The Big Great

By Jenny Peterson

Told in two points of view with unique voices that are both ingenious and downright hilarious, this story will leave you searching for Big Greats and Happy Endings of your own.

Emmaline Presley is an aspiring teenage author spending her numbered days at the Dialysis Treatment Center of Austin hooked up to an artificial kidney, dreaming about a future with her engaged Nephrology nurse, and waiting for a donor. Her health is suffering. Her love life is even worse.

Andrew Elders has just been kicked out of The University of Mississippi for poor grades related to clinical depression and a deceased roommate. Living back under the roof of his parents and attending weekly group therapy sessions with his hypersexual best friend has landed Andrew a ton of time in his room, more than slightly depressed.

When Emmaline and Andrew meet, sharing their prescription drug status over Twitter, they're an instant match in more ways than they realize.

In the pursuit of Big Greats and Happy Endings and a story that’s worth telling, the two must realize it’s both choice and fate that keep the universe spinning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jenny Peterson
• Release date: Mar 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005427139

Jenny Peterson

Jenny Peterson resides in Texas with her family. The Big Great is her debut novel. To know more about her, follow sugarfoot.stories on Instagram.

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Copyright © 2021 Jenny Peterson

Cover by Shepard Originals

Formatted by Champagne Book Design

Edited by Courtney Havenwood

All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, business establishments, events, locales or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental.

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, brands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, all of which have been used without permission. The use of these trademarks is not authorized by or sponsored by the trademark owners.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One: GIRL FINDS BOY

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline: Day One of No Andrew

Emmaline: Day Two of No Andrew

Emmaline: Day Three of No Andrew

Emmaline: Day Four of No Andrew

Emmaline: Day Five of No Andrew

Emmaline: Day Six of No Andrew

Emmaline: Day Seven of No Andrew

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Andrew

Emmaline

Emmaline

Part Two: GIRL LOSES BOY

Emmaline: Two Hours Gone

Emmaline: Three Hours Gone

Emmaline: Five Hours Gone

Emmaline: Six Hours Gone

Emmaline: Nine Hours Gone

Emmaline: Fifteen Hours Gone

Emmaline: Fifteen Hours Gone

Emmaline: Twenty-six Hours Gone

Emmaline: Two Days Gone

Emmaline: Two Days Gone

Emmaline: Three Days Gone

Emmaline: Five Days Gone

Andrew: Six Days Gone

Emmaline: Six Days Gone

Andrew: Eight Days Gone

Andrew: Eight Days Gone

Andrew: Nine Days Gone

Emmaline: Eleven Days Gone

Andrew: Fifteen Days Gone

Emmaline: Fifteen Days Gone

Andrew: Seventeen Days Gone

Andrew: Seventeen Days Gone

Andrew: Seventeen Days Gone

Emmaline: Seventeen Days Gone

Andrew: Seventeen Days Gone

Andrew: Seventeen Days Gone

Emmaline: Seventeen Days Gone

Andrew: Seventeen Days Gone

Emmaline: Eighteen Days Gone

Emmaline: Eighteen Days Gone

Emmaline: Eighteen Days Gone

Emmaline: Nineteen Days Gone

Emmaline: Twenty Days Gone

Emmaline: Twenty-one Days Gone

Emmaline: Twenty-two Days Gone

Emmaline: Twenty-three Days Gone

November

December

Andrew: Three Months Gone

Andrew: Three Months Gone

Emmaline: Three Months Gone

Andrew: Three Months Gone

January

Emmaline: Four Months Gone

Andrew: Four Months Gone

February

March

Emmaline: Six Months Gone

April

Andrew: Seven Months Gone

Emmaline: Seven Months Gone

Andrew: Seven Months Gone

Andrew: Seven Months Gone

Emmaline: Seven Months Gone

May

Emmaline: Eight Months Gone

Emmaline: Eight Months Gone

Andrew: Eight Months Gone

June

Emmaline: Nine Months Gone

Andrew: Nine Months Gone

Andrew: Nine Months Gone

July

Emmaline: Ten Months Gone

Andrew: Ten Months Gone

Andrew: Ten Months Gone

August

Emmaline: Eleven Months Gone

Andrew: Eleven Months Gone

Emmaline: Eleven Months Gone

Andrew: Eleven Months Gone

Part Three: BOY FINDS GIRL

Emmaline: Saturday, 10:28 P.M.

