Make Amends

She lay out in the hot sun on a chair in front of the pool. Her sunglasses covered her face and she was wearing a black strapless bathing suit top with white bottoms, accentuating her tan legs.

Ear buds were in her ears, playing the playlist she had created for the summer. She watched Garrett and all of his friends messing around in the pool while Amy lay next to her. There were no thoughts in her head, no worries except when to turn over. Simply, she was happy.

And then she woke up.

“Another good dream?” Garrett asked from her bedside.

She nodded her head, trying her best to sit up but failing.

“What do you need?”

It took her nearly a minute to find her words, “Water.”

He poured her a small cup and then lifted it to her lips while placing his hand behind her head so it could slide down her throat easily. She smiled in response, now having enough energy to sit up.

“How long was I out?” Logan asked.

“About three hours,” Garrett replied, “How’s the air in here?”

“It’s really hot,” Logan said, unsure why he asked. The hospital was on a central cooling system and they wouldn’t change the thermostat just because she was uncomfortable.

“Let’s go for a ride,” he smiled, walking to the other end of the room and retrieving a wheel chair that had become her best friend.

He called for Penny and she helped Garrett place Logan in her chair, keeping her attached to the IV and to the oxygen tubes linked into her nose, pumping fresh air through her veins when her lungs were too weak to do it for her.

She was strong enough to tighten her fingers around the portable IV so it could travel with her while Garrett pushed her. The oxygen tank was tucked in a pocket in the back of the wheelchair.

“I just want to walk,” she sighed.

“I know,” he said sadly, “Maybe someday.”

She felt tears form in her eyes that were cast with a yellow shadow from the jaundice. Even her baby brother had lost hope.

“Are we going outside?” she asked hopefully as they approached the automatic doors.

“We sure are,” he smiled as he rolled her out. “You’re looking a little pasty.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t respond. She was already relishing the sun that she hadn’t felt in weeks.

He turned her around the corner and her eyes flung open when she heard the loud surprise ringing through her ears.

All of her friends surrounded her with birthday hats and before she knew it one was being awkwardly maneuvered around the tubes and placed around her head.

“What’s going on?” she laughed.

“It’s your birthday, silly goose,” Eric said, handing her a bottle of water. She lit up at the sight of him since he had been gone on tour for the last few weeks. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

Logan tried to number the days but they all became a blur in the last month or so that the cancer had consumed her. She decided she would just have to believe them.

“And you guys all put this together?” she smiled.

Kennedy broke through the crowd around her and kissed her cheek, “Of course.”

Everyone created a kind of assembly line, giving her hugs that she couldn’t return and kissing her gently. Autumn was even there; she grabbed Logan’s hand and wished her a sincere happy birthday before going back to sitting next to John.

“So… how are you doing, Logan?” Pat asked the question everyone was wondering. She wasn’t really allowing anyone else into her room besides Kennedy and Garrett because she was so unbearable all of the time.

None of them know how bad it was, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could hide it from them. After her stunt on the swing set, Eric called the paramedics and they drove her to the hospital, hooking her up to an immediate IV.

The pressure of the swinging and her landing caused her to pass out and led Dr. Brock to refuse her access to the outside world. Kennedy had barely left before he rushed back, making her feel guilty for her selfishness.

The blood tests came back as positive for the cancer, and further tests of her liver proved it had spread there. They were giving her medicine to try to flush it out of her liver and the goal had been to keep it clear of her kidneys. Every morning she took fifteen pills of different types.

There had been a few days where they thought that it was it. Once, two weeks ago, Kennedy’s dad came in the early morning and told her she needed to say her goodbyes. Less than an hour later, she was rushed into surgery because a blood clot was stopping flow to her lower body.

They determined that now the cancer was attacking her kidneys.

Every day they took blood from Garrett and replenished her with it. And when it became unsafe for him to do it, John began coming in every day. Eventually it became unsafe for him as well. None of their other friends had the same blood type. She had to start relying on the blood allocated to the hospital from local blood drives, but there were other patients that needed it just as bad, so she only got a few transfusions a week.

It was basically just a matter of time, and it was obvious. She had become what she hoped she never would, a shriveled, dying version of herself that she couldn’t recognize.

