Chapter 36
thirty-six
MAYA
The apartment echoes with Maine’s absence.
It’s not just the physical space he used to occupy—the couch where he’d sprawl after practice, the kitchen counter where he’d leave his keys in a different spot every damn day just to drive me crazy. It’s also the negative space, a void where his presence should be.
I’ve been sitting here for an hour, maybe two, scrolling through my phone without actually seeing anything. My thumb moves on autopilot while my brain runs the same exhausting loop it’s been stuck in for days, since Sophie visited and stirred up all my thoughts and feelings all over again.
Was that man a liar?
The question won’t leave me alone. It follows me from room to room, sits with me during meals I can barely taste, and whispers at me when I try to sleep in sheets I shared with him. But no matter how much I try, I can’t make the two versions of Maine fit together.
They’re like pieces from different puzzles that someone’s trying to force into the same frame.
There’s Maine the Deceiver. That Maine is easy to hate.
He fits perfectly into the narrative I’ve been telling myself my whole life—that people will use your vulnerability against you, that showing your real self is just handing them ammunition, and that rebellious independence is the way to stay safe from it all.
But then there’s Maine the Caretaker. The one who sat with his sick sister with such tenderness. Who stayed with me on the kitchen floor when I was a mess. Who covered me with Chloe’s blanket. That man is easy to love, and love him I do… or did…
Those two men can’t both be real. But they are.
And the cognitive dissonance is making me feel like I’m losing my mind.
I can’t sleep, I can barely eat, and I’ve barely done anything except sit on this couch and binge-watch garbage television for days now.
It’s like my brain has decided it’s all too hard and gone on vacation.
But my thumb stops scrolling when I hit a photo from my pediatric rotation.
Ethan.
Seven years old, gap-toothed grin, proudly holding up a crayon drawing of what might be a T-Rex or might be a very angry dog. I took plenty of pictures of him during those last few days, at the request of his parents, and this picture was from three days before he died.
“Fucking hell,” I whisper.
The grief hits like a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.
Not the clean, sharp grief of fresh loss, but the dull, relentless ache of helplessness.
Of being able to offer comfort but not a cure.
Of holding a small hand and knowing that all your training, all your competence, all your desperate wanting to help means exactly nothing against the indifferent cruelty of disease.
God, is this what Maine feels every day with Chloe?
The memory of her floods back with painful clarity.
That afternoon when she’d stayed over—frail in a way that made my clinical instincts scream, but with eyes that blazed with stubborn life.
She’d caught me staring and, with Maine’s exact brand of defensive humor, told me to take a picture, it’ll last longer .
And now those words, it turns out, have a horrible meaning.
Not only would a photo outlast my glance, but it might outlast her .
My phone buzzes, interrupting the spiral, a message from Sophie:
Mike told me the team meeting just ended. Maine forfeited the bet. Told everyone he was an asshole for keeping it from you, and it cost him the woman he loved. He also told them about Chloe being critically ill and that he’s a wreck. Mike said he’s never seen Maine like that before…
He forfeited.
He told them everything.
About Chloe, about the money, about being trapped by the bet.
But more than that, Maine Hamilton—the Maine Show—told everyone he wasn’t OK. He told them that he’s in crisis, that he’s desperate. The guy who performs for everyone and won’t ask for help from anyone took off his mask and put it all on the line.
Something shifts in my chest, tectonic plates realigning. Suddenly I’m not drowning anymore. I’m burning with grief—about Ethan, about Chloe, about losing Maine, about never being good enough for my family—but suddenly, I feel the need to do something.
Because grief without action is just suffering.
But grief with purpose?
That’s fuel.
I can’t go back in time and save Ethan. I can’t cure Chloe with sheer force of will. I can’t unfuck my parents or my siblings or make them love who I am, not who they want me to be. I can’t undo Maine’s lie or erase the hurt that still throbs like a bruise every time I think about him.
But I can do something.
My laptop is open before I’ve fully formed the plan. My fingers are already flying across the keyboard, that familiar rush of organizational energy crackling through my veins like electricity. This is what I’m good at. This is my superpower—harnessing chaos and making it something unforgettable.
The idea crystallizes as I type: Run for Chloe.
A three-mile charity run.
Campus-wide.
Maybe city-wide if I play this right.
All proceeds going directly to Chloe’s experimental treatment.
This isn’t about forgiving Maine. I’m not ready for that, not yet. This is about fighting back against the casual cruelty of a universe that lets children suffer while their families watch helplessly. This is about channeling my grief for one child into action for another.
This is about helping one child, when I couldn’t help Ethan.
This is about helping one child, when my parents did nothing to help me.
I create a new document, and Maya the Party Queen goes for broke, except there’s no booze at this event. I work with the kind of focused intensity I haven’t felt in a week, and within an hour, I’ve got a website, social accounts, and a fundraising page ready to go.
