One Night With Me

"We can't wait anymore. The last echo showed a serious decline. The heart isn't pumping enough blood so many of his organs aren't receiving enough oxygen. Alina, his body is shutting down."

"I don't understand, he was getting better. The medication was working."

Dr. Hakim sighed. He looked past her to the small white hospital bed where Allen was. A pale and corpse-like thirteen-year-old boy laid with different tubes sticking out of his body.

"Maybe you should sit down", the doctor said quietly

Alina's stomach sank.

"No. No just tell me"

He hesitated. "His left ventricle is declining rapidly. It's not pumping how it used to. The only solution now is surgery. A transplant specifically. We can buy him some time but it depends on how long he can hold on."

Alina looked at her brother, his chest barely rising and falling. He looked so peacefully completely unaware of the countdown that had just been placed on his life.

"I don't have the money", she whispered. "You know I don't."

Dr. Hakim sighed, "I'm really sorry Alina."

He walked out of the door leaving Alina alone with her brother.

She blinked fast, holding her tears back as she knelt beside her little brother.

"I'm really sorry, Allen. I don't know what to do."

Alina knelt in silence for a long time, softly brushing Allen's pale face. Allen was fighting a battle no thirteen-year-old should have to face.

Two weeks.

Two weeks to find a miracle.

The money from her part-time jobs were all used to keep Allen in the hospital every night. But the surgery bill was astronomical. Even loan sharks don't offer that much.

The silence began to feel uncomfortable. The air had become tighter and the room colder. She gently kissed her brother's frail hand and stood up, grabbing her tote bag from the floor.

She left the room.

The moment she stepped into the hallway, the weight of everything finally crashed on her.

In the middle of a cold, empty hallway she cried.

She barely remembered how she got back to campus. Her body was moving but her mind was stuck replaying the doctor's words.

"Two weeks. After that there's nothing we can do."

By the time she had reached the law school, her phone started ringing.

3 missed calls.

She didn't need to check. She already knew it was from her Family Law professor. She has rescheduled the same exam twice and today was her last chance to write it.

Her legs ached as she raced into the lecture hall every step dragging a thousand pounds of heartache behind her. Her stomach churned from hunger, her vision blurred from sleep deprivation. Her hands still had the faint smell of hospital soap.

Finally inside the classroom she rushed to the front to meet the professor.

"Miss Moore", Professor Sloane called out. "You are forty five minutes late"

Alina swallowed the lump in her throat, "I know. I am so so sorry. My-my brother is in the hospital and-"

"Miss Moore." she cut in firmly. "You have missed 2 deadlines, you are behind in your projects and if the scholarship board sees how bad your current standing is...."

She didn't finish.

She didn't need to.

Because Alina already knew what would happen.

Losing the scholarship meant losing her dorm. Without the dorm she couldn't afford to live in the city and without the city, Allen lost his only advocate.

She nodded numbly, collecting the exam sheet from her professor, her hands trembling as she went to sit down.

All the other students laughed and whispered among themselves completely oblivious to the world outside their academic bubble their single focus on cases and precedents. She envied how the normal world kept spinning while hers was falling apart.

The exam paper sat in front of her like a death sentence. She hadn't read. She barely attended class because of the hospital visits.

Alina scribbled through the questions, her answers barely making any sense. Her mind was still at the hospital plus her body was running on 2 hours of sleep and hospital vending machine coffee.

Once she wrote the answer of the last question onto the sheet she handed it to Professor Sloane with her head bowed. She couldn't bring herself to meet her Professor's eyes knowing fully well she had written down absolute nonsense.

She left the classroom and dragged herself to her dorm room, opening the door. She dropped her bag on the floor, collapsing onto her bed that was filled with opened textbooks and unfinished readings.

Using one hand she pushed them all to one side and readjusted her body to lie comfortably.

She was still wearing the clothes from yesterday. Maybe the day before. She had not washed her hair for almost a month.

Her head was aching and she needed to sleep-

The bathroom door suddenly banged open, loud laughter following.

Alina blinked to see her roommate Bonny lying down on her bed, her phone on speaker mode in one hand and legs crossed swinging in the air completely ignoring her existence.

She didn't care.

They had been roommates for almost a year but barely ever spoke.

"You are so lucky, I wish I could attend a gala. You never know who you might meet and God knows I need to meet people."

The person on the other line laughed, "You know I'm just going as a server right, rich people don't pay attention to us poor people. Plus it's a charity event for sickle cell patients. It's just going to be a bunch of old, boring hospital people."

Alina froze.

"It's not just any hospital, it's the very fancy one in midtown. Uh, what was the name again? " Bonny drawled.

"Anyways, a lot of rich big business people get treated there. CEO's, billionaires, socialites all get treated there."

A hospital.

Her hospital.

Allen's hospital.

"Well I did hear a rumor that Mathias King and Kordell Reed will be there."

"What! Seriously. You're so lucky to get to see them in real life."

"Well, if you really want to, I'm pretty sure you can sneak in. We all get our uniforms tomorrow and it's a huge event. They can't possibly know the face of every single server."

Bonny laughed. "Girl, who would be crazy enough to try that. We're talking about high society here. Plus an event that is exclusive, filled with super rich people wouldn't overlook the people coming in to serve."

Alina swallowed hard. Her heart started to pound. She rolled over to face the wall so as not to get caught listening.

She was crazy enough to try it.

Her life was already absurd and illogical.

She had done too much to back down from the fear of being caught.

Alina waited until Bonny left the room and then sat up. Bonny never stayed long in the room anyways.

She brought out her phone, her fingers trembling from the little spark of hope she had again.

The hospital was holding a charity gala. The hospital board would obviously be there.

All she needed was one conversation to get through to them.

She could do it. She could convince them.

She opened safari and typed: "Fountain Hospital Charity Gala Chicago 2025"

The result was a headline from the Chicago Punch Newspaper:

"Fountain Hospital hosts the Annual Midnight Gala at the Galaxy Hotel- Private guest list only."

Her thumb quickly tapped on the link multiple times. Her screen was cracked making it difficult and the battery hovered at 9%. It finally opened.

Galaxy Hotel.

She wasn't surprised.

It was one of the most luxurious and iconic hotels in Chicago. Marble floors, the skyline framed in towering arched windows. She had once applied to be a cleaner there, apparently you needed to be qualified to clean. It was the sort of place that didn't just keep people like her out, It erased them completely.

She clicked on the event listing.

Saturday. 9:00 PM. Black-tie only. Invitation required. No press.

Her eyes scanned the page. There were photos of the ball room. The glossy image displayed champagne flutes, gold and black decor, velvet curtains, an indoor fountain, chandeliers dangling from the high roof.

Guest list? Hidden.

Security? Tight.

The plan forming in her mind was ridiculous and completely insane.

If she gets caught, her scholarship, her life, her brother.

Everything will end.

But the more memory of her brother who once used to be such a troublemaker, laughing and jumping everywhere. She needed to do this.

Not only for her brother but also for herself. Her dreams of becoming a lawyer were fading.

She was out of options and now there was even the slimmest sign of a miracle.

Alina leaned back against the wall and locked her phone screen, her eyes fixed on the vibrating fan at the corner of the room.

Her mind was made up,

She wasn't just going to sneak in, she was going to save her brother.

No matter what.