Between Friends by Kristy Kiernan Read Free Book Online Page B

acted like she was listening to Emily, her best friend since kindergarten, while she leaned against the counter. Seth kept his voice low so her parents wouldn’t hear anything in case the phone was turned up loud.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Hang on, I’ll ask.” She pulled the phone away from her ear and held her hand over the mouthpiece. “Hey, Mom, can I stay over at Em’s tomorrow? It’s Friday, it’s not a school night.”
    Her mom didn’t even look at her as she pulled pineapple chunks out of her masaman curry.
    “Okay,” she said, “but I don’t want to see you trying to catch up on homework on Sunday night. I want it done before you go over.”
    “Can I just do it there so I can go on the bus with her?”
    She acted like she was thinking, but then her dad said, “Oh, let her go, Ali. She’ll do it there.”
    Go, Dad, she thought. Maybe going back to being a patrolman had made him lose his detective skills or something. She hadn’t stayed over at Emily’s in months. Em was still hanging out with all the kids they’d gone to elementary and middle school with.
    Her mom waved her fork at her. “All right, but I’m serious, I want it done.”
    She put the phone against her ear again. “Hey, Emily?”
    “Yes?” Seth answered, his voice all high like he was talking like Emily. It didn’t sound like her at all, but she laughed anyway.
    “It’s cool,” she said, already wondering what she was going to pack.

CORA

    “So how are you feeling?” Dr. MacKinnon asked, pressing into my ribs, feeling his way across my kidneys. You’d think a man would be less gentle than a woman, but Dr. Cho had dug her fingers into me so far that I expected to see holes in my back when she was finished.
    By comparison Dr. MacKinnon was practically a masseur.
    “Tired,” I replied. “But travel will do that to you.”
    “So will kidney disease. How’s the pain?”
    There hadn’t actually been much pain. And I wondered if there should be. And I wondered, as I often had before: If I’m not in pain, how bad can it really be? But I only had to remember the ultrasound images to know how bad it was. And to know how close to pain I was getting.
    “One to ten,” MacKinnon prompted me.
    “Two,” I said with a shrug. What I should have said was, Two on a good day, five on a bad day, today I am a three, it is a good day and what do you make of that, how will it change anything? Eventually it might be a ten. Some people have it better, some have it worse.
    “Headaches?”
    “Yes, last night especially. But nothing excruciating, just travel pains.”
    “Mmm-hmm,” he said, pulling my shirt back down over the back of my jeans and coming around to the front of the table to sit on a little rolling stool. “Dr. Cho is an excellent nephrologist.”
    “And she said the same of you,” I replied.
    “That’s very flattering, but at this point what we’re both wondering is why you’re here. It’s time to get your access installed and prepare to begin dialysis. Dr. Cho—”
    “I’ve told her the same thing. I have my reasons, they’re important, and I’ll go back to Seattle when I’m ready.”
    “Your kidneys are saying they’re ready now,” he said softly.
    “My kidneys never have and never will dictate what I decide to do with my life,” I said. “Until, of course, they do.”
    He gave a short laugh. “Dr. Cho said I’d like you.”
    I shook my head. “Dr. MacKinnon, I’m not plucky, or feisty, or whatever it is we’re calling brave heroines these days. I’m not being strong for my loved ones. I’m here because I’m too much of a coward to not be.”
    He took that in, and I could tell he was revisiting his decision to like me. That was okay. I would be here only for as long as it took for me to become an adult and tell Ali that I might have given her a child who might die before she did.
    “Well, whatever it is you’re here for, I suggest you get to it and go home. Unless you plan on