Chapter 27

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My mind is lodged inside a vortex, eagerly trying to determine what Calix had meant. He'd said it with such seriousness in his voice.

There's something you should see.

Should I be worried?

We excused ourselves from the hedge maze, and to my surprise, Calix led us out with ease. I guess it's true what they say; when you're blind, your other senses kick into high gear. At times when I felt we were lost, Calix would make another turn and then another, which ultimately led us back to the Center. From there, he asked one of the staff members to take us to the hospital—the same hospital that had performed my surgery.

Now that made me worry.

It takes some maneuvering to collapse my wheelchair and fit it onto the golf cart, but we make it work with just enough room for Calix and myself to fit inside the cab along with the driver. It's a little bit uncomfortable, but at least the hospital isn't far.

"Why did you bring me here?" I say as we arrive, but Calix doesn't respond. Instead, he blows past the marble slab of monetary donors and into the main foyer of the hospital. Meanwhile, the driver unfolds my wheelchair and helps me get seated. I'm a little annoyed, however, that Calix didn't bother to help, nor did he answer my question. Once I'm situated in my chair, I chase after him, struggling to keep up with his pace.

Calix marches past the reception's desk and down a long hallway that connects to another hallway, and another, and another until I'd finally lost count how many we'd ventured down. What's even more concerning is he isn't using Teddy either; only draping his fingers against the wall for navigation twice. This is the first time I've seen him without it when he isn't at the Center. What's got him so galvanized?

Calix's pace slows as we approach a large red and white sign mounted on the wall, which reads:

Pediatric. Intensive. Care. Unit.

A brooding aura hangs in the air. There's something different about this wing of the hospital in comparison to the rest of the building; it's like an undeniable heaviness, a sadness that I can't quite shake.

Calix stands beneath the sign facing another long hallway, where nurses and doctors are milling about their duties, moving from room to room. Glass sliding doors are evenly spaced maybe fifteen feet from one another, allowing just enough space for a bed, a small work counter, and some medical equipment inside each room.

"Why did you bring me here?" I say again, hoping this time I will receive an answer.

He turns his head towards the sound of my voice. "We take each day for granted. We expect tomorrow to come shortly after we shut our eyes. For us, a moment is just a moment; they'll always be another one just like it. But for these little ones," he gestures with an open hand down the hallway, "each day is a precious gift, and any second could be their last."

I take a look through one of the windowed rooms; a bald little girl, who can't be any older than August, is lying in bed—strands of IV tubes are attached in multiple places on her body. The pained expression on her face tells me that she's helpless and miserable.

Calix continues. "There's a tragic story in every one of these rooms: the little girl who was told that she has stage three bone cancer at the youthful age of seven, or the boy who was born with a fatal heart disease that typically takes its victim long before they're able to reach high school age, or maybe the someone who's in a dire need of an organ transplant, but was callously told that they are a mere number among thousands on the waiting list."

I take a moment to consider his words, shuddering as they sink deeper into my brain. "I agree. That is all very tragic, but I still don't understand why you brought me here."

He sighs, rubbing each temple with his thumb and forefinger. "You allow your pity of not having legs reign over you. Ask any one of these children; if given the opportunity, they would trade places with you in a heartbeat. That chair of yours is a vast improvement to their current predicament."

I'm taking aback by his bold statement. Is he saying that I've felt . . . sorry for myself? I guess I can't entirely deny it. Fine! I can't deny it all. Yes, I have felt sorry for myself. Why wouldn't I? I'm paralyzed! Living each day gazing with jealous eyes at everyone around you who can walk, run, play, dance and not even give it a second thought—it burns just thinking about how fortunate they are. But then I give thought to what Calix has just said; these kids may not have a tomorrow, this place may very well be their deathbeds, the place where they spend their last moments, expel their final breath. It's hard for me to even remotely feel sorry for myself when I think of it with that perspective.