Andrew: Saturday, 10:57 P.M.

Emmaline: Saturday, 11:36 P.M.

Andrew: Saturday, 11:53 P.M.

Emmaline: Sunday, 12:27 A.M.

Andrew: Sunday, 1:03 A.M.

Emmaline: Sunday, 1:49 P.M.

Emmaline: Sunday, 5:35 A.M.

Emmaline: Sunday, 9:14 A.M.

Emmaline: Sunday, 2:43 P.M.

Emmaline: Sunday, 2:49 P.M.

Emmaline: Sunday, 3:31 P.M.

Emmaline: Sunday, 3:56 P.M.

One year later

Andrew

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

About the Author

For you, Dad

Without our weekly breakfast meetings, Parts Two and Three would have looked tragically different.

And Mom and Ron.

The Dialysis Treatment Center of Austin has had the same depressing statistic on the wall for the past five years.

There are roughly one hundred thousand people awaiting a kidney transplant in the United States.

And of that vast pool of Unfortunates, approximately seventeen thousand of us will hit the jackpot each year. I was not mathematically gifted, but my dad had done the math for me, and apparently my odds weren’t great. Another treatment center fact:

Thirteen people a day die waiting on a kidney.

My rookie year I worried a lot about that one, so I started doing things like counting heads at the center. Thankfully, our facility had five who kicked it by June. My mom said it had a lot to do with the mind. That most of the Unfortunates in here were older and had already given up on life. So, every morning, she would fire up the car, put on some Gloria Gaynor, and we’d both sing at the top of our lungs, but mostly I would, about Surviving my dying ass the whole way here.

Five years in this place and I have yet to hit the jackpot. So, I quit thinking about stats and outliving Rose, the sixty-year-old widow across from me who had brought me an apple every day for the last year, and started focusing on more uplifting things, like my hot Nephrology Nurse, Donald.

I should probably address the Donald thing upfront. He DOES NOT look like a Donald. I have often wondered if his parents were high or just lacked common sense, but it turns out, he was like this twelfth generation Donald, Donald the twelfth from Scotland or something, who had like kings in his bloodline. We’ve had lots of time to discuss these things, even though he was lectured extensively about professional boundaries with patients during nursing school. To Rose he’d say, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but to me, he was an open book.

Anyway, Donald was seriously attractive, and I was incredibly lonely, not to mention incredibly bloated most of the time, because that’s what kidney patients do, they swell. But I really thought we were on the same page of that open book as far as flirting goes, until he turned up engaged. Which sucked for me considering how gorgeous he was and how terminal I was, and how my chances of ever finding dimples and pleasant hands that could stick two violently large needles in my arm to remove waste and chemicals and fluid with only the slightest level of discomfort were narrowing.

Donald applied a coat of Betadine to my assembled and grossly protruding fistula. A long time ago, pre-dialysis stage, I had this procedure done where they connected an artery and vein in the upper part of my left arm. It seriously looked like a Twinkie was just sitting under my skin. My dad was impressed by the whole thing. I just felt diseased.

Donald was not grossed out by the visual. It was another reason I sort of fell for him, that and I spent most of my time with him at the treatment center. He wheeled my artificial kidney over and pushed a few buttons. It begrudgingly hummed to life and I sat back and took in a thankful breath knowing I would live another day.

My dad had spoken extensively with Marg, the treatment center ordering lady, to determine when a replacement shipment of artificials was due, because the ones currently bridging us to life were entering, at the very least, prehistoric stage. I mean, who puts that much pressure on kidney patients? We already entered this place one organ down, not to mention the broadcast of depressing as hell statistics. The last thing we needed to worry about was our artificial.

Donald took a seat in his rolling chair, opening the first of two needles, and asked how I was doing. I answered with the usual, I’m good, but today he was distracted and didn’t ask his follow up, Do anything big since the last time I saw you? and I was okay with that because it usually led to me asking the same, and I was pretty sure he was trying to avoid breaking a dying girl’s heart. So, we both just sat there while he started in on his routine of prepping, getting me going, and then moving on to Rose, and I tried to figure out what to do with my think time now, since I usually spent it planning and pinning down the details of our future.

