Infinite

Five

Five

He should have called her that night or in the days that followed. But he couldn’t, partly because he was pretty sure he was in love with her and partly because he was sort of dying. He deliberated for days and weeks on end, driving himself and the rest of the band nuts with his indecisiveness. And then one day, Dr. Parson called. This was it, he said. The opportunity he has been waiting for the last decade. They had a suitable donor, and a transplant will be scheduled for the day after. And that should have made him better, but it didn’t. If the transplant failed, which it had a high chance of doing…then everything would be over, wouldn’t it?

And for the first time in a while, he lay down in his bed and cried himself to sleep. Boys were made of tears too and he had been holding them in for so long, it was felt like a huge burden was being lifted. When he woke up a little before midnight, he called up Melissa. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this to her. She deserved to be with someone healthy and whole and without a percentage for the chance of a survival. He shouldn’t be calling her up but he did it any because he was only human. His stomached churned as the phone began to ring. She picked up after a few seconds.

“Hello?” she sound distracted, but her voice still had the same warmth and it seemed to melt the past few weeks away.

“Hey. Are you free tonight?” he asked.

Please say yes, he thought. I know I’ve been a complete jerk, but please say yes and I’ll explain everything. She hesitated for so long that he was sure she was going to turn him down. But instead, she asked, “Why?”

That wasn’t an outright rejection. Thank god, thank god, thank god.

“There’s something I want to show you,” he said. Silence. “Mel? So are you free?”

“Why can’t you show it to me now?” she asked.

“I can’t. It’s only available at night.”

She sighed. “Dean, you can’t disappear for months and then show up suddenly and expect me to go out with you. I’ve got plans, and a ton of assignments –”

“Please,” he said, his voice catching. “Just for a while. I won’t take up much time.”

“Okay,” he heard her say. “When?”

“Midnight. I’ll pick you up at midnight.”

“What, like Cinderella?”

“Yeah,” he replied, smiling for the first time in a while. “Except I’d find you even without the glass slippers.”

He jumped into the car and stopped by at a twenty-four hours Starbucks for two cups of tea, and managed to reach at her place just as it struck midnight. She was standing on the pavement, shuffling her feet back and forth, and jumped into the passenger seat as soon as he pulled up. A cold draft came in along with her and she didn’t meet his eyes as she settled in, dressed in a pair of jeans and a warm jacket. He handed her a cup of tea.

“Hello.”

She took it from him.

“Is this your way of saying sorry for not calling?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” he replied. “Is it working?”

“Nope,” she told him, her voice clipped. She was mad at him. That much he could tell. “So where are we going?”

“You’ll know when we’ve arrived.”

“You aren’t planning to kidnap and murder me, are you?” she asked lightly. He laughed.