Chapter 52.

Present day 1:12 a.m.

Maverick's twenty-four hours are up.

J.J.'s on duty again. She unwraps the tubes from around a machine that won't be accompanying Maverick to the CT room.

"How long will it take?" I ask, still holding his hand.

"The actual scan will only take about five minutes. After that, it depends on what other scans have been ordered. Maybe an hour or two." She unlocks the bed's brakes. "I'll bring him right back once he's finished, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." I kiss Maverick's hand before I let go.

J.J. nods to the orderly at the foot of the bed, and they wheel Maverick out. I can stay in the room if I want, but I don't.

It's the middle of the night and no one is in the waiting room. I pace the floor, a swirl of crimson, gray, and black flas.h.i.+ng in my mind.

"Coffee?" Finley asks, holding a cup out to me.

I stop. "Sure. Thanks."

"It's going to take months to get this hospital smell out of my clothes," she says, pulling up her s.h.i.+rt and sniffing it.

"Bleach," I offer.

"Bleach gets out the smell of bleach?"

I start walking again. "Get the scented kind."

Finley catches my arm as I brush past her. "Ali. I don't want to keep asking, but are you okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

My best friend's eyebrows shoot up. "I can come up with a few reasons."

I look down at my coffee. Tap my fingers against the Styrofoam. "They said he may not wake up, Finn. They fixed his body, took out an organ, and there's a chance that it was all for nothing."

"A chance isn't certain."

"No, but they don't know. They have no idea, and if he doesn't wake up, they can't fix that." I sit down on the edge of a chair. "Do you know the last thing I said to him? I told him I made coffee. That's it-coffee."

Finley sits down next to me. She slides her palms down her thighs. "Remember when we were, like, seven? We'd pretend we were Disney princesses."

I breathe out half a laugh. "I pretended. You always wanted to stray from the storyline."

"That's kinda my point. I was so mad at you, because you still believed in happily ever afters. My dad died that year. Yours left. And somehow you thought you could find Prince Charming, marry him, and ride off into the sunset. I couldn't figure you out."

My BFF looks at me, waiting for an answer. I sip my coffee. "I had to believe that stuff. I saw how broken our moms were, and I had to think there was something better out there. Somewhere in Ever After Land, maybe. If I could just find it or force it, then I wouldn't end up like them."

"You found it, Ali. My mom, she found it-twice, even. See, I didn't like the fairytales, because they seemed too perfect, too easy. They ended too fast. Your fairytale didn't end at your wedding like theirs did. It kept going and life kept happening. Theirs did too; we just didn't see it." She pauses, glancing down the hall toward Maverick's room. "What I'm trying to say is that happy endings don't happen without unhappy middles. You told me that once, remember? So what if your last words to him were about coffee? What do last words mean when you had two years of bliss that even Cinderella would be jealous of? If he wakes up, you get another chance. And if he doesn't, you have two years of undying love to carry with you. I'm not sure it gets happier than that."

I inhale deeply. "Did I tell you about the time I first called him 'Mav'?"

"No."

"It was one of the weekends he came down to J. Vernon. We were at the movie theatre, and the previews were showing. He finished his popcorn, and I'd downed all the Milk Duds, and for some reason, we didn't buy anything to drink. So I nudged him. I said, 'Hey, Mav, could you go get us some Sprite?' It just slipped out. I didn't even think about it." I chuckle at the memory. "Oh, the look on his face. He stared at me, probably wondering if he'd heard me correctly. We didn't stay for the movie. He whisked me out of the theatre and back to my room where he made me call him 'Mav' a hundred times."

"You and your silly name-shortening rules."

"That night sealed my rule. Shortening someone's name is special."

"Your fairy tale, Ali."

I blow away the coffee steam. "Old, wise Finley."

"What can I say? I've committed my share of f.u.c.k ups. You either learn from them, or they destroy you."

"Are you saying you believe in fairy tales now?"

"I've always believed. I'm just not sure if there's one out there for me."

Squeaking from down the hallway alerts me, and I stand up to see Maverick being wheeled back into his room.

"Hey, Finley?"

"Yes?"

"Do you believe what they say about unconscious people still being able to hear?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

An hour pa.s.ses with no new information.

My eyelids are heavy, and I lay my head on Maverick's bed. There's no way I'll be able to sleep though, so I caress the back of his hand with my fingertips. I wish he'd do something to acknowledge my presence. Somehow let me know he's still here with me.

J.J. comes in, smiling. "I just spoke with Dr. Santos. She said the CT scan looked normal. We're going to turn off the Propofol and see how he responds."

"See if he wakes up, you mean?"

"That's what we're hoping." She adjusts the medication on his IV pole. "It should take twenty to thirty minutes to flush out of his system."

Chapter 53.

Chicago, Illinois Yesterday morning I'm awake before Maverick's alarm goes off. It's still dark outside.

Our apartment makes it so that I can't avoid him unless I leave. And to leave, I'll have to go into the bedroom and get my clothes, which may wake him up.

