The wife he bought

Chapter 1

Zara's POV

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The doctor's office didn't have a name. Just a number on the door, Inside a man in a white coat used words that didn't belong in my life. Expensive words.

"Aplastic anemia, Miss Vale. Your bone marrow's failing. You're not producing red cells, white cells, or platelets. Without a transplant, six months. Maybe a year if you're lucky and very, very rich."

I waited for the rest. The but. The we can fix this.

He gave me a number instead.

"Two million for a bone marrow transplant. Plus aftercare. If we find a donor match."

Two million. I had forty-seven dollars in my bag, not even enough for meds.

"Do I-" My voice came out wrong. Light. Like the words were fighting which to come out. "Do I have options?" I asked "meds for now surgery should follow soon" he said

He looked at me. Really looked. At the color of my skin. At the bruises on my arms from cleaning tables and opening doors. "you need to take more care of yourself as you'll bruise easily and have frequent nosebleeds oh and avoid little cuts"

I signed a paper I didn't read. Took the scan they printed. Walked out into heat, the sun shining brightly. Too brightly.

The clinic steps were twelve. I counted. By the seventh, my vision became blurred. By the eleventh, I had to sit. Right there. On the last step

A woman with a cart of flowers looked at me. Not with pity. With recognition. Like she'd seen others like me before. People who got news and then sat down because standing cost too much.

I didn't cry. Anemia takes your blood. Turns out it takes your tears too.

The walk back took an hour. I used to love walking. Now it was like I just climbed a mountain,I was out of breath.

The apartment door hung off one hinge. My father's things - gone. His bottles, his ashtrays full of promises - gone. The only thing left was the eviction notice on the table and my mother's photo face-down on a drawer. She'd left when I was eight. Said she couldn't do it anymore. It being him. It being us.

"Your father said you'd cover it," the man with the gold teeth had told me last week. He didn't have all his teeth, but he had all the numbers. "Two hundred thousand. Or we take the apartment or his kidney"

Two hundred thousand. I'd paid that already. In pieces.

I sat on the floor. The scan was heavy in my lap. Aplastic anemia. It sounded like a lie. Like something that happened to other people,some tv drama.

I was six when my father's gambling started. Eight when my mother left and didn't look back. Ten when I became mature. Twelve when I quit school to work the counter at a diner that didn't ask my age. Fourteen when I started cleaning houses so we could eat. Sixteen when I sold my old textbooks so he could pay a debt. Eighteen when I took my first job at a place that sells chicken. Twenty when I promised myself I'd leave and never did. Now it's been four years I still didn't leave.

Twenty-four now my body has given up before I did

I pressed my hands to my face. Not from fear. From nothing. From empty.

There were red dots on my ankles. Petechiae, the doctor called them. Like freckles, if freckles meant you were bleeding under your skin. I'd gotten them last month. Thought it was heat rash. Thought it was stress. Thought it was anything but death.

I stood. The room tilted. I felt a liquid drop down my face. Nosebleed Again. Third one today.

I didn't grab tissue. I let it run. Watched it drip onto the eviction notice. Onto his debt.

Six months.

Six months of mine.

Something broke. Or maybe it healed. I couldn't tell.

I walked to the bathroom. The mirror was cracked. I was cracked. We matched.

I looked at myself. Really looked.

Pale. Lips almost blue. Eyes too big for my face now. Bruises on my collarbone from a doorframe I'd brushed yesterday. Hair coming out in the comb.

Dying.

The word didn't fit in my mouth. I tried it anyway. "I'm dying."

The girl in the mirror didn't flinch.

She smiled.

It was the first real thing I'd done in years.

Because if I was dying, then I was free.

Free from two hundred thousand. Free from Gold Teeth. Free from my father's voice in my head saying this is the last time, Zara, I promise

I thought about the dreams I'd buried. Stupid ones. Little ones. I wanted to wear a red dress and not worry about staining it. I wanted to eat cake for breakfast and not think about the debt I could settle with it. I wanted to sleep for ten hours and not set an alarm. I wanted to tell my dad no and not feel guilty or bad. I wanted to laugh loud. I wanted to dance until I fell down - and if I fell down, so what?

I was falling anyway.

I washed the blood off my face. It kept coming. I gave up and let the sink run red.

Six months.

One hundred and eighty days. I calculated

Four thousand, three hundred and twenty hours.

I'd spent twenty-four years cleaning up after others

Now I am going to do me.

I went to my room. Pulled out the box under the bed. Inside: a college prospectus I'd stolen two years ago. Business. I used to trace the course list at night. Introduction to Marketing. Accounting 101. Numbers that didn't belong to debt.

Next to it: a red lipstick I'd never worn. Bought for four dollars. "the right time" I told my self.

Right time when I'm dying?

I opened it. Put it on. My hands shook and it went outside the lines. I didn't fix it.

I looked at the girl in the cracked mirror. Blood on her chin. Red on her mouth.

"Zara Vale," I told her. "You have six months. What are you going to do with them?"

The answer came fast. It came clean. It came from a place that had been quiet for twenty-four years.

Everything.

I was going to do everything.

I was going to walk in the rain and not run. I was going to eat dessert first. I was going to say no and yes and fuck you in the same breath. I was going to spend my forty-seven dollars on something stupid. I was going to be loud. I was going to be seen.

I was going to live.

For me.

Only me.

I wiped the blood off my chin one last time. Picked up my mother's photo. Looked at her face - young, tired, already gone before she left. I put it back in the drawer. Face-down.

She chose to leave.

Now I was choosing to stay. For six months. For myself.

I stepped out of the apartment. Left the door open. I was done

The sun was dying too. Bleeding orange across the sky. I tilted my face up to it. "It was beautiful" I thought

Six months, Let's see what I can burn down before I go.