Falling for my Ex-Fiancee’s Best friend

The doctor had left after he had dropped the bombshell.

Demelza’s father was dying, liver failure and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. Unless he had an immediate transplant. Demelza had felt all the air knocked out of her as she watched her father on the bed, looking more sickly than he ever did, his stomach not seeming to reflect his current condition. But Demelza knew. She just knew that he was wasting there on that bed as he lay unmoving, eyes closed, and for all she knew, he was oblivious to every single thing that was happening around him.

She hated this. She hated it with a severe passion. Her father had been her one in all, the one constant and unchanging thing in her life, before Nathan had come. Even now that Nathan is here. Why would he do something so stupid? She thought angrily.

She had rounded on her mother after the doctor had left. There had to be something that she did not know. There was no other explanation for the fact that she had left her father in stable health, and now he was dying.

“What did you do?” Demelza seethed. Harriet tried to stem her tears as she tried to explain, but Demelza was beyond caring for the woman’s tears. There was no justifiable explanation for the fact that her father who she loved and cherished was going to leave her soon unless a donor was found.

Where were they even going to find a donor?

Demelza wanted to brush the thoughts away from her mind, but she found that it was impossible to do so. As soon as the doctor had mentioned that Mr. Thorpes, Demelza’s father could still be saved if he had an immediate liver transplant, Nathan had plucked at that thread of hope and asked if there were any liver donors they could ask for.

“Normally, the hospital has those on standby.” The doctor had said. “Lots of people understand this kind of loss and want to be able to donate their livers for other patients, but… the problem is not in the availability of the liver donor, it’s in the compatibility. We need a liver donor who’s compatible with him. Or… he’s going to have to be put on the waiting list, and hopefully, if something comes up, we’ll see what can be done.”

The doctor had said ‘if’ something comes up. Not when. What were the odds that there was going to be some random happy-go-lucky or really empathetic person who was going to waltz into their life and offer a liver out of the blues?

A waiting list was practically a death sentence. The doctor had made certain that he implied this. There was not a lot of time for her father to stay in the state that he was. He needed treatment, and he needed it fast. There was no waiting list with her father.

Nathan had asked if there was anything that could be done. Perhaps a sum of money could be paid to outsource for the liver, but the doctor had been clear that finding the right donor for Mr. Thorpe’s liver would be a problem on its own, not to talk about the operating procedure.

Nathan had thought for a while, then turned to the doctor. “What about me? What about my liver?”

The doctor had looked at Nathan as if he was crazy, but that had been several minutes ago, and Nathan had spent the time trying to convince the doctor to run tests on him to determine his compatibility.

Nathan was with the doctor and the team that ran tests, trying to see if he would be a match for the transplant. Demelza could no longer hold in her tears. She let them fall as she watched everything play out before her. Nathan, the man she loved, was trying to sacrifice his liver for her father, another man she loved.

She loved him at that moment. But the occasional doubt settled in her mind when she thought of the considerable risk that Nathan was taking just to ensure her father’s survival. There was a chance that her father would not make it through the operation. And the possibility of a transplant operation was almost entirely dependent on the fact that Nathan would be a match to donate.

What if he wasn’t a match? Demelza thought as she slid down against the wall. If he wasn’t a match, then they would need to find someone else who was a match.

And what if Nathan was a match?

Everything served to further frustrate Demelza. She ran her hands through her hair. Harriet attempted to placate her by sitting down beside her, but Demelza’s head shot up and she glared at her mother like she was going to straight up commit murder, and Harriet, taking the hint, left.

Nathan soon returned with the grim news that he wasn’t a match for the liver transplant, and Demelza felt like she was just going to sink into the floor. She grabbed both sides of her face with her hands and pulled her head upright to stare at Nathan.

“So what now?” she asked.

“I don’t know anymore. The doctor wanted to discharge your father, because there’s no donor for his liver, but we can’t let him be discharged. We’ve been here all day and the only other option the doctor says we have is to agree for us to be put on the waiting list. I’m not sure we can afford to be put on the waiting list”

“Of course we can’t put my father on the waiting list!” Demelza snapped. “Look at him! He’s fit to die at any moment now.”

Nathan didn’t look at her father who lay on the hospital bed. “Mel, he’s not going to die.” At any moment now, Nathan almost added. It was a hopeless situation and he knew it. Without that liver transplant, the man was just going to keep on wasting here until he eventually died. It wouldn’t be a matter of if he would die, it was when.

Nathan tried for a more upbeat tone. He was already very tired by the events of the whole day.

“Look, why don’t we come again later? Things would have calmed down by then and we’d be able to properly think and strategize…”

He never completed the statement. Demelza shot up from the floor and moved outside, nearly blowing the hospital doors straight off its hinges. Before she left, she screamed at her mother. Nathan knew he had to do something difficult.

He ran after her. She was almost in the car when he caught up with her.

“Mel, calm down.” He said, but Demelza only brushed off his hand.

“Calm down? Calm down? This isn’t the time to calm down. My father is dying there and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Hey, there’s nothing I can do about it too. This is way out of our hands. We’ve just got to wait and see how everything plays out.”

Demelza said nothing anymore. She just let Nathan steer her into the vehicle. She didn’t even say goodbye to her mother; all she kept thinking about was the fact that she loved her father and didn’t want to see him die. And now, there was even less time to spend with him.

In the car, Nathan told her, “this isn’t the time to begin to get angry.” But Demelza was barely listening. Nathan spoke some more with the doctor before he drove her home. But Demelza’s condition only spiraled. She became irascible, blowing up over the slightest things, and eventually, days later, even after she had stopped talking to her mother because she found out that her father had been imbibing alcohol with the help of her mother, Harriet, the hospital called.

“We did all we could,” The doctor sighed heavily over the phone. “It was only a matter of time. His liver was failing.”

Demelza felt like her entire world had slipped from right under her. She managed to breathe back in reply, “What do you mean, doctor?”

The doctor sighed heavily and said again.

“Your father is dead.”