I'd Rather Not (KPD Motorcycle Patrol 3)

Then, to continue my streak of bad luck, neither was the dialysis.

I blinked as the doctor said the words to me again.

“Unfortunately, the dialysis isn’t working anymore,” the doctor said. “We either find you a kidney in the next few weeks or…”

Or I die.

I looked over at my mother who always made sure to make every hemodialysis appointment. Then at the doctor.

“But we’ve been looking,” I pointed out.

“We have,” he agreed. “The next step is to reach out to alternate sources. Put the word out. Someone out there will be able to donate to you. They just have to be willing to do it.”

That was the thing, though.

No normal, healthy person would be willing to donate their kidney to a stranger.

I was going to die.

I knew it in my heart.

I’d gotten my degree. I’d become what I’d always longed for. I’d moved out of my parents’ house. I had a dog.

I had a life.

Except that life was now coming to an end.

I would never get married.

I wouldn’t be able to run a half-marathon like I’d always wanted to.

I wouldn’t be able to have children or watch my grandchildren.

I wouldn’t get to have sex again.

I wouldn’t find that one man that I looked at with my heart on my sleeve.

Because in just a few months, I would die.Chapter 2If anybody needs me, I’ll just be over here putting laundry away until I fuckin’ die.

-Pace’s secret thoughts

Pace

I didn’t know why I was on social media. Honestly, it was just something to do to pass the time.

Mostly what I did on the stupid website was keep in touch with old friends from my unit. Sometimes, Facebook was the only thing that worked over there. Over there being in the middle of the goddamn desert, in a hostile, foreign country. A country that I both missed and hated all at once. I missed it because I missed my friends—my unit. I hated it because it’d also taken some of my friends from me, too. Some of those being in the permanent way.

Anyway, Facebook was my go-to to keep tabs on my boys.

Which was how I saw Ford’s latest post.

I stared at it and felt my heart constrict.

‘Oakley Spurlock Needs a Kidney’ it read.

I clicked on the picture that was next to Ford’s name and felt all the air leave my lungs.

On the flyer was a photo of Oakley. The one that I’d seen quite a few times when I’d been in the military with Ford. The one he used to keep as his lock screen on his phone.

Next to that picture was a picture of another smiling Oakley, only this picture was much different from the other one.

This picture, she looked gaunt. This picture, her normally vibrant hair was lifeless and in a complicated bun on the top of her head. She didn’t have any makeup on, and her eyes looked sunken. She had rings around both eyes so deep and dark that it looked like she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a very long time, and she was so pale that she looked like she was on the verge of death.

But that smile.

It still had the power to bring me to my knees.

Years ago, when I was deployed with Ford, every time he showed me a new picture of her, things inside of my chest would clench.

That picture, though? Knowing that something was wrong with her was like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

I wanted to fix it, badly.

Then my eyes strayed to the long paragraphs underneath the photo.

But, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to read the whole thing without seriously losing my shit—dyslexia was an asshole—I skimmed it. Which was how I mostly went through life—skimming it.

Years ago, my daughter contracted an illness that subsequently took her kidneys. She started hemodialysis shortly after the doctor explained that her kidneys were no longer properly functioning.

We held high hopes that she had the time to find a kidney, only that time has come and gone. The hemodialysis is no longer working for her, and if we don’t find her a kidney, she will be taken from us. The doctor gives her another two months, max.

Please, I beg you, get tested. My daughter needs you.

Trance Spurlock

I was sure that Trance, Ford’s father, had put a lot more work into the letter that he’d written, and I was pissed at myself for not reading it. More, I wanted to know everything there was to know about Oakley Spurlock.

Hell, if I was being truthful, that had been why I’d gotten Facebook in the first place.

I practically needed to hear about Oakley. Ford wasn’t very forthcoming with his posts and pictures, but his sister and family were. They always tagged him in photos, which would give me the chance to see her.

And I was always sure to look through them all.