She looked at all of her expectant friends, hoping that there had been some kind of miracle since all of the news they had last heard, “I’m not doing too well.”

“Well today isn’t about the cancer. It’s about you turning twenty three and us celebrating it,” Garrett cheered, leading everyone to toast with their drinks. Logan wasn’t strong enough to hold one in her hand.

They wheeled her to the head of the faux picnic table they had set up in the area where hospital employees usually took smoke breaks. It was June but there were misters set up so it was bearable. Kennedy and Garrett sat closest on the sides of her. Austin was serving up hotdogs and hamburgers and Logan politely refused. She had to be fed mostly through a tube, and when that wasn’t the case it was a strict diet since her blood had to be artificially filtered.

They all made light conversation, everyone trying not to bring up future plans because there was no way to know if Logan could attend. But when all of your friends are in bands, the conversation gradually leads to talks of tour.

The Maine would be leaving to join Warped Tour in two weeks. A Rocket to the Moon was already gone; Eric only came back for her birthday.

Garrett protested, he screamed and threatened to quit the band but Logan told him that if he quit she would never speak to him. It took convincing, and it was hard because Logan didn’t want any of them to leave either. She wouldn’t last the three months they were gone.

She refused to let her mind drift to thoughts of where they would be when she was living her last moments. Would she have the strength to call? Or even the time?

Instead she participated in the conversation, still aware of the tension in the air. They all had so many questions that she couldn’t answer.

It had only been an hour when Logan’s eyes started to feel heavy. She needed to lie down but she wanted so badly to stay out. But within another half hour Kennedy noticed. He pinched her elbow and spoke softly so no one else could hear.

“Do you need to go inside?” he asked.

She nodded her head sadly. Kennedy wiped his hands and then stood up, quieting the conversation. Logan spoke, “Sorry everyone, um… I need to go inside.”

They all have her hugs again and placed gifts on her lap. She had quite a stack by the time Kennedy wheeled her back to her room. A nurse helped him put her back in bed. Logan took a short nap and when she woke up John was in her room, sitting with a smile on his face.

He was sitting with a needle in his arm attached to a tube that was emptying crimson liquid into a bag.

“Whatcha doing?” she laughed, sitting up.

“Giving you life,” he said. “The doctors said it was okay for me to give again.”

“Thanks for the party today,” Logan said, “I so appreciated it.”

“No problem,” John shrugged, “We put it together so that maybe some of us could see actually see you. You seem to be refusing us access to you.”

“Can you blame me?”

He sighed, giving her a smile full of pity. “How much time do you have?”

“Who knows,” she let out a breath she felt like she had been holding for months. “Sometimes I wish that it was sooner rather than later.”

“Don’t say that,” he hushed.

“Before Jimmy died, he told me that I needed to be ready to die. That I had to accept it,” she told him.

“Have you?”

She nodded here head. “I didn’t die four years ago because I was meant to meet you, to repair my relationship with Garrett, and to fall in love with Kennedy again. And now I’ve done all that and I-” she stumbled over the words that would break John’s heart. “Now I feel like… even though I don’t want to die, I’m ready to.”

Logan swore she saw a tear slip down his cheek, but as quick as it fell he was wiping it away. “I think that’s all anyone can ask for.”

Penny came in and detached John from the needle, wrapping up his arm and giving him a bottle of orange juice. Once she left John stood on the side of Logan’s bed.

“You don’t hate me, do you?”

He put his hand on the side of her face, resting it there for a while before emitting a weak smile, “I love you, Lo. I know that you and Kennedy were meant to reconcile even though I didn’t understand it before.”

“Thanks for that,” she said.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you again… soon,” he said.

“No goodbyes,” she said sadly, forcing a smile.

“That wasn’t a goodbye,” he shrugged, his voice cracking. “It was an ‘I’ll see you later.’”

“I’ll see you later, then,” she said, her heart dropping into the pit of her stomach. As she watched him leave her room she wanted to beg for him to come back, but she knew she shouldn’t.