He inserted needle number one. I looked away.

Six years ago, near the end of my sixth-grade year, I was diagnosed with severe Panic Disorder. I basically just did a whole bunch of sweating, and heart racing, and feeling dizzy and anxious, and vomiting. Sort of like the last hundred yards of a cross country meet when you misjudge your final sprint, and the coach is all but calling you a dumbass for giving out, and your internal organs decide to turn on you, and then you’re puking and crying and just all around confused as to why you’re even there.

You’ve been formally introduced to my panic attacks.

But then it morphed into seizures and losing bladder function, which led to me wearing pee pads and relinquishing my life over to celibacy (because who wants a girl who wets herself?), until the docs at Dell Children’s got another idea. Call it Frontal Lobe Epilepsy. So, I pretty much twitched my way through that season, which thankfully only lasted a few months, until my kidneys started failing, along with a list of other things, and they discovered it wasn’t, in fact, Frontal Lobe Epilepsy, and I became a medical conundrum.

My final diagnosis, Pheochromocytomas (fee-o-kro-moe-sa-toe-muh) and Acute Renal Failure. Basically, I had tumors in both my kidneys that were feeding me epinephrine in life-threatening doses. Thankfully, the tumors were removed, but the recovery process has been grueling, and parts of me just never quite recovered.

Short version: I’ve been put on a kidney transplant list.

Fact: Kidney transplant patients spend an average of five years on a waiting list, at which time, they either die or get too sick to be eligible and die.

Last week I hit year five.

My parents weren’t really taking the news well at all. My dad had channeled his emotions into a hashtag he wore on t-shirts: #EDSucks. ED stood for epinephrine disorder, because my dad couldn’t say fee-o-kro-moe-sa-toe-muh. But Donald didn’t know this yet, so as he opened the last of two insanely large needles, he eyed my shirt.

Me: It’s for my dad. I’m just supporting him.

Donald (still eyeing the hashtag): What’s it mean?

Me: Erectile Dysfunction

Donald (looking over at my dad): Gotcha.

My dad smiled over at us. We both smiled back.

Fact: Seventeen-year-olds who piss their pants because some tumors screwed up their pee tube must divert attention at all cost.

Me: I can have him make you one if you’d like.

Donald: Really?

Me: Yeah

Me (testing the waters post-engagement): Do you need one?

Donald (grinning): I’m good.

And that was it. No flirting with the dying girl. He was off to stab Rose while I settled in and let the artificial take over.

I was decent at about three things: helping my best friend, Martin, out of a pseudo seizure, staying on top of my hourly Mind Checks, and controlling, or at least hiding, my anxiety most of the time. Don’t even get me started on the shit I wasn’t good at. But fetching items at Wal-Mart for my difficult mother was definitely one of them.

I was in aisle two, staring at the tragic arrangement of salad dressings. I scanned the shelves looking for a point of reference, anything really, that would help me navigate through the chaos.

Signs of an oncoming anxiety attack

racing thoughts

pins and needles sensation

unrealistic view of a problem

a sudden need to run, to escape what’s about to happen

I could feel all four signs coming on strong. I took slow, deep breaths and tried to focus on hamsters. It was this new strategy that Martin and I were trying out. Our unlicensed group therapy leader, Pastor Mel, had taught us about the power of visualization and running on wheels that went nowhere, and how we needed to, In Jesus’ name, step off and end the cycle. So I closed my eyes and pictured myself basically diving headfirst off the wheel of Goddamn Anxious Thoughts.

And then I began sorting dressings, starting with Stark’s, and sent my mother a text. I couldn’t remember if it was Classic Vinaigrette or Roasted Garlic she wanted. Ten minutes later, salad dressings arranged and brought to the front for easy viewing, I still hadn’t heard back from her, which was sort of expected. My mother had an angst toward technology. So, I called.

Me: Classic Vinaigrette or Roasted Garlic?

Her: Neither. Do not bring either of those home. Stark’s Italian fifty percent less sodium. Nothing else.

