Reach for Tomorrow by Lurlene McDaniel Read Free Book Online Page B

girl.”
    Katie sighed. She would be wasting her breath trying to explain to Lacey how she felt. Her gratitude toward Josh was no substitute for love. If she settled for the former instead of the latter, she’d be doing them both great harm.
    “Let’s just drop it,” she said. She slid her arm out of Lacey’s and hurried on to her cabin alone.

NINE

    “I s it ever going to stop raining?” Dullas complained, her nose pressed to the screen door of the cabin.
    It had rained for almost three days straight, and Katie was feeling edgy herself. “Take an umbrella and go down to the rec center,” she told Dullas.
    “They’re playing baby games. It’s boring.”
    “Do it,” Katie said. She sensed that Dullas really wanted to go but was reluctant to leave the cabin because Sarah was still there, lying on her bunk, reading.
    “Oh, all right,” Dullas grumbled. She turned. “You want to come, Sarah?”
    “No, thanks. I’ve just got a few more chapters before I finish the book.”
    Dullas left, and Katie strolled around the cabin, bored.
    “You don’t have to hang around for my sake,” Sarah said. “Go on down to the rec center.”
    But Katie hesitated. Mr. Holloway had asked the counselors not to allow any camper to spend too much time alone. “That’s okay,” she said. “I have some letters to write. I haven’t written my mom and dad in two weeks. My dad’s a sportswriter, so he writes me all the time from his office computer. I feel guilty when I get three letters in a row and I haven’t written even one.”
    Sarah said nothing.
    Katie went over to Sarah’s bunk and sat on the edge. “Is Dullas pestering you too much? I know she hangs around a lot. Is she getting on your nerves? She doesn’t mean any harm, you know. She’s just got a strong case of hero worship.”
    “I can’t imagine why. I’m not much of a role model.”
    Katie didn’t dare confess all that Dullas believed she and Sarah had in common, or how she had come by the information. “Well, she does.”
    “It’s true that she follows me around like a puppy,” Sarah conceded. “But I can deal with it. I’ve got a brother and sister, and they make pests of themselves sometimes. Dullas is all right.”
    “You—um—having an okay time at camp?”
    Sarah lowered her book. “Yeah. I didn’t think Iwould, but I am.” She looked thoughtful. “Actually, I’m glad I’m away this summer. It’ll give Tina a chance to be king of the hill.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Sarah marked her place with a bookmark and sat up. “Well, I’ve been sick a lot, and so the family focus has been on me for a long time. That’s been kind of hard on Tina. You know, she sort of gets shoved into the background because she’s normal.”
    “I don’t have brothers or sisters,” Katie said, “so I’ve never thought about how one person’s sickness can affect the rest of a family, but it makes sense that it would.”
    “My illness has been tough on all of us. When I came out of remission a year ago and needed a bone marrow transplant … well, I’m telling you it was a real blow. Everybody got a jolt of reality. Especially me.”
    Katie shuddered to think what would happen to her and her parents if her heart transplant failed. Not to mention Josh. She knew that, as with all other organ recipients, her body could reject the transplanted heart at any time. There was no statute of limitations on rejections. Katie had already been through one episode of rejection shortly after the transplant surgery. She had no desire to endure that experience again, but she was virtually helpless tostop it. All she could do was make the most of each precious day that this precious gift, her new heart, gave her.
    “What do you mean by ‘especially’ you?” Katie asked.
    “The best donor for a bone marrow transplant is a brother or sister.”
    “And Tina wouldn’t give you any bone marrow?”
    “She couldn’t because we weren’t compatible. No one in my