She tried to fall asleep again but her body wouldn’t let her. Her mind was full of so many thoughts and scenarios that she finally reached for her cell phone, calling Kennedy. Within a few minutes he was there by her side.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Just wanted to see you,” she shrugged as he kissed her forehead sweetly.

He sat down next to her, “So Garrett got a pretty…um, sad call today. Did he tell you?”

She shook her head, “What is it?”

“His mom… your mom. She got diagnosed with Lupus. It’s treatable, but not curable… Garrett didn’t want to tell you but I figured you would want to know,” he said sadly.

Logan felt tears in her eyes and tried to shake them away. She lifted her hands to cover her face, doing it more out of frustration, “How much more can happen to Garrett before it destroys him?”

“I don’t know, Logan,” he sympathized, rubbing her arm to calm her.

She realized that her sadness for Anne was completely overcome by her sadness for the loss Garrett would feel. It wasn’t fair.

“Will you call him for me?”

Kennedy did as she asked and when Garrett got there Kennedy left them alone. She made room on her bed and he awkwardly fit his body to lay there with her. She wrapped her arms around him and he cried against her chest. She patted down his hair and kissed the top of his head before laying her cheek on the top of his head.

“You’re so strong,” she whispered. He gripped onto her tighter. She smiled at him even though he couldn’t see, “You’ll always be my baby brother.”

He finally composed himself and sat up, “Shut up.”

“You’re going to do okay,” she held his hand now.

“You know that five years ago today you walked out of our lives?” he said sadly.

“I do,” she said, even though she hadn’t thought about it at all.

“No you didn’t,” he laughed.

“Why is that funny?”

He shrugged, “Why do you think you didn’t remember?”

“Because I’m more worried about dying…?” she asked, getting agitated. Was he really bringing up the hardest decision she made as she lay dying?

“I think it’s because people don’t remember parts of their lives that aren’t important anymore,” he said. “It doesn’t define you anymore, you aren’t that person.”

Tears flooded her blue eyes and she shut them, taking in a deep breath. He was right. She had come here a year ago lost. Her life had been upside down, her emotions in turmoil. And now even though what was left of her life was still upside down, her moral compass was straight. She had no enemies, no secrets.

She had never been stronger.

Garrett left and about an hour later her mom—her real mom, and her half brother and sister came to see her. The kids were scared of her, and the visit didn’t last long. Her mom was a mess and Logan tried to be strong for her but it was hard. Logan said goodbye to them and they all assumed it would be the last, making it more uncomfortable. How do you say goodbye to someone you barely know?

Logan said a prayer that her mom’s guilt wouldn’t eat her up, because even she didn’t deserve that. No one did.

Anne came as well. She and Logan talked for hours and for that time Logan forgot she was sick. She laughed and told stories and had fun. But the conversation fell tense when Garrett became the topic.

“He’s got friends, you know. Great friends. And Amy. They’ll make sure he doesn’t fall. Don’t you worry,” she said unsteadily.

“Hopefully I stay alive long enough to worry. Sounds weird but, I would give anything to worry for a while,” Logan said.

“Me, too,” Anne said. “You know, if you…pass before I do, I’ll take care of him.”

“I know,” Logan said.

And that was it. Anne said goodbye to her but unlike her actual mom Anne swore it wouldn’t be the last time. She still had hope.

Logan drifted off to sleep for about 30 seconds before her hospital room door was being opened dramatically and a voice was waking her up.

“Ugly, what’s up!?” Eric shouted.

She laughed, “Hi.”

“Well I’ve been waiting around for you to call me all day since, you know, I flew in on my day off for your birthday, but someone seems to have forgotten about me,” he said, pacing at the foot of her bed.

“You’re making me dizzy,” she laughed.

He smiled and pulled up the chair by the side of her bed. “I met a girl.”

“Eric!” she said excitedly, “Way to bury the lead.”

“Yeah,” he laughed, “I think we might last… at least like three months.”

“Wow,” she said with eyes wide, “That’s big.”

He shook his head with a laugh, “Ah. Who am I going to talk to about these things with?”

“Me. I’m not dead yet,” she said lightly.

“True,” he smiled.

“And then you’ll find another girl to harass and call ugly, preferably not your girlfriend,” Logan said.

