“Sexuality doesn’t work that way.”
“A fact I understand
now.
I was twenty, remember?”
“I get all that. But...you changed
before
Levi showed up. So none of this really relates.”
“Of course it does.”
“
Callie...
what’s going on?”
He wasn’t letting her cajole him. Squeezing her eyes shut, she cradled her head in her hand. “What would you say if I told you I was dying of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease?”
“What?”
The words were out. They’d been trapped inside her for so long she could scarcely believe she’d released them.
“Could you say that again?”
“You heard me.” She couldn’t bring herself to repeat what she’d said.
There was a silence during which Baxter dropped, almost as if it were a physical object, the “you need to get your head on straight” attitude he’d wielded throughout the conversation so far.
“I hope...” He couldn’t continue, which led her to believe he’d choked up—and suddenly she was crying, too.
She held her breath so he wouldn’t know. She’d promised herself she’d be calm, cool and collected when she made this announcement, didn’t want to cause
more
sorrow by not handling it well. But there was no stopping the tears. They rolled down her cheeks and dripped off her chin as she stood at the window, wondering why, after maintaining her silence for so long, she’d blurted out her news to Baxter.
He was trying to talk again but was obviously struggling with his emotions. “I—I hope that was...just a cruel joke,” he managed to say, but she could tell he knew it wasn’t. The bomb she’d dropped explained too much. Everything he’d been questioning a few minutes earlier made sense.
But she hadn’t done enough to prepare him, and for that she felt terrible. She was bad at goodbyes. That was another reason she’d been putting off telling her loved ones the truth. From the moment word got out, she’d be facing one long goodbye.
When she didn’t confirm that it was a joke, he said, “How long have you known?”
She had to speak past the lump in her throat. “I found out on Valentine’s Day.”
“That was four months ago! It’s taken you
four months
to tell us? Or—” his voice grew louder, indignant “—was I the only one who didn’t know?”
In one way, revealing her condition was a huge relief. She no longer had to feel guilty for keeping it to herself. But Baxter’s reaction was just one person’s. Like the ripples caused by a rock thrown into a pond, the circles would widen and widen as more and more people found out. “I haven’t told anyone else. Not a single soul.”
“What about your parents? That doesn’t include them, does it?”
“I’m afraid it does.”
“Holy shit! I can’t believe it. But...maybe you won’t have to tell them. We’ll get you help, do whatever we have to.”
With a sniff, she wiped her cheeks. There was no use pretending she wasn’t feeling sorry for herself. The heartbreak of losing all the years she’d expected to have was too obvious to hide. “That’s just it. The doctors are already doing everything they can.”
“So why haven’t they been able to fix what’s wrong?” Suddenly, he sounded angry. “In this day and age, there have to be answers, options.”
“There’s
one
option.” She patted Rifle, who’d followed her to the window. “It’s called a liver transplant.”
He choked up again, so he had an even more difficult time speaking. “How do you get one?”
“You put your name on the list at various donor registries, and then you wait.”
“Maybe, if we pay the right people, we can make it happen faster.”
“Pay whom? Someone on the black market?”
“Whoever’s in charge of doling them out!”
“Your place on the list isn’t determined by ability to pay. It’s according to need.”
“Then we’ll find our own donor!”
“How?”
“We’ll all be tested to see if one of us is a match.”
“They do very few live transplants, Baxter. They’re complicated surgeries that can be life-threatening to the donor.”
He muttered a curse. “There has to be an answer. You said non-alcoholic fatty liver disease?”
“That’s right.”
“If alcohol didn’t cause it, what did? Is it genetic or—?”
“Some people develop a condition where their body stores too much iron or copper, which destroys their liver. If it’s copper, I believe it’s called Wilson’s disease. I’m not sure about iron, but both of those conditions have genetic factors. That’s not what happened to me. No one knows what went wrong in my case. My liver just...quit functioning properly.”
“I can’t accept that there’s nothing we can do,” he said. “There has to be
some
thing.”
She stared out at the barn. Without much of a moon tonight, it was a hulking dark shadow but, for some inexplicable reason, she felt better when she remembered Levi and how great he’d looked up on that ladder. “I guess we just enjoy the time I have left.”
