I kept reading.
Hannah wrote that during her treatment, she’d made a friend. Her name was Sophie. They’d met on the ward, and on the nights they were both too exhausted to do anything else, they played cards. Sophie cheated, Hannah wrote, and they both knew it, and they laughed about it every single time.
It was such an ordinary little detail that it hurt to read.
Then she told me the part I’d never known. Sophie had been waiting for a kidney transplant for almost two years. At first, Hannah wrote, Sophie was just another sick kid stuck in the same world of hospital rooms, tests, and waiting.
But then Hannah started noticing Sophie’s mother.
She sits in the waiting room the same way you do. She watches the doctors’ faces before they even open their mouths. She buys coffee and forgets to drink it. And one day I realized I wasn’t looking at Sophie’s family.
I was looking at us.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. Then I read the line that changed everything.
That’s when I asked Dad to help me find out if I could donate one of my organs directly to Sophie.
I closed my eyes. Mark had known. Hannah had gone to him, and he had helped her find answers and work through the paperwork.
Dad told me I should tell you, she wrote. I said no.
My eyes stung. It wasn’t because she trusted Mark more than me. It wasn’t because she didn’t love me. She explained exactly why.
Because you were still talking about me coming home.
I remembered saying it. Over and over. When you come home. When you’re better. When we get out of here. I’d said those things because I needed to believe them. And Hannah had always smiled gently. She never corrected me. She never told me how scared she really was.
I knew you needed that hope.
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