Calix takes a breath. "I'm not going to lie to you; I once took pity on myself. For many years, in fact. When I was little, I had always hoped that one day I would get a new pair of eyes. I wanted to do so many things: play sports, ride a bicycle, drive a sports car, see the world! But as the years passed, I slowly accepted the reality of my blindness and gave up on such fantasies of ever having my vision. I came here to the hospital for the first time when Mav underwent his surgery. That's when I stumbled upon this wing. It was on that day I made a promise to myself that no matter how much I might want to, no matter how hard it is not being able to see like everyone else, I wouldn't feel sorry for myself ever again because there is always, always someone less fortunate than I." He chokes up as he finishes, and I wonder for a moment if he might break down altogether. This is a totally different side of Calix, a side that I've never seen before. But he's right. Every word. And it leaves me with a guilt that I can't ignore.

"I'll leave you alone," he says.

I remain frozen in my chair, stunned by everything that I've just heard. By the time I look over my shoulder, he's already gone.

I slowly roll my chair down the hallway, glancing into each room as I pass by. The little faces staring back at me grow more heartbreaking with each one. This whole scene feels like a nightmare; I can't believe it's real. People actually live like this, go through this, suffer from this. These ugly legs of mine don't seem as abhorrent as they once did, and for the first time since becoming a plegic, I'm appreciative that my disability stops there.

Doctors and nurses alike shoot me perplexed looks. I assume not just anyone is allowed to be in the P.I.C.U, but considering I look like I belong here being in this wheelchair, they don't question it, fortunately. They probably think I'm visiting someone.

I reach the end of the hallway, where there's one final room. Unlike any of the others, this room is dark aside from a few flickering lights from medical equipment. The door is slightly ajar. I don't know what's compelling me to do so, but I enter the room

The door slides open, the sliver of light on the floor growing wider. It's too dark to see a face, but I can hear someone breathing heavily from the bed, along with a mixture of hums and beeps from medical equipment. An ECG monitor glows from the corner of the room, beeping to an alarmingly irregular heartbeat.

I back my wheelchair up, preparing to turn around and leave when a voice calls from the darkness. "Don't go." A flick of the light switch follows, illuminating the room in an artificial yellow haze. A copper-blonde headed girl sits upright in the bed. She looks at me quizzically, her big eyes analyzing me and my chair. "Who are you?"

For a second, I find myself struggling to answer, like I've suddenly forgotten my own name. There's something about this girl, something familiar—an Aurora kind of familiar.

"Um. M-McKenzie. My name's McKenzie."

Her pouty lips spread wide. "Well, it's a delight to meet you, McKenzie. I'm Kalyope."

"Kalyope. That's pretty."

"Thank you. It was my grandmother's name." She fiddles with a heart-shape locket around her neck. "So what brings you here?" She continues to analyze my wheelchair. "Are you a patient, too?"

"Um. No. No, I'm not a patient."

"Visiting a friend?"

"No. I . . ." I'm suddenly unsure what to tell her. "I had surgery here about a month ago." I rub my hands over my lifeless knees. "I was told I'd never walk again."

"Aw, that's no good. I'm sorry." Her bottom lip sticks out in a frown.

"No. It's okay." And for the first time, I meant it. It truly is okay. "It could've been worse." I replay the trip down the hallway in my mind, picturing the despaired little faces that stared back. I cringe at the thought of having to travel back through that same hallway when I leave, having to pass by each of those faces again, leaving them behind to lonesomely fend off their calamitous fate. "So, tell me about yourself, Kalyope." I roll my wheelchair closer to her bedside.

"Well, as I said, my name's Kalyope, I'm sixteen-years-old, I absolutely love Dip 'n Dots ice cream, I'm deathly afraid of clowns, and I'm pretty sure my doppelganger is a millionaire living in Paris, France." She giggles at her own joke.