“Shit...” A pause. “Kyle doesn’t know?”
She could tell it surprised Baxter that he’d been the first she’d told. But he felt safer, in some respects, than her girlfriends. Or Kyle. Baxter was less likely to tell the others. That made this sort of a practice run. “No.”
“I’m sorry.”
The window showed the reflection of her sad smile. “Thanks.”
“You have to tell your parents, though. You can’t...you can’t let it go any longer. They don’t know that they need to be more vigilant about the time they spend with you, don’t know that—”
“I’ll break it to them soon.” She’d been bearing the burden of her secret long enough to understand how heavy it was. She just wasn’t convinced that telling the truth would make the load any lighter. She’d be changing one set of worries and concerns for another. “But...not quite yet. It’s been hard enough telling you.”
“What about Eve and Cheyenne and the others?” His words were muffled, as if he’d dropped his head in his hands.
“I was waiting, in case...in case I had positive news about a transplant before I came out with my condition.”
“But then you’d be whisked into surgery with barely any notice. They can’t keep that...type of thing on ice indefinitely.”
What he said was true. She was listed with several different transplant centers. Her doctors said that should help her get the liver she needed. But there were no guarantees, not when twenty thousand people a year needed a transplant and only about five thousand received one. “Right.”
“How’d you know you had a problem? What were your symptoms?”
“Besides looking jaundiced and feeling shitty? I got these weird red spots on my chest—spider angiomata, they’re called. I also had redness on the palms of my hands.”
“That’s from liver disease?”
“Those are some of the symptoms, yes. Once I went in, they found that my liver was enlarged.”
“What are the chances of surviving a transplant?”
She crouched to hug her dog. “That’ll depend on whether or not my body rejects the new liver. But the statistics are hopeful. The majority of liver transplants are successful.”
“The majority...”
“About eighty-five percent of recipients survive one year,” she clarified. “Something like seventy percent survive three. I don’t know after that, but I’m young and otherwise healthy. With the right match, I’d have a good prognosis. I’d just have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of my life.”
“And that’s okay?”
“They have some potentially harsh side effects. The steroids can cause skin cancer and other problems, but they’ll watch me closely. Except for taking a lot more pills on any given day than the average person, I’ll be able to live a normal life.”
“That means all we have to do is make sure you get a new liver.”
“I wish we had more control over that than we do.” She rubbed her face against Rifle’s as he licked her cheek. “We’re having coffee with the others in the morning. Maybe I’ll tell them.” In light of Baxter’s reaction, the guilt of not having done so was bothering her.
“Right there in the coffee shop?” he asked.
She straightened. “No?”
“Family first, Callie. Hard as it is, you have to tell your parents.”
“Don’t pressure me! I think that’s why I’ve been holding off. I don’t want to feel what others are feeling.”
“You’re not an island. You need to do it soon.”
“I’ll do it in my own time. Tell me you’ll respect that.”
“Of course I’ll respect that! But—”
“No buts. I’ll come back and haunt you if you let me down.”
“That’s not funny,” he said.
She felt like crying again and couldn’t come up with anything to say in return. Silence settled between them. Then he asked, “Does the man who’s staying with you—Levi—know what’s going on?”
She glanced at her closed door. “He doesn’t. And I’d rather he didn’t find out.” He wasn’t part of her usual world, so she felt no obligation to tell him. “He’ll be gone before I’m at my worst.”
How long do I have to live?
she’d asked her doctors.
You might make it through the summer, but...you’ll probably be feeling pretty poorly by August...
If last night was any indication, the doctor was absolutely right. “There’s no reason for him to know.”
“Your worst,”
Baxter repeated. “This is nuts. I’m at a total loss, don’t even know what to say. It just...can’t be happening.”
Thinking of the nausea that often plagued her, she turned away from her reflection. “Trust me. It’s for real.”
“Now I’m
glad
you have someone living with you. If you’d picked up when I called before, I would’ve told you it wasn’t safe. But I like the idea that you’ve got company. At least you’re not out there alone.”
When she climbed into bed, Rifle lay down on the rug where he’d been resting before. “I’m glad, too.”