Me: They’re out.

Her: They have it. I assure you. Keep looking.

I hung up the phone ready to dismantle the whole shelf.

Things I can’t control

A poorly devised shelf schematic

My mother’s love affair with Italian dressing

People who walk right in front of you and stop while you’re looking for something

My daily trips to Wal-Mart, or wherever else she sent me, were a tragic result of getting kicked out of the University of Mississippi last semester for not meeting academic expectations. I was back living with my parents: a self-medicating alcoholic dad, whom I loved and respected despite his flaws, and a methodical mother with a forceful personality, whom I also loved, but cowered to almost always.

My mother’s version of my school failings was that I screwed off and wasted a perfectly good, paid-for opportunity for reasons that included poor judgment and negligence. Technically, she was correct. I would just add two things: a lifelong battle with a nervous disorder coupled with the psychological effects of a deceased roommate.

Reasons for my roommate, Ryan’s, death

He drank too much

He partied too much

He drove home drunk from parties

He hit a tree and died

Basically, the first couple of months of my college experience consisted of: driving my intoxicated roommate home from parties, or pouring beer down the toilet of our communal bathroom in our dorm, or convincing Ryan that studying was actually the key to not failing every class. When he died early in the Spring of our second semester, it sort of felt like I lost my purpose. And, according to Pastor Mel, purpose combats a lot of shit. So, with an anxious mind free to wander and a dead roommate, I eventually quit going to classes, holed myself up in our half-empty dorm until they assigned me a new roommate, and fell into my first real bout with clinical depression.

My parents were aware of Ryan’s death, but not the depression part. They attended the funeral—my dad slightly intoxicated—and when I questioned him on why he would show up drunk to a drinking-related funeral, he simply offered, your mother as an excuse, and I totally got it. She could drive the damn Pope to drinking.

Anyway, they drove up to Oxford, grieved with me as best they could—my mother, of course, prepared with a brief lecture on the stupidities of drinking and driving while side-eyeing my faltering father—and then returned back to Southaven within a few hours, leaving me alone to deal with the guns firing off in my head on my own.

Pre-Ryan, I could say with half-confidence I’d done a decent job managing my thoughts. It was Post-Ryan that the world inside my brain imploded. The following fall semester, I was put on academic probation, which spiraled into disqualification from UM in the spring, which led to me moving back home, isolating myself even further, and being forced by my parents to join Group Therapy. So, yeah, two years of college and all I had to show was a GPA lower than a pack of Double Bubble at the Dollar General.

My phone started ringing. It was my mother again.

Her: Find it?

Me: Not yet.

Her: Keep looking

I hung up the phone, searching for Martin, a fellow Group Therapy member and my ride here. I had a screwed-up brain. Martin had events also known as psychogenic non-epileptic events (PNEE) triggered by traumatic stress due to phobias. Both of us were all over the charts, medically and emotionally.

Martin’s issues included

Fear of having sex

Fear of not having sex

Fear of vomiting

Fear of babies or kids in large numbers, like parties or sleepovers, where vomiting is more rampant

He’d apparently suffered through a traumatic vomiting experience when he was younger, something about puking for like five consecutive days until he ended up in the ER. Just the thought of being around anyone more prone to spewing set him off into this profound, seizure-like activity.

My issues

screwed up brain

I was starting to feel anxious at the uncertainty of actually finding this salad dressing, so I texted Martin. It was step three in my attempt to maintain my thoughts.

Step One: Take slow breaths.

Step Two: Visualize stepping off the hamster wheel.

Step Three: Contact a friend who understands.

Friday, 5:13 P.M.

Andrew: where u at? i need help. aisle 2.

I slid my phone in my back pocket, continuing to scan the shelves. It’s just salad dressing, Andrew. It’s not the end of the world.

Despite the fact I was dying, there was something potentially positive about my situation. I was given the option to complete high school at home thanks to the school’s Homebound Services, which meant I got to sleep in and wear #EDSucks tees almost exclusively. Which was great, because lately I had dabbled with depression and isolating myself. And then there was the pee thing, which was apparently unsuitable for a school setting.

