Chapter 5

I stare up at the pale hospital ceiling. There's nothing left inside me. Just quiet.

When the nurse finishes changing the dressing and slips out, I pull the IV out of the back of my hand. Slow. Careful. A drop of clear fluid beads at the needle's tip.

Every movement sets my shoulder on fire. Every breath drags through the deeper ache inside me. But I get my feet on the floor.

I pull on the clothes I came in with — stiff and brown now, crackling where the blood dried.

I sling the old backpack over my good shoulder. And I walk out of the hospital without making a sound.

I don't go home.

That place stopped being home a long time ago.

I go to the cemetery.

Westfield Cemetery in mid-winter is a wasteland. The wind cuts. The snow stings my cheeks raw. The path is empty.

I drop to my knees in front of my parents' headstone. The cold from the granite shoots up through my legs and settles in my bones.

"Mom… Dad…"

The second the words leave my mouth, something snaps inside me. Every piece of grief I've been swallowing for two lifetimes comes flooding up at once. I wrap my arms around the freezing stone and I sob.

"I miss you. I miss you so much—"

"Caleb doesn't want me anymore. He has a new sister now. He hates me — he really, really hates me—"

"I'm sick. I'm so sick. Without a kidney, I don't have much time left—"

"I don't want to be anyone's burden anymore. I don't want him hating me until the day I die—"

"I'm so tired. Mom, Dad — can I come stay with you? Please don't be ashamed of me. Please—"

The wind howls and tears my words away in pieces. I cry until my throat is raw. Until even the sobs run out. Until all that's left is a numb, shivering quiet.

My body gets heavier. The world softens at the edges.

The wound on my shoulder must have split open — something warm is soaking through the back of my coat. My burned arm throbs. My kidney throbs. Everything is throbbing and fading at the same time.

I'm bleeding out. Slow. Quiet.

I curl up at the foot of their headstone, the way I used to curl up between them when I was small.

The sky overhead is lead-gray. Snow starts drifting down again. Light. Lazy.

Caleb. This time, I really did give it back to you.

I don't need your kidney.

I don't need your love either. It stopped being mine a long time ago.

I'm setting you free.

You only have one sister now.

The dark closes in. And in the very last second of it, I think I see them — my mom and dad — smiling at me. Reaching out their hands.