But I need a photo of Chloe. Something clean, professional, and emotionally compelling without being manipulative. I dig through Maine’s social media, and the normalcy of his posts from six months ago is heartbreaking. Pictures from team parties, stupid memes, a performer playing a role.
Then I find myself lingering on him, not Sophie.
It’s a photo from the party we held together. Maine has his arm slung around Mike’s shoulders, mid-laugh about something, his head thrown back. The camera caught him in that perfect moment where his entire face is transformed by genuine joy.
My chest tightens painfully.
God, I miss that laugh. The real one, not the performative boom he uses to command a room, but this one, unguarded and slightly higher-pitched than you’d expect from someone his size. The one that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and my heart melt.
I swipe to the next photo before I can stop myself. This one his old roommate must have taken without him knowing. He’s bent over a textbook at their kitchen table, one hand in his hair, completely focused. It’s captioned when the class clown actually studies .
But I remember what that focus felt like when it was turned on me. The weight of those blue eyes when he’d trace his fingers over my whole body, mapping me like I was something precious he was trying to memorize. It was intense and amazing and breathtaking.
Not helping with the task at hand, Maya , my mind reminds me.
I focus back on the job, and then, there. A picture of Chloe from last summer. She’s laughing at something off-camera, her entire face lit up with joy despite the oxygen mask. She looks so alive, so fiercely herself despite everything her body is putting her through.
This is the one.
I build the website around that photo. Clean lines, compelling copy that tells Chloe’s story without exploiting it. I add a donation tracker, link it to a secure payment system, and include just enough medical details to be credible but not so dense they’ll make people’s eyes glaze over.
I briefly pause to wonder if I should ask Maine’s permission.
Or his family’s.
But, fuck it, what’s he going to do? Be angry at me?
I’m going to help this girl, whether they like it or not.
Next, permits. Pine Barren University requires forty-eight hours’ notice for any campus event involving more than fifty people. I know this because I’ve organized enough parties to have the events coordinator’s direct number saved in my phone.
I shoot Patricia an email, playing the grad student card hard, mentioning that several faculty members from the nursing program will likely participate. I copy in Professor Langham, my favorite professor, who I know has a soft spot for student initiatives and likes to run as well.
Then sponsors. Every local business within a five-mile radius gets a personalized email. Pizza Plus, where Maine works, gets a special note about how one of their employees needs community support. O’Neil’s, Pine Barren Bagels, the campus bookstore… everything and everyone I can think of.
The social media campaign needs to be organic but organized.
I create a hashtag: #RunForChloePBU. Simple, searchable, specific enough that it won’t get lost in the noise.
I design shareable graphics using the campus colors, create sample posts that people can copy and paste. I make it easy for people to help.
I reach out to the campus newspaper, the local news station, the radio show that does human-interest stories every Friday. I craft press releases that tell a story, about a campus hockey star who’s given so many people so much joy and whose little sister needs some help.
And, through all this, for the first time in weeks, I feel good.
Happy and in control.
As I get the wheels turning, my phone buzzes with responses almost immediately. Patricia says yes to the permits. Dr. Langham offers to personally sponsor the event for an eye- watering sum. Joe from Pizza Plus says they’ll provide free food for all runners at the finish line, plus a cash donation.
The momentum builds with each response, each commitment, each share of the campaign page. It’s working. It’s actually working. Money is already ticking in, but more important than that is the buzz that’s building, because I know that is what will make a party blow up.
I pause, suddenly aware that I’ve been at this for three hours straight. My neck aches from hunching over my laptop. My coffee went cold ages ago. But for the first time in days, I feel like myself. Not the party girl or the perfect student or any of the other masks I wear.
Just Maya, using every skill I have to focus on something apart from my pain.
I look at Chloe’s picture on the website again. She has Maine’s eyes, that same bright blue that goes soft when he’s actually feeling something real. The same stubborn jaw that sets when he’s determined not to show weakness. Like Maine, she deserves help. And unlike Ethan, she deserves a chance.
I can’t save Ethan, I think. But maybe I can help save you.
The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m sitting in our shared apartment, surrounded by the ghost of Maine’s presence, building a lifeline for his sister while I still can’t bring myself to text him. But this feels right. This feels like something I can control, something I can fix.
My phone lights up with another notification.
The campaign page already has twelve shares.
Then thirteen.
Fourteen.
Twenty.
Fifty.
The party legend isn’t just a persona anymore. She’s a weapon. And I’m aiming her at the universe’s casual cruelty, one donor at a time. But it’s not enough to get money out of others, so I throw my donation into the mix, as much as I can afford.
Because this is about a boy I couldn’t save and a girl who still has a chance.
This is about doing something, anything, that matters.
My fingers hover over the keyboard as I draft my donation message.
Sometimes love isn’t words. Sometimes it’s action. It’s needing someone, and them needing you. It’s showing up even when they don’t ask or know you’re there.