I study her, trying not to stare for too long. There's no obvious indication as to why she's in such a serious place like the P.I.C.U. She still has a full head of beautiful hair, so cancer probably isn't a factor. There's no wheelchair in the room, so plegic is unlikely. The only visual impairment are the dark circles beneath her deep-set eyes, but I don't know what that means. Other than severe fatigue, she looks fine.

"Heart transplant," she says, almost as if she just read my thoughts.

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't me to stare."

She shrugs, turning her head away. "It's okay. I've seen that look plenty of times from people. It's always the same look: pity mixed with empathy."

Now that's something I can relate to.

"How'd it happen . . . if you don't mind me asking? You look completely healthy."

She shrugs again, this time slower. "It happened like any other sickness. Simply said, my heart is tired of beating all of the time." She grimaces in pain. The irregular beeping of the ECG worsens. Kalyope follows my eyes to the monitor. "Oh, look! There's the lousy thing now." She says that lightheartedly, but I can tell that it's an act.

"Is your heartbeat always that erratic?"

She nods. "Been that way for almost fourteen months. I started showing signs of needing a transplant shortly after my fifteenth birthday."

My own heart aches just thinking about this girl. My loss of limbs doesn't seem bad at all now. "How long do you have?" I regret those words as soon as they escape my lips, but there's no recanting. It's done.

"I'm not sure. The doctors haven't really said, probably because they know I can't handle the truth. All they tell me is that every thirty seconds another life is saved because of an organ transplant, and that I may be that next thirty second. Of course, they conveniently left out the cold hard fact that there are more than one hundred and twenty thousand people a year nationwide who are in need of an organ transplant; more than eighty-five percent of them never receive it." She looks toward her phone laying next to her bedside. "Google is full of cruel medical facts."

I don't know why, but I keep getting a connection from her. There's so much I see in her that reminds me of Aurora. "I wish there was something I could do—" The ECG monitor explodes into sporadic beeps; red lights and symbols flashing on the screen. Kalyope is thrown backward against her bed, seizing violently.

A male doctor sprints into the room. "I need a crash cart. Stat!" Within seconds, another doctor is in the room with him, along with three nurses; one of which rolls a cart topped with medical equipment in front of them. A redheaded nurse grabs the handles of my chair and shoves me out of the room, shutting the door and drawing a thick curtain in front of the glass window, but not before I hear the dreaded drawn-out beep of Kalyope flatlining.

"Charge at one hundred. Clear!" I hear the muffled shout of the doctor. The thumping charge reverberates out into the hallway. The flatlining continues. "Charge at two hundred. Clear!" Another charge. My mind is warped back to when I was hauled from the wreckage site of my own accident, this moment correlating in so many ways. "Charge at three hundred. Clear!" A final charge.

The rush of footsteps inside the room abruptly stops, as do the frantic voices.

What's happening in there!

The flatlining ceases and a somewhat steady heartbeat takes its place. Relief floods me. I don't think I've ever cared about a complete stranger in my life as much as I do for Kalyope. I have no idea why I care; I just do. She's so young. It's not fair. This shouldn't be happening to her.

I stay off to the side of the hallway as the doctors and nurses filter out of the room. I catch the redheaded nurse as she exits. "Is she okay?"

The nurse takes a moment to answer. "Yes . . ." Her response doesn't sound the least bit convincing. "But she can't take much more; there's too much scar tissue around her heart from the irregular beating."

"How long until . . ." I can't seem to finish the sentence.

"A week. Maybe two if she's lucky. She needs a new heart; there's no other way around it. Is she someone close to you?"

I stare through the open crack of the doorway; a dazed Kalyope is lying in the bed while blankly staring up at the ceiling. "She's my friend."

I now see why Calix brought me here. This has certainly been a sobering experience. But I can't bring myself to leave. It feels wrong; cruel—as if I'm abandoning an injured comrade in battle. Then it hits me. I need to take action. I need to bring about the change I wish to see. I'm crazy for even considering such a thing. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I have to. She's counting on me.

I have to find Kalyope a new heart.

And fast.

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