Smoked Success

32.

"And then Kristen had Angelina then she died." I finish, sighing. I'm so tired, I don't think I'll confront him today. I'll do it tomorrow.

"I'm sorry for her loss," Andrew says, glancing at his phone.

"It's okay, guess we should head to sleep now?" I ask, preparing my sheets.

"Yeah, good night." He smiles and starts heading out. I can't wait til tomorrow, I need to know why he lied to me.

"Andrew, before we go to sleep, I have a question." I stop him, running to be in front of him. I really hope he doesn't take this negatively, I really appreciate him being the donor, but I really need to know why I was the last to know. I can't believe anyone'd do that for me, saving my brother.

"Shoot." He rolls his eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me you were the donor?" I question, looking at him straight in the eyes. I can see he's not able of doing eye contact, and I can see he's sort of troubled.

"Donor? Me? That's weird." His confusion looks so fake, I can see it. "Who'd tell you this?"

"The flight attendant. And Tyler confessed it too." I reply, still as bold as I can be.

"Fuck." I hear him cuss, I'm so fucking furious now. "Jessica, I don't want you to be mad at me. I just didn't think you'd let me donate my lung if you knew."

"Andrew, you didn't tell your stepmother." I glare at him.

"Wait, who?" He narrows his eyes.

"The day you both got operated, I saw her, and she was crying. Your father told her you were absent and he wanted to know why. So she asked Rebecca, who also knew." I cross my arms. "And uh, you let your father beat your stepmother?"

"Okay, how do you know all of this?" He crosses his arms as well.

"I talked to her." I roll my eyes. "Now can you justify this?" He starts unbuttoning his shirt, and that's not what I was aiming for. But damn he has a v-line.

"See that tattoo?" He points at a tattoo in a foreign language that's on the left side of his chest, near his heart.

"Is this Arabic?" I ask him, looking at the foreign font. I cannot read it.

"Yes. And this tattoo represents the names of my actual parents. Mary and Joseph." He states.

"Were you adopted?" I cannot really fathom what is going on.

"No. I'll tell you a little story. Joseph was in university, and worked part-time at his father's grocery store. Mary on the other hand, was in a different university, and went to Joseph's grocery store whenever she was asked to run errands for her mother, by her mother. Whenever Joseph and Mary were around they'd both be called by their English names, Mary and Joseph, whilst their parents called them with their Arabic names, Mariam and Youssef. Mary was Muslim, Joseph was Christian, yet they both loved each other. And then they decided to elope, since Mary's parents'd be furious if they knew she got married to Joseph. They went to the United States, got their first and only child, then died two years later in a car accident. My uncle then, decided to raise me with his wife, Karla, the lady you met in the hospital." He finishes, sighing. This is so dark, but it was so nice watching him talk like this, it's like he's so devoted for this, I didn't even want him to finish.

"That's horrible, I'm so sorry." That's all I can say. "I feel bad for Karla."

"I'm only doing this internship for Karla. My uncle blames her for my love of art, since she used to be a painter and taught me how and he doesn't want me to do anything artistic, because that's not what Haddads do." He rolls his eyes. "That's why I'm so late in university, I went to The Institute of Art before UCLA."