My Holiday Bonus Was a $5 Million IOU! I Quit and Their Company Collapsed novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Whole Truth

I had no lie for her.

I stood in front of that right-hand door with my hands shaking, and every excuse I'd rehearsed in two months went out of my head.

"Bee," I said. "Not here. Not today."

"Mara."

"I'll tell you everything. I promise you. Just not in a waiting room with the whole fourth floor listening."

She looked at me.

I saw her put two facts next to each other and not like how they fit.

"Is it something bad?" she whispered.

"No. It's nothing bad."

"Is it something about me?"

I couldn't answer that either.

"Sjoberg?" the left-hand nurse called from her doorway. "Brynn Sjoberg? Doctor's ready."

Brynn didn't move.

"Go," I said gently. "Go be healthy. I'm right here."

She went.

At the door she looked back at me once, and her face worked, and I knew she wasn't going to forget it.

Then she was gone, and mine opened, and I walked through it.

The doctor was brief and kind.

My remaining kidney was working for two, he said, and my numbers were good, and he'd see me in six months.

"You gave someone a wonderful gift," he said, as he did every visit.

I said thank you, as I always did.

When I came out Ansel was standing by the elevator with my coat over his arm.

He had not looked at the left-hand door once.

In the parking structure he put me into the passenger seat and shut the door and went around and got in.

He didn't start the engine.

"You don't have to tell me," he said.

"I know."

"I'd like you to."

I looked at my hands.

"My sister Brynn was sick for two years," I said. "Her kidneys failed when she was twenty-four. She was on dialysis three days a week, and she was on the list, and the list is long."

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