11
Jenner
The nurse gave me a grim smile over Pixie’s head as she held the door open for us. In this office, where the majority of the patients had some form of blood cancer, it was hard for anyone to give a brighter greeting, although the staff tried to stay as upbeat as possible for everyone. But they all loved Pixie, and we knew this visit wasn’t going to bring good news.
Minutes later, we were in an exam room waiting on the doctor. Sitting in the chair beside me, Pixie shivered, and I quickly shrugged off my jacket to wrap around her shoulders. She had on a sweatshirt and a jacket of her own, but she stayed cold. Once she was bundled up, I fixed the turban beanie on her head to make sure that her scalp was covered completely, then adjusted her mask that was attached to the button sewn into the side of the turban.
As tiny as she was, anyone could easily mistake her for a small child sitting there all covered up. The only telling signs of her age were the lines around her eyes. Even after all the hell she’d been through in her life, she always found a reason to smile.
“I’m okay,” Pixie tried to assure me, her eyes crinkling up, letting me know she was smiling beneath her mask.
“I know.” It was a lie, though. I didn’t know if she was okay—or if she ever would be. We’d had hope, but this journey with her leukemia had been a roller coaster. There had been so many ups and downs, and I knew she was ready to get off this fucking ride once and for all. But I would ride this damn thing until one of us fell off it.
There was a brisk knock on the door a moment before it opened and Dr. Contreras walked in. He had his tablet tucked under his arm, his eyes going straight to Pixie even as he shook my hand.
“Well, don’t just stand there looking at me,” Pixie grumbled. “Sit down and let’s hear it.”
A weak laugh escaped the doctor, but he did as instructed. Dropping onto the rolling chair, he set his tablet on the counter and started pulling up Pixie’s latest results. “I think we all knew what this was going to tell us, but I still held out hope.” I could see regret in the man’s eyes when he met Pixie’s gaze. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged, as if he was just telling her she needed to change her diet or some trivial bullshit. Not that the latest treatment option we’d gone with hadn’t worked. Frustrated, I squeezed the back of my neck, fighting the sting of tears burning my sinus cavity.
“What’s next?” I demanded when I had myself under control, pulling the doctor’s focus to me. “There are other options, right? How fast can she start it?”
The hematologist grimaced. “Now we look for a bone marrow donor.”
“Okay, so how long will it take before she’s matched?”
“I’ve already put Pixie on the transplant list, so it could be as little as one to two weeks.” Relief hit me, but the doctor quickly shot it down. “Or it could take months. We won’t know until we know.”
“Hurry up and wait,” Pixie muttered, causing Dr. Contreras to give a grim nod.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
The remainder of the visit was spent going over what to expect when a donor was found, and I listened intently to everything out of the man’s mouth, committing it all to memory. Pixie sat beside me, nodding when it was appropriate and agreeing when the doctor suggested something, but each time I chanced looking at her, her eyes were vacant.
A bone marrow transplant didn’t automatically mean she would get better. If Pixie had a relative who could donate the marrow, she had a 55-68% survival rate. But because the donor would be someone unrelated to her, it dropped to a 26-50% chance of survival. Those numbers weren’t ideal, but they still meant a chance, because according to Dr. Contreras, this was the last resort for Pixie’s condition.
We’d already exhausted every other treatment, and if this didn’t work, then the next step would be hospice care.
After they gave us all the paperwork to read over, I bundled Pixie up and put her in my car to drive back to her apartment. On the way, I grabbed her something to eat, but I couldn’t even stomach the smell of food. Losing Pixie wasn’t an option. It wasn’t when she’d first told me she was sick, and it sure as fuck wasn’t now.
When I met her, I’d been spiraling after meeting some of my half siblings. What I’d hoped would be a second chance at a family had turned into a clusterfuck of disappointments. All my brothers and sisters had wanted was to use me for my connections as a Son of the Underground and my friendships with Howler and Judge.
One of my half brothers had been a little worse than the others. Strung out on drugs, unable to keep a job, in jail more often than not. When we met for the first time, he’d come with the plan to rob me. I’d knocked him out and called the cops, but before they could arrive, Tyler had come to and made a run for it.
He’d waved down a taxi, pulled the driver from behind the wheel, and stole the car. Only, he’d still been out of his mind on whatever he’d been snorting, and five miles later, he’d run off a bridge. It had taken days to recover the vehicle from the river, but he’d still been inside.
A week later, Pixie had shown up on my doorstep. Tears had poured down her face as she’d explained who she was. Tyler was her younger half brother—the two of them shared a mom, while he and I shared a father. He was the only family she’d had left, and she’d struggled to keep him out of trouble. But some people just didn’t want to be saved. Tyler had been one of those people.
There was just something about Pixie. She was five years older than me but so tiny that she could have fit in my gym bag with room to spare. She’d only come to apologize to me for what Tyler had done, but that day, we’d found the family we’d both been so desperate to have all our lives.
She might not have been my sister by blood, but she’d become my chosen sister. She treated me like a younger brother and even a son at times, and I adored her. We took care of each other through everything from the moment she’d knocked on my door to apologize for Tyler.
I’d lost a lot in my life, but I refused to lose Pixie too. Whatever it took, I would do it to ensure this disease didn’t steal her from me.
“Go home,” Pixie instructed when we got to her front door.
“No. We should talk about this. And I need to check that leaking pipe you were talking about earlier.” I started to move past her, but she put up her arm, blocking my entrance to the apartment.
“That’s what the super is for. And I’m so tired of talking about all of this. If I have to have one more conversation that involves chemo or cancer or how I’m feeling, I’m going to scream.” She looked up at me with pleading eyes. “I know you only want to make sure I’m okay, but right now, I need a little time to decompress. Alone. I want to curl up on my couch, gorge on junk food, maybe have a good cry, and then sleep for at least eighteen hours.”
“Pixie—”
“Please, Jenner,” she whispered. “I promise, I’m all right. Really, I am. I just need some time to myself.”
Swallowing the knot that had felt like it was stuck in my throat since Dr. Contreras had delivered the bad news we had been expecting, I gave in. “Okay,” I choked out. “But I need you to call me tomorrow so I don’t worry. If I don’t hear from you—”