Holly J sighed, watching the tube in her arm siphon her blood out and back into her body. She really hated dialysis, but now she had to put up with it every day, and even that wasn't really helping. All it was doing was delaying the inevitable. She really needed that kidney. And as it turned out, she had a relative with the kidney she needed. But that relative wanted money Holly J simply didn't have.
She sighed again. If only kidneys were as useless as appendixes, and when they broke you could just pop them out and continue walking around without a worry. Holly J remembered when she was much younger, Heather getting appendicitis and complaining for weeks about the scar. Now she could match, for the low, low, price of twenty g's.
Twenty grand… jesus. With a cringe, Holly J realized that if the roles were reversed, she'd do the exact same thing. She'd like to think that she'd at least go for a lower price, though. It was highway robbery, really. She was slowly dying, and if she didn't die she'd probably lose Yale, and if not either of those, she'd drain almost all of her family's remaining money.
Needless to say, Holly J wasn't a very happy camper, but at least she had the presence of mind to suffer in silence. The last thing she needed was false sympathy from her peers, should they realize where she disappeared to every day during last period. They did notice though, and were beginning to wonder what was going on; Sav especially. Though they didn't talk much, he was really the closest thing Holly J had to a real friend right now. As Anya would eloquently put it if she were commenting on the situation, 'A quality friend, not a quantity friend'.
The redhead felt her eyes start to droop sleepily; dialysis took a lot out of her- literally. In fact, she was sleeping some twelve or thirteen hours each day, plus about an hour for dialysis, six for school, about an hour spent either eating or going to the bathroom (not exactly exciting, but vital nonetheless), maybe another hour for getting ready each morning and night, which left a grand total of four hours to do whatever she so pleased. Which in reality, was spent doing homework or things for student council. Yes, she may be 'resting up', but her schedule was just as crammed and strenuous as it was before, if not moreso.
Holly J's eyes snapped open as she felt a hand on her shoulder. For a fleeting second, she was sure it was Fiona- had to be- but felt herself horribly let down as she looked into the eyes of the doctor. He offered her a tense smile, disconnecting her from the dialysis machine and then helping her to her feet. They nodded at each other as they had been doing for the past weeks, and an understanding passed between them. The doctor frowned and enveloped the girl in a hug, which she numbly returned.
What had unintentionally been passed between their gazes had been the knowledge of the idea, still lurking at the back of Holly J's mind but very slowly creeping forewords. The doctor knew it was there, now, and as a result, Holly J finally had to accept that the idea was there. It had grown. And it was now lurking and malevolent, just waiting in the darkness for the day she would let her guard down, and then it would swoop at her like a monster in the closet at a small child.
Now they both knew, that if it came down to it, and Holly J became too sick, that she wouldn't return to dialysis. The redhead would kill herself before she became that weak.