During the first of many accidents, my parents and I were watching an episode of The Office. I was sitting on the couch when the urge to use the bathroom overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t make myself get up. And then my legs were jerking, my mom was in my face asking No State To Process questions, and suddenly, I was surrounded by my own warm fluid.

Mom cried. Dad tried to make the god-awful situation better by convincing us it was actually liberating to not have to worry about holding it. But, instead, the docs were called immediately, I had to start wearing some sort of absorbent, and my parents went furniture shopping shortly after.

The inexorable truth was this: my health sucked. Donald getting engaged sucked. Knowing I was most likely never going to see my eighteenth birthday really, really sucked.

Shortly after my couch shenanigans, I searched depression and found a list of symptoms to look for. I wrote all ten of them in my journal, then physically checked off ones that applied, which was all ten. Some were greater than others, given most days, but still, I had experienced all in some sort of glorious magnitude.

My mom discovered my journal early last year and immediately contacted my Nephrology Doc Sam, who seemed way less concerned and suggested I try talking to my assigned social worker for possible counseling, adding meds (which made fourteen now), and finding a way to take my mind off the bad.

So my mom got this brilliant idea. She signed me up for a writing conference where she paid for a thirty-minute private session with an agent out of New York (Rita Spencer) so I could pitch my first ever book idea. This dreadful experience was followed by an even more dreadful cocktail social with fellow writers. I wasn’t even able to enjoy anything harder than a dry Shirley Temple, mostly due to age limitations, but also due to fluid allowance set by the renal dietician.

Try holding a non-alcoholic drink while wearing piss pads in a room full of book-writing drunks who have a ninety percent chance of expiring at least a good forty years after you, and tell me you wouldn’t feel like hauling ass to catch the depression train out of town. Raves to my mom, she was trying, but I had my own depression Band-Aid: Twitter.

As I sat in the treatment center lulled by the hum of my elderly kidney pump, I looked over to see Donald downing a protein shake on one of his first of three snack breaks, so I bit into Rose’s apple and opened up Twitter to search some local musicians my dad said I should check out.

Matthew Putton @MattTheMan122

Show in Decatur last night was epic! #southernborderboys

Amber Hyatt @Hyatt4533

Great show guys! #southernborderboys

SouthernBorderBoys @southernborderboys

Hey Steamboat! We’ll see you tonight at the Grand Ballroom! #southernborderboys

Andrew Elders @AndrewElders

the filth of this river is cleansing my soul #southernborderboys

The last one seemed about as depressed as I felt, so I favorited Andrew Elders tweet and proceeded to watch the rest of my blood cycle through the plastic tube.

My anxiety was through the roof. Where the hell was Martin? The aisle was clogged with people, one almost ramming a basket into my ribs. I tried focusing on the shelves and reminded myself that this was my mother’s fault. She was always demanding something. I mean, she actually scheduled a conference with me my second year at UM (Post-Ryan).

Her: Andrew we need to conference. Tomorrow at two at our house works best for me and your father. See you then.

The older I got, the more I understood my dad’s drinking issues. Growing up, I thought he drank out of habit or boredom, but then came middle school and my older sister, Maggie’s, basketball games. I would ride in the back seat of their ninety-one Jeep Cherokee and listen to my mother mow him over about not fixing the sink or attending church regularly or this or that. The list was endless which, I’d argue, birthed most of my anxiety issues. If my dad still had balls, Katherine Elders held them for him.

At two o’clock sharp we met.

Her: Are you on drugs?

I smirked, which I shouldn’t have. My intent was never to be disrespectful during one of her conferences, no matter how nuts they were.

Me: No.

Her: Then alcohol? Andrew, if you’re drinking yourself out of an education, so help me, I will cut all expenses that are funding this intolerable behavior.

She eyed my dad while saying this. He never actually made eye contact back, but I could see a nervous bounce in his hands.

Me: I don’t drink.

Her: Then what’s the problem?

I did my best to give her the truth.

Me: I think it has something to do with Ryan’s death.

Her: I’m

Reviews for The Big Great

[Antía Álvarez Mera · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It is on my top 3 of the best romance novels I’ve ever read. And that comes from a huge Pride and Prejudice fan, so my standards are pretty high.