I don't even know if I meant what I said last night. I mean, I did mean it. I'm so done with him working so much. I need him here. I need to find a way through this darkness. I need...

I'm not sure what I need. What I do know is that our relations.h.i.+p isn't working. We've never fought like we did last night. I can't remember Maverick ever raising his voice at me. I no longer recognize him. h.e.l.l, I don't even recognize me.

I throw off of the blankets. As I do, Morocco gets up and stretches, his back arching high. Then he juts his b.u.t.t out and extends his front paws over my legs.

"Hungry?" I ask.

He jumps off the sofa and runs into the kitchen.

"I'll take that as a yes."

I follow him to the next room. He's at his dish, sitting patiently, but when I go to dump the food into his bowl, he suddenly becomes impatient. He nudges my hand, and I almost spill the food onto the floor.

While Morocco eats happily, I make myself coffee. The acceptance letter from Yale is still on the counter. I grab it on my way to the table.

I take a sip of coffee before I read the letter again. It's a preliminary acceptance letter to one of the most prestigious schools in the world. They'd like to schedule an interview with me. Maverick's right: I should be elated.

But I'm not.

Will I be wasting my talent if I don't pursue one of Chicago's prime galleries? Or New York's? London's?

I understand why he said that, why he applied to Yale on my behalf. It's important to him that I get the chance to follow my dreams the way his brother didn't. But what if my dreams two years ago aren't the same as today's? Because I don't think they are.

It's hard for me to be excited about graduate school right now. It's even hard to concentrate on my undergraduate art cla.s.ses. I feel guilty when my professor looks at me the way she does when I leave cla.s.s with an empty canvas.

I'm only taking two cla.s.ses this summer, one art-related, the other in business. I haven't told Maverick about the business cla.s.s yet. I'm not even sure why I'm taking it. I just feel like I need something different.

Morocco jumps up in the chair beside me and puts his paws up on the table. I glare at him, and he relents back down to the chair.

Maverick's alarm buzzes. He shuts it off, and I wonder if he notices I'm not in bed with him. If he does, he's not coming to look for me, because the next thing I hear is the shower turning on.

Him not addressing me is actually a normal morning, even if I am in bed. Something stirs in my stomach, because it only became normal six months ago. It's a blend of colors, and gooseb.u.mps pop up over my arms. What am I going to say to him? What's he going to say to me?

I look up when he enters, but pride stops me there. He opens the fridge and pulls out an orange. Then he grabs a protein bar from the cupboard.

"I made coffee," I say.

His eyes move to me. He holds my gaze, licking his bottom lip before tucking it between his teeth. Too much silence has pa.s.sed, and my heart plummets. I should say something else. But I don't. I just watch him.

"I'll get coffee at the office," he says.

He grabs his briefcase off of the counter and leaves.

I stare at the closed door and listen as the car's engine turns over.

After dumping the rest of the coffee down the sink, I curl up on the sofa. We haven't been the same since the miscarriage.

Who we were in Cancun isn't who were we were a year ago, and who we were a year ago isn't who we are today. Somewhere in all that, life happened, and life's a b.i.t.c.h. A b.i.t.c.h who gives you the world, everything you could ever want, and then strips it away just when you think life couldn't get any more perfect.

And then what?

I don't have an answer for what comes next, and if I think about it any longer, I'll be lying on the floor while Morocco curls up beside me. I grab my phone and call Finley. I don't want to be alone right now.

"'Sup, chica," she answers.

I pull the phone away from my ear for a second. "You're chipper."

"Duh. Cla.s.ses are over for the summer, and unlike psychopaths like you who take summer cla.s.ses, I plan on living it up. You know, after work ... because rent."

"And food. And money to live it up on."

"Right. All that. Sucks a.s.s."

I sigh. "Yeah."

Finley jumps on it. "What's going on, Ali? It's your anniversary."

"Yes, it is."

Finley pauses. "And ... ?"

I scratch Morocco behind the ears, and he raises his head for more. "Can you meet me at the IHOP?"

There's, like, a million IHOPS, but Finley knows which one I'm talking about. It's on the highway, exactly halfway between her apartment and mine.

"I'll be there in an hour," she says.

I hang up and get dressed. Once I'm in the car, I throw my hair up in a ponytail, and I'm on my way. I max out the volume on the radio to drown out my thoughts. I sing too every time one of those thoughts slips through. I like to sing, but I'm bad. Like, really, really bad.

Finley's bad too, but as teenagers that never stopped us from singing karaoke in public. Maverick can sing, though, and he's as good as I am bad. When he and I are in the car, I sing so low he can barely hear me. He turns down the volume until I have to stop altogether. Then he says he won't sing if I don't, and I love to hear him sing.

"And I love when you're off-key," he always answers.

I pout for a second, then I start singing again. He increases the volume, encouraging me, and soon we're belting out lyrics as if we wrote them. Him on perfect pitch, and me on, well, not-so-perfect pitch.