Chapter 38
thirty-eight
MAINE
The campus athletic fields look like something from another planet.
The empty green space I’ve come to associate with pain—a thousand wind sprints, punishment drills—has been transformed into something I don’t recognize at all. It’s a festival of hope, apparently, with thousands of people gathered with shared purpose.
For Chloe.
The thought sits heavy in my chest as yet another stranger claps me on the back, offering words of encouragement I don’t deserve one bit. “Great cause, man!” someone says. “Fantastic turnout…” another offers hopefully. “Your sister’s lucky to have you!” another calls out.
Lucky.
Lucky would have been a brother who wasn’t too proud to ask for help months ago. Lucky would have been a brother who thought to organize something like this himself, instead of drowning in debt and self-pity while pretending everything was fine.
But as I stand near the starting line, surrounded by hundreds of people wearing blue and white #RunForChloe T-shirts, I’ve never felt more like a fraud in my entire life. Not even when I was lying to Maya about the bet, because at least that was all my doing.
This is worse, because I’m being celebrated for someone else’s miracle.
Because I never thought to do this for Chloe.
I was always too fucking proud to ask for help, but not any longer, because the past few weeks since that night at my parents’ kitchen table have been a special kind of purgatory. You know that feeling when you finally stop lying to yourself and have to sit with who you actually are?
Yeah, that.
Every morning I wake up and remember I’m the guy who almost let his family lose everything because asking for help felt worse than drowning. I’m the guy who made a bet on a woman’s heart. I’m the guy who had to hit absolute rock bottom before admitting I wasn’t OK.
The only place I’ve been able to channel all this self-loathing is on the ice. Practice has become my religion, the rink my confessional. I’ve been skating harder than I thought my body could handle, and somehow the team has responded to my desperation with solidarity.
They stopped treating me like their entertainment and started treating me like their brother.
Even Rook’s been laying off the jokes, which is how I know things are really fucked up.
And we’re playing better than ever, culminating in a 6–1 victory last night, my first game back on the ice since Coach benched me.
My parents, God bless them, have been trying to help in their own way.
Mom found some free counseling service through her old church friend and texted me the number with about seventeen heart emojis.
Like she was trying to be casual about suggesting therapy to her son who finally admitted he was in trouble.
And Dad actually drove two hours to campus the other day just to have coffee with me.
We sat in Pine Barren Bagels for forty-five minutes, and I think we said maybe twenty words total, but he was there.
That’s what mattered. He was there, for me, and he wasn’t asking me to help or fix anything or be the easy kid.
I could just be me.
But even as this all happens, Chloe’s condition is the sword hanging over our heads.
She’s stable. Not better, not worse, just…
suspended. Waiting. The experimental treatment they want to try costs more than our house is worth, which is why the fundraising thermometer near the start line is everything.
It’s the difference between hope and saying goodbye.
I look at that thermometer now—$147,000 and climbing—and my throat closes up.
That’s more money than I’ve made in four years between Pizza Plus and my scholarship.
That’s more than my parents have ever had in savings.
More than I could have raised if I’d swallowed my pride and begged every person I knew.
But Maya did it.
Not for me, because I’m not delusional enough to think this is about me or that I’ve earned her forgiveness. But for Chloe, because she wanted to help save a kid, especially after the pediatric patient she couldn’t. This is Maya channeling her grief into action, turning her loss into Chloe’s gain.
It’s not forgiveness.
It’s not a sign that she still cares about me.
It’s just Maya being Maya—competent, fierce, and unable to stand by.
The text I sent her after discovering the website— thank you —feels pathetically inadequate now, two words in return for transforming my family’s crisis into a community cause and for giving my sister a chance. She didn’t respond, and I didn’t push.
I’ve been trying to give her space, trying to become someone who might someday deserve to breathe the same air as her again. But it’s hard when all I want to do is fall at her feet and thank her from the bottom of my heart while I also beg her to forgive me for being the worst kind of fool.
The crowd is getting bigger, streams of people arriving with race bibs and water bottles. I recognize some faces—teammates, classmates, even professors—but most are strangers, people who heard about a sick girl and decided to show up on a Saturday morning to run three miles.
The student jazz ensemble is setting up on the professional-grade stage (where the hell did that come from?), and local news vans are parking along the field’s edge. And it’s clear to everyone that this isn’t some half-assed campus fundraiser with a folding table and a donation jar.
This is an event.
A real, legitimate, organized event with sponsors and a fucking DJ.
And in the center of it all, the eye of this charitable hurricane, is Maya.
I see her near the registration table, and my heart simultaneously stops and starts racing.
She’s wearing fitted black running shorts that show off legs I’ve had wrapped around my waist, and a volunteer coordinator T-shirt that she’s French-tucked to perfection.
She’s got a clipboard in one hand, a headset on, and she’s directing volunteers with terrifying efficiency.
She is magnificent.
She is beautiful.
She is also pointedly not looking at me.
I watch her handle three problems in rapid succession—a mix-up with the water stations, a sponsor banner that’s falling down, and a lost child who needs their parents—and she solves each one without breaking stride.
This is her in her element, the social architect building something meaningful out of chaos.
She’s turned my family’s private catastrophe into a public cause, literally giving Chloe a chance at life when there was no hope for that just weeks ago, and she’s done it all while maintaining the careful distance between us that my betrayal created.
But then our eyes meet across the crowd.
It’s like being hit by lightning and wrapped in a blanket at the same time.
For a second, neither of us moves. The noise of the crowd fades to white static.
There’s just her dark eyes, holding mine with an intensity that makes my knees weak, as if waiting for me to come closer, say something, do something, or run away.
And, after weeks of avoiding each other, I’m not sure what to do.
So I offer a small nod, which is pathetic and totally inadequate, but all I can manage without completely falling apart. I try to pack everything into that tiny gesture: thank you. I’m sorry. I don’t deserve this. I miss you so much I can’t breathe. I love you.
She returns the