To Err Is Human

Woke

"Are you mad at me?"
Sophie sighed at the sound of Stefan's voice. He broke the silence after all, after the long twenty minutes. She waited for a while and then turned away from the window, taking deep breaths. She didn't want to, but she found the energy to turn to Stefan.

"Why?" She finally asked him. "You didn't have to do all of that, say all of that." Stefan let out a weak breath.

"Are we still doing this?"

"He's my brother Stefan."

"And you're my wife." he cut her off standing up on his feet. "I can't believe you'd make up your mind to do something like this without consulting me first. You even somehow managed to get my signature on that letter, what are you? five?"

"What was I supposed to tell you?" She asked, following him with her gaze as he stood from the couch and found his way to the little refrigerator.

"Hey Stefan, I need you to sign this consent letter cause I'm bout to give my brother one of my kidneys, oh yeah, and I have made up my mind, there nothing you can do to stop me?"

"Can you even hear yourself?"

"Stefan, Angelo is dying."

"And you are three months pregnant."
Sophie scoffed.

"What kind of a hospital is this anyway where they don't check for these kinds of things?"

She rolled her eyes

"They didn't have to, I already got a doctor's report."

"Did you fake that too?" Her asked her. Sophie folded her arms and hardened her frown. She wasn't going to answer that. "I am so going to sue everyone and everything here-"

"Could you just not make this worse?" She snapped at him. "I understand that you're mad but can you just not make this harder than it already is? I already apologized to you over and over again, what else do you want?"

Stefan looked at her for a while. His emotions were in conflict with each other, he didn't know what to do or what to say, a part of him wanted to yell at her, to be mad at her while another part just wanted to cry, pull her close and hug her.

"So this is it? You were just going to throw everything away for them?"

Sophie rolled her eyes and looked away from him.

" I'm not giving him my life, It's just a kidney. I'd be perfectly fine without one kidney. "

"No you won't, not right now. I'm not willing to bet your life or our baby's life on mere assumptions. At least not for one of them."

"God, just stop it already!" Sophie raised her voice a little walking to the other end of the room.

"Stop what? So Now you hate the truth?"

"Stop it!" She turned to him and glared at him. The fights were endless and she was tired of hearing the same things over and over again. "Stop refering to them like that, they are my family."

"Yeah well it depends on your definition of family because as far as I know family don't give up on each other, they don't treat each other the way yours treated you, us,"

"They didn't give up on me, I left." She glared at him. "I ran away, I gave up on them first."

"And what happened after you did? They just forgot about you and everything, they never looked for you, they just did not care because you chose to be with me, with a nobody. You were their family, and what about when we came back then, to ask for their blessings? remember what your father said to me?"

Sophie rolled her eyes.

"He told me that he'd rather die than give us his blessings. He practically threw us out of his house and took your name out of the family's tree."

"He was still hurt-"

"No, he was selfish, they all are. They never and have never really cared about anyone except themselves and their company, that's why."

Sophie scoffed.

"Why do you keep making everything about you?" Stefan rolled his eyes. "Because from what I remember, you're the one my father had a problem with not me. He was fine with me as long as I wasn't with you."

"Yeah, well you chose me anyway didn't you? Because even you knew what those people really are about."

"Maybe we should stop blaming everyone but us for what happened years ago. What we did was wrong and selfish, we should not have left like that. Have you actually thought of what our lives would have been like if we had just fought for each other and not just run off like cowards? If we had just waited for my father to change his mind and actually give us his blessings ?"

"So what now? you regret it?"

"I didn't say that."

"I can't believe you. How can you even say those words to me when you know how hard I fought, you of all people know how much I lost when I made that decision to leave with you. Just in case you have, let me remind you what your father did to my family"

Sophie rubbed her temples. She was sick of the argument.

"Can we just not do this right now?"

"Your mother bought all the houses on our block." He didn't care. He was going to say what he wanted to say anyway.

"Your family Forced my father and brother to live on the streets for months. My father lost his job and couldn't take it anymore, he drank himself to death and then my brother lost his scholarship. Your mother did all that to make sure I crumbled, to punish me for being with their previous daughter. It took me years to get my brother to look at me, To forgive me, so forgive me for turning a blind eye this time, forgive me for not feeling like loosing anyone else."

Silence.

Sophie drew a deep breath. The room was awfully quiet for a while and Stefan needed some time to clear his head. He was done. That was an excessive downpour of emotions and he was done reminiscing on the past

"All I want is to do what I couldn't for my family. All I want is to keep you and our baby safe, you have to let me."

"Not like this Stefan." Sophie finally said. " I understand this is very hard for you but Angelo is my brother. None of this would have happened - we would never have had the chance to have this child if not for him."

"But we appreciate that." He cut her off. "We do and have shown him how much we do but I'm not going to lose everything for him or any of them." He walked closer to her and grabbed her hands gently. He held on tight to them. "Soph, I understand that they are your family and you would do anything for them but you and this baby are all I have left in this world. I cannot afford to lose any of you, not for your family or for mine, not for anything in this world, it's going to kill me."

Sophie exhaled. She could feel tears well up in her eyes as she felt the warmth of his hands on hers. His eyes looked like they were beseeching her, she was tired, she was tired of fighting with him.

"We'd find another way for Angelo. I'd talk to my friends, some doctors at the hospital. I'd pay whatever and do whatever it takes to get a replacement. If Angelo really cares about you, about us like you say he does, he'd understand that. I owe Angelo everything Soph, but this is not it, so I beg you to promise me you won't go on with the surgery till we've exhausted all our options. I can't let you do it."

Sophie squeezed his hands. She could see how his heart was breaking into pieces with every sentence he made, feel it from the way he looked at her, spoke to her, and it broke her heart too.

"Okay."
Sophie nodded as the tears on her eyes began to fall from her eyes too.

"Okay?"

"Okay." she repeated.

"Okay." he exhaled in relief. Stefan cleaned the tears from her face quickly, pulled her closer and then kissed her gently in her forehead.

"Thank you." He whispered into her hair as she held on tight to him, not wanting to let go. Crying as hard as she could.

"Thank you." He repeated