Saturday's Storyteller: "This is the sort of thing that only happens to incredibly profound people."

by Belinda Roddie
 
This is the sort of thing that only happens to incredibly profound people. I guess that's why it happened to Julia instead of me.

It happened on a bizarrely warm November night, the reds and oranges of the trees outside my apartment window glazed with humidity. I was in the tiny kitchen when they called Julia, who was watching a TV crime show that she had previously recorded. The kind of show that had two female leads, and every viewer wanted to see them become lesbian lovers. I focused less on the quirky doctor's dialogue and more on the hardened mashed potato residue left in the pot.

"I told you to let the thing soak," I had scolded Julia, but she had tossed her head back defiantly, the brown curls on her forehead bouncing.

"Sor-ry." And it was always that weird emphasis on the second syllable instead of the first. Sor-ry. But I never questioned it.

The phone went off when my arms were elbow-deep in soap water, so I asked Julia to get it. Her lips practically kissed the receiver when she answered it. Then silence. And more silence. She didn't say a word. She simply stood there, unblinking, her lips moving wordlessly before actual sound came out.

"Yeah. ...Yeah. Yeah, definitely. No, I'll give you a call in the morning. Yeah. Thank you."

Then she hung up. I lifted my hands out of the sink and reached for a towel. She didn't move her eyes from the floor, not even when the pan I was drying slipped out of my hand and created a horrid din on the tile counter.

"Julia?" I finally asked. "You all right?"

She sat down on the couch. The screams on the TV signified that the serial killer was holding one of the stunning protagonists at knifepoint. But she turned the TV off and the last think I heard before the gentle click was a desperate cry for mercy.

"It's Jonathan," she said once the static buzz of the TV monitor died down. "He was in a car accident."

"Oh, no," I breathed. "Is he all right?"

"Hardly," she replied, and her voice was cold. "He's in the hospital. He needs more blood, but his type is rare and if the doctors don't get enough blood in time, he's going to die."

I knew what Julia was going to say next without even asking. The soap suds on my arms were beginning to dry, making my skin feel very sticky. The small space around me seemed to cancel out all outside sound - car tires screeching, sirens, even the crickets.

"I'm going to give Jonathan mine."

***

Jonathan was Julia's ex-boyfriend. The two of them had dated throughout high school, then broke it off after Jonathan had rough sex with her future college roommate. Since then, I knew him as nothing but a dim-witted, rude, disheveled, and merciless dick.

Then again, maybe it was because Julia was my younger sister. Not that we had been very close until six months ago. That was when she moved to my town for a better job and needed a place to stay where she could pay less rent. I offered to board with her and that helped me plenty, giving me some extra money from my film work to spend on a new computer and a better refrigerator. Beforehand, she had simply been the red-faced, blonde-haired runt that I had protected from bullies when they tried to steal her lunch money.

A lot of people couldn't tell we were sisters. Julia never made it past five feet, while I stood eleven inches over her. Made for funny stories when I tried to dance with my five foot seven boyfriend of two years; we had met on the set of an independent thriller, and he was the cinematographer. Julia had dark, dark brown hair, like dark chocolate tresses, while I could have passed off for a broomstick on Halloween. So many times people would ask if we were friends or - to our confusion and occasional amusement - if we were lovers.

The funny thing is, Julia hadn't spoken to Jonathan for years, not since she had graduated and moved to the city. Another thing was she had never given blood. Not that she couldn't, or that she was too skinny or anemic or had low blood pressure. She just never bothered. I gave blood every two months, without fail, and I give credit to my high protein diet. That, or the enormous steaks I eat before each blood-giving morning. And while my blood may have saved lives, it was more common and it had become routine rather than heroism.

Now, the boy that had caused Julia so much pain needed help. It was true that both he and Julia were rare blood types, making it difficult for them to receive blood. Fortunately, Julia had never hurt herself, but then again, neither had Jonathan. He had evaded so many scratches on his motorcycle that I never thought he'd get hurt.

Only he hadn't been driving this time, and he had received most of the impact in the passenger's seat. And that's why the whole situation was interesting: My younger sister, who had never paid much attention to arts and film like me, who had never really philosophically debated, who had never seemed too deep or pensive...was now going to be a hero.

And the image of her small silhouette lying on a stretcher while the blood continually streamed from her arm terrified me.

***

I fought with Julia regarding driving her to the hospital; namely, I demanded that I take her. She didn't want me to. "It'll upset you," she said.

But when she finally complied and I got into the driver's seat, we didn't say a word the whole trip. Blurs of traffic whizzed by us and I watched the lights dance. But we didn't speak.

Then, when I pulled into the parking lot, I yanked the emergency brake lever up and felt a sharp pain lance through my arm. As I cursed, I felt Julia's hand on my shoulder.

"Take it easy."

I relaxed. I thought of Devin, my boyfriend. Then I thought of Julia. And then I looked at her.

"I know you're scared," she said, "but it's okay."

"Why do you want to do this?" I asked. "I'm not saying Jonathan deserves to die, but...wasn't there anyone else who could donate?"

"Yes, actually." I raised an eyebrow as Julia said this. "Three other people. But I said yes."

"Why?"

Julia pursed her lips. "Because I figured I deserved to help him when he didn't help me."

She then got out of the car and walked toward the hospital, leaving me to sit and stare at the steering wheel. I noted the scratches and marks on the rubber-like surface, then adjusted the rearview mirror. She was still walking, her brown hair bristling in the wind.

This is the sort of thing that only happens to incredibly profound people. I guess that's why it happened to both of us.

The prompt for this week's Storyteller was provided by Arden Kilzer.