm sorry I haven't been here while you've been getting worse, but they only told me about it late yesterday. Is there anything I can do for you?" I asked. It took her a few moments before she could gather the strength to respond.

"No, anything ... you could do ... would only make ... the pain worse," she struggled to get out, having to stop to wheeze several times. "I know you ... can't hug me but, could you at least ... hold my hand?"

Even knowing how contagious she was, I didn't hesitate to do so, when I did she motioned to me, so I leaned in so she could whisper to me, which she did so quietly no one else could hear. "Alex, please end this. I don't have the ... strength to go ... on." I pulled back and looked into her sunken eyes, trying to measure her resolve. What I saw confirmed her words. She was asking a lot of me, and I knew it would wear heavily on me, but I felt it was necessary, and as she said, doing anything else was only prolonging the inevitable.

Without asking for any guidance or assistance, I slowly passed my hand over her face, sweeping from the top down over her eyes. I shut her eyes as I was doing it, just so she'd look at peace instead of simply staring blankly out at the world. As I pulled my hand away the machines she was attached to all started to scream at us. Ryan started to jump but I simply turned to him.

"It's too late, don't bother. There's nothing you can do to revive her. She's officially brain dead at this point," I informed him. No one said anything as we all stepped back to allow the nurses room to swarm around her, but Ryan kept them back and pronounced the official time of death. Kitty, Chalise and Cate all swarmed me, holding and comforting me as tears filled their eyes. It frightened me that I could so easily do that to someone I cared so much about. Luckily she had so little life force remaining in her, that drawing enough away from her brain to effectively cease its functions was surprisingly easy. We just stood there and watched as the nurses began quietly disconnecting her from the various machines she was attached to. I quietly dropped the latex glove I'd removed into the infectious waste container.

"Should I bother with an autopsy?" Ryan asked.

"There's really no reason," I replied. "Everyone knows how sick she was, and that it was only a question of when. Plus it wouldn't show anything. There shouldn't be any evidence of anything. Her spirit simply decided to leave her body. Leave her to lie in peace. You wouldn't want to risk any other personnel," I told him. And so ended my first encounter with a death of a friend in my young life, a death which I personally engineered. Still, I knew this encounter would make me work that much harder the next time.

No one said anything as we slowly made our way home. Ryan had been planning on having me see some other people but thought better of it after what I'd just experienced. I didn't ask him whether it was out of concern for me, or fear of what I'd just done.

Needless to say I didn't stop in to see Jennifer either. I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind to comfort her at the moment.

We changed our usual pattern of me always driving with Cate taking the passenger seat, leaving Kitty and Chalise to share the back seats. Instead I sat sandwiched between them while Cate drove now. Ryan offered to let Allison and Shani off for the rest of the day, but they assured him that I had enough people to comfort me, and that I'd be watched over for the entire night. Nothing further was said except short assurances and encouragement. I never detected a hint of reservation or curiosity in either girl. Cate's face reflected the tremendous loss she felt, and the pain she felt for what I'd just had to go through. That was all anyone needed to say.

I hardly noticed that Cate didn't drop the girls off. All I knew was that they were helping guide me gently into the house, the door magically opening for them as we neared it, my girls looking worriedly on. There was some talk about my condition and they started to move me upstairs so I could rest, but I waved them off, telling them I needed to eat as I was once again starving.

Mom and Anh fixed me something to eat. I didn't notice anyone leaving, but I assume Cate had to drive Kitty and Chalise home after that. Instead Natalie and Mom comforted me while Anh got me situated. I think I'd actually entered a state of shock after that. I vaguely remember overhearing a hurried conversation with Ryan over the phone, as well as feeling a similar conversation in the back of my head, but I paid it no heed. I merely wanted to rest, and to forget what I'd just had to do.

The next day, Thursday, I felt a little better after having had a good sleep and getting a chance to process everything. I still felt terrible, and I was upset with what I'd been forced to do, but thought I could manage on my own now.

The girls were all relieved to see me doing better when I entered the kitchen. Cate, Shani and Anh had been rocking me for much of the night. My parents asked if I was sure that I was OK. I replied that of course I wasn't, but that I thought I could cope, which was all that really mattered in the short term. I also said that I hoped I wouldn't have a repeat performance when Jennifer grew ill.

The girls were glad that I seemed to be OK, and I allowed myself to enjoy their banter as we resumed discussing the odd mix of people at our table yesterday. No one mentioned the events of yesterday, I think they wordlessly agreed to avoid the topic altogether. I can't say I objected to the idea.

Things improved even more for Kitty at school. Apparently the whole football team, which was the reported source of the disclosure, came out and stressed to everyone that Darrell had never made such a statement to any of them. I also noticed that the girl Darrell had leaked the information to slinking down the hallways with her head hung down in embarrassment, refusing to meet anyone's eyes. Apparently Darrell was trying to make amends. I just hoped he wouldn't go overboard in the other direction. I managed to corner the girl, Julia, after I noticed her skulking past.

"Excuse me, Julia, is it?" She looked up at me and blushed brightly and lowered her head again.

"Yeah, hey, I'm really sorry for all the trouble I caused your girlfriend. I didn't mean anything by it."

"Look, I'm not going to beat you up about it. You seem pretty remorseful and that's enough for me, although it might do more for you if you apologized to Kitty herself. She's pretty forgiving and it would probably be good for the both of you. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that Darrell wasn't making you feel overly guilty in an overreaction to his attempt to make amends."