The Barefoot Girl

Chapter 35

Genevieve only pulls me about ten feet from my house. She can't contain her emotions. She looks anxious and excited at the same time...

"What's up?" I ask looking her up and down.

"I should tell your whole family this but none of you are going to believe me!" Genevieve exclaims.

I stare at her, wondering how she's recovered from the tragedy so quickly and almost envying her.

"Gen, what on ear-?"

"Ok I swear this is the truth ok so yesterdayIwenttothehospitaltoseetheotherkidsandI-" she rambles at five-hundred miles an hour.

I hold up my hand.

"Take a deep breath, compose yourself slow down," I say giving her a pat on the shoulder.

"I can't understand a word you're saying," I tease, throwing in a smile for good measure.

She takes a gulp of air as if she'd been drowning and just got the chance for oxygen at the surface.

"Lacy. Still. Has. A chance," she gasps.

I furrow my eyebrows and before looking down at the ground and rubbing my temples.

"That's not possible, Gen. We saw her.... leave us. You were there too. You know what happened," I counter, not believing this news for a second, as much as I'd like to.

"Yeah but Bridget, the doctors brought her back, like, two minutes after we all left!" she pushes, her desperation for me to believe her clear in her voice.

"Gen, I swear if this is some kind of sick joke-" I accuse, only because it seems like something out of a dream.

"You think I'd joke about something like this? Especially right to your face?" she questions, looking hurt and giving me a bit of a guilt trip.

I avoid eye contact with her, barely able to even comprehend what she's trying to tell me.

"I'm dead serious," she insists with such conviction that it feels as if her words force my head to lower and my eyes to align with hers.

She returns my gaze, looking me straight in the eye and begins to tell me what she found out.

"We left like, what? A minute after she flat-lined? Apparently once the doctors saw us leave, they went to check on her. Finding her heart monitor flat they panicked, of course, but they're good under pressure. They revived her Bridget! Somehow they got her heart beating again! They still didn't except her to live trough that night but she's beating the odds! And what's more a donor came up! Someone's willing to donate their kidney to her!"

Her story suddenly doesn't sound too impossible.... Hard to believe? Yes. But impossible....? No.

My family and I had run off without the doctors ever officially telling us she was gone for good! My heart speeds up at the thought that we assumed something so tragic as this! I mean, her heart stopped... I thought that was it.

I guess I knew that their was a chance to get someone's heart started after it stopped- stories like that had been in the news plenty of times. But I never saw it happening to us!

I start breathing heavily, not sure how to answer that. I finally settle on demanding,

"What are they waiting for??? Do the transplant!!!"