Read The Donor (The Full Novella) for Free Online Page B

because I had spent so long trying to get here, in this place, in this house, making money for my family. When I first started out with MyTrueMatch.com, I would have taken anyone that was remotely sane. From just talking to him, I knew Jonah was far more than that. I was only expecting to be something like a live-in hooker with a twist, but what I got was more than I had imagined. I like Jonah. I like him a lot.
    Jonah dips a blue net into the water and catches the seahorse. He’s so gentle with it, as if it’s a newborn floating in water. Then he places it in a clear plastic cup filled with water that’s sitting on the lid to the tank.
    “What are you doing?” I ask, suddenly alarmed. Is this one sick too? Will this one die as well?
    He turns to face me, smiling a little. “I have to take him out,” he explains.
    “Why?”
    He places the net in a bucket under the tank. “He isn't eating,” he says softly, like he's afraid the fish will hear him. “Everything I've researched says that if they aren't eating, they should be in a tank by themselves.”
    “Oh.”
    Jonah turns completely around now. “I have a different tank upstairs,” he explains. “I was hoping to have it done for before you came, but it wasn't ready until last night.”
    I still can't tear my eyes away from the little brown figure in the cup he is now holding. For some reason, I don't want him to move the seahorse. I want things to stay as they are.
    “Want to come?” he asks.
    I nod and follow him up the stairs. We pass my room and walk down the hall to somewhere I haven’t gone before. When Jonah opens the door, a master bedroom greets us. The room is all white: walls, bedding, carpet. The furniture is black wood, and there are matching pillows on the king-sized bed. There are a lot of windows in the room as well. They take up most of the walls, and gentle light shines in.
    His room. Shit. I’ve never been in a guy’s room before.
    “You can sit down if you want,” Jonah says, already concentrating on the small tank in the corner of the room. I almost didn’t notice it.
    There’s a bench with pillows at the foot of the bed. I decide that’s my best bet.
    Jonah turns his back to me and a square of yellow light hits him in the shoulder, illuminating his grey shirt as he gets to work on placing the seahorse in his new home.
    “So, the whole sunlight thing…” I say awkwardly.
    He doesn’t look away from what he’s doing. “It’s tempered glass,” he says. “UV rays can’t penetrate it.”
    I have to hand it to him, I hadn’t thought about that.
    Jonah gently pours the seahorse into the tank, studying it for a few seconds before he speaks again. “As soon as I knew I could have windows, I had the entire room re-done with as many as possible.” He smiles to himself. “If I could make all of the walls glass, I would.”
    I laugh. “It’d be like you’re in a fish tank,” I point out.
    Jonah finally turns to me. “I never thought of it that way.”
    I smile. He smiles. It’s an incredibly comfortable conversation given the situation. I turn my head to look out the window where the snow still hasn’t completely melted. The sunlight off of the white surface almost gives me an instant migraine, so I turn back to Jonah, who is staring at the seahorse. We both watch in silence.
     
    ***
     
    I came to hate hospitals and doctor’s offices. After I received the phone call to end all phone calls, they were relentless in trying to get me to come back in to see them, to get more tests that would lead to more dead ends. There was no need to go back; I knew how much time I had left and I wasn’t about to waste it in a sterile environment where everyone gave cheerful words of encouragement with sad eyes.
    But when the nosebleeds became worse, when the headaches lasted days instead of hours, I started to get scared. I started wondering if I should maybe listen to all of the voicemails the doctor’s office left. Maybe they had made