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Shouldn’t you tell Kyle? I mean...you two are closer than the rest of us.”
“Oh, my gosh! You’re not giving up until I admit it!” She chuckled but she didn’t really find it funny.
“I’m just thinking of all the people who’ll be hurt by this. I don’t care who you sleep with, Callie. I hope you know that. I’d be the last person to judge.”
“I feel the same way about you,” she said.
There was a slight pause. “I appreciate that more than I can say.”
“I’ll tell Kyle soon,” she promised. “But will you ever tell Noah what you’ve been keeping from him?”
“No. Absolutely not. I can’t.”
This was the closest Baxter had ever come to admitting his feelings for Noah.
“I understand why,” she said.
“Are you the only one who’s guessed?”
She had to be honest with him. “No, Eve’s guessed, too. And Cheyenne. But not Gail or Sophia, so far as I know. And none of the guys.”
“I keep telling myself to move to the city, where I can be who I am.”
“But...”
“That would mean leaving you and everyone else behind. Including him.”
“We want what’s going to make you happiest.”
“Problem is...there’s a cost either way.”
11
“I
’m going to have coffee with my friends this morning.” Wearing a robe over the T-shirt and panties she’d slept in, Callie scooped scrambled eggs onto Levi’s plate. “Would you like to come with me and meet them or—”
“No, I think it’s best if I stay out of town.” He kept his eyes on his food even when Rifle nudged him, hoping for a pat. “I’ll get to work on the barn.”
“Okay. Is there anything you need? Like those nails I bought yesterday?”
“I don’t think so.”
“There’s got to be something you want.” They sold giant cinnamon rolls at Black Gold Coffee. Delicious muffins, too. She’d been about to mention those, but when he finally glanced up, the words seemed to congeal in her throat. In that moment, she understood how he’d interpreted her words. She also understood that there
was
something he wanted, but it had nothing to do with food. His discovery of that bustier last night had created some added tension between them. He hadn’t acted any differently when she’d walked out to find him in the process of getting dressed. He’d merely buttoned his jeans and pulled on a shirt. But now... She could feel the change.
Instinctively, she wet her lips, but then he tore his gaze away, and she knew, for whatever reason, he’d never actually touch her. He wanted to but he wouldn’t.
“Levi?”
He was eating again, as if that brief exchange of energy had never occurred.
“What?”
The gruffness of his answer implied that he wasn’t pleased to be feeling what he was feeling—or maybe he wasn’t pleased by what he’d just revealed. It wasn’t like him to be so transparent, to drop the indifferent mask he wore, even for a second.
“You...” She swallowed hard. “You confuse me. I was embarrassed when you found that bustier because I assumed, from your reaction, that you weren’t interested in me...in that way.”
“You’re beautiful. What single man wouldn’t be interested? Especially if he hasn’t had a woman in a long time.”
“Is that you?”
Finished with his eggs, he got up to rinse his plate in the sink. “You’re better off with Kyle.”
* * *
It wasn’t easy walking into Black Gold Coffee. Friday mornings with the gang had always been Callie’s favorite time of the week, but these casual get-togethers grew increasingly uncomfortable the longer she kept her diagnosis a secret. Knowing that Baxter would be there—a witness to everything she said and, more to the point,
didn’t
say—only made it worse. She was tempted to tell them all and get it over with. She was feeling stronger, healthier, today. Maybe she could face the emotional fallout. She had to do it sometime.
But Baxter was right. She had to tell her parents first. She figured she’d keep her mouth shut for now and go to their place directly afterward.
“Hey, look who showed up this week!” Noah stood to embrace her, a sardonic smile on his darkly tanned face.
He had his coffee. So did Baxter, who hugged her next. Not only had they grown up as best friends, they’d been neighbors until they moved out on their own, so it wasn’t unusual for them to sit together. These days Noah lived behind Crank It Up, the bike shop he owned. Baxter had recently purchased a Victorian at the edge of town, a house he’d wanted for years. The look he shot her as they sat down told her how pathetic he felt to be in love with his best friend, who didn’t even know he was gay. That enabled her to smile and relax a little regarding her own circumstances. Everyone had problems.