“Nah, you’re irreplaceable,” he winked.

“Thanks for that,” Logan said, holding out her hand that he eagerly grabbed.

He stared at their interlocked hands, “I’ve got a flight to catch in an hour.”

“I guess you should probably go then,” she said.

He shook his head, “I told myself I wouldn’t cry on this trip.”

“Then don’t,” she replied, a tear slipping down her cheek. “I, however, made no promises.”

He laughed, “I love you so much.”

“Back at you,” she said.

He kissed her hand, “I’m so proud of you for all that you’ve done. You’ve made me so strong.”

She smiled, squeezing his hand tighter, “That was so cheesy.”

He dropped her hand and stepped away, “Wow. You are literally the worst.”

She laughed, “Come back.”

He wiped his eyes that were red from the tears he begrudgingly let fall. He moved the hair out of her eyes, “You know, I’ll be home from tour in a month.”

“Then I guess I’ll see you in a month,” she said, ominously sad but terrifyingly hopeful.

He kissed her forehead. “You know, for someone so ugly, you don’t look so bad right now.”

“Considering the circumstances, right?” she laughed lightly.

“No,” he said as the right side of his lips turned up into a genuine smile. “I’ll call you when I land.”

She watched Halvo leave and realized again how much she hoped she would have the time to miss him as much as he missed her.

Logan thought of Cody. She thought of everything he had done for and she desperately wanted to call him and hear his voice. But she didn’t want to make it harder. They had already said goodbye.

Dr. Brock came into her room around dusk, reading her thick file. She had begun to read him very well, and right now he was stressed. Which meant he probably had bad news.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He sat down in a chair, placing the open file on her stomach. “This is the MRI results we did yesterday.”

She flipped through the pictures of her chest cavity, pelvis, and legs. “What does it mean?”

“It means your arteries are clogging because your blood isn’t being filtered well enough or fast enough. All those little dots”—and there were many—“Are small clots.”

“What about this big one?” she pointed to one in the middle of her chest.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Your blood is becoming… in a sense, poisonous to your body. It will stop nourishing your organs long before it fatally clots any arteries. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“How much time do I have?”

He shook his head grimly, “Not long. The sample of your blood I took this morning isn’t good. Your kidneys and liver are already being destroyed and the cancer is soon going to infiltrate your other organs.”

“How am I going to die?” she asked after a long pause, her voice cracking. “Is that a weird question?”

He shook his head and moved to sit on her bed just to be closer to her, “You should be feeling pain right here,” he poked near her hip bone.

“And here,” he poked her elbow. She nodded her head and he continued, “When your organs and bones begin to deteriorate, they hurt. You’re going to be in pain but we’ll manage it.”

He stood up and lifted the sheet covering her legs. “Your ankles and feet are swollen.”

“My heart is failing…” she said, “I know that one.”

“Soon your heart will be unable to pump blood out. The moment the pumping completely stops blood will begin to pool in the airways and lungs. You’ll go into shock and your organs will fail one by one until you lose vital functions. It’ll be slow,” he said.

“And that’s it?”

“If we can get in fast enough we can induce a come if you’d like,” he said warily.

“Only do that if you think it will really keep me alive. Not for Garrett or Kennedy’s peace of mind, okay?” she said.

“Understood.”

“I don’t want to die on my birthday,” she said.

“I can’t make any promises,” Dr. Brock said. “I know I’ve cried wolf quite a few times but this is real. You need to say goodbye.”

She began crying, even though she wished she wasn’t. She didn’t like putting Dr. Brock in such a position that he would have to comfort her because it was so contradicting to his nature. But this time he surprised her by grabbing her hand and using his other to wipe the tears away.

“There’s still a hope.”

“What?” she asked, trying to regain herself.

“This is a research hospital after all. I wasn’t going to tell you, I figured it would be too hard but… I never expected it to be harder to tell you goodbye. There’s a procedure that can be done… It’s still in its early stages and it would be the first to be performed at this hospital. It would involve inducing a coma and working from there.”

“Will it save my life?”

“It could,” he said, “Probably not. But we don’t have any more to lose. Excuse my frankness.”

She shrugged, “When would you induce?”

“Soon. Whenever you let me,” Dr. Brock said.

“Midnight. Come back at midnight.”

“Okay,” he said sympathetically. He stood up and walked to the door. Before he left he spoke again, “You know, when I said hope, I didn’t mean a lot of it.”

“I know,” she said, giving him a weak smile. “I’ll be sure everyone else knows that as well.”

He left her room and she fell asleep for a few hours. She woke up to Kennedy calling her name, putting cold washcloths on her face.

“Logan, Logan, wake up. Something’s wrong,” he said, unsuccessfully hiding the panic in his voice.

He gave her some water and then she spoke, “What is it?”

“You’re running a fever. Penny gave you some medicine but it’s not working. You’re… you’re so pale. What’s going on?” he said, sounding like he might cry.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“11:45.”

Her heart dropped. “Call Garrett. Please. Call him now.”

“He’s right outside,” Kennedy said, going to the door and calling her brother in.

Her lips felt chapped and her hospital gown was sticking to her back with sweat. Garrett joined her on the opposite side of Kennedy.

“What’s going on, Logan?” Garrett asked.

“I don’t know, Gary,” she said, so weak.

He began to cry, knowing this was it. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, unable to produce tears. He kissed her forehead longingly and then sat in a chair against the wall and hanging his head with his elbows on his knees.

Dr. Brock came in, taking the spot where Garrett had been. He put a stethoscope to her chest and after listening for a few seconds he took it away from his ears and spoke urgently, “I can barely find a beat.”

“No,” Kennedy protested. “You have to do something. Dad, please.”

“Logan, I can do it now,” he said.

She nodded her head, glancing at the time. It was still her birthday.

Dr. Brock announced he would be back in a few minutes and Kennedy took her hand, a grave look in his eyes. Logan began to breathe heavily. It was becoming more difficult with each breath.

Her eyes began to droop and Kennedy touched her cheek with his hand, “Baby? Logan, you can’t fall asleep.”

She smiled at him, wishing so badly she had any strength to hold onto his hand. “Tell me something nice.”

He exhaled slowly, emitting a small smile, “Rursus cura docendi.”

He told her these words delicately as he held her hand. She looked at him strangely as her brain scrambled for what language he was even possibly speaking. Kennedy kissed the top of her hand sweetly, but she didn’t accept his distraction.

He smiled at her, longing that thick, beautiful hair he could hold in his hand. He missed kissing her, he missed holding her.

Her eyelids began to droop and soon he knew she would dismiss his ambiguous ideas. Her breathing became timed and measured, and he matched his to hers as he did too often in this dull room.

She would never understand. Not only literally, because she would never be able to truly capture what Kennedy meant. And even if she did understand the translation, she would disagree, emphatically. She would roll her eyes and tell him that he was ridiculous.

This girl never agreed that one single person could teach another human being how to love, how to live. She had touched so many lives, and even though others would disagree, he had no doubt she had affected him most.

If she did decide to leave him, or when she did, he would be left with the absence of her everywhere except his heart. She would eventually exist in memories, but mostly in the life he would lead in honor of her, should God grant him more days than she.

She made him better; she forced him to be better.

He whispered to her again, for the first time in five years feeling peace. “The sick teach the cure.”

And she gave him one more smile, the only recognizable part of her now. The machines around them began to beep, making his heart beat faster, almost like it was making up for the way hers wasn’t.

Garrett began yelling for Dr. Brock but Logan could hardly hear him. She began to inhale deeply but the pain in her chest was causing her to panic.

Her eyes began to flutter, fighting her will not to let them close. Soon her vision began to blur until the green in Kennedy’s watered eyes slowly faded into a bright light that seemed too far away. It reminded her of truth, of innocence, of love.

She felt a pain in her arm, surprised that she could focus on it. She barely saw Dr. Brock plunging a needle into her arm before the pain in her chest dissipated. The light grew brighter and still farther away.

Logan gave in to the fog surrounding the edges of her vision and closed her eyes peacefully. The light filled her body as she watched from above. And then, as if by some pre-determined signal, her new body and pure soul meshed visibly in the light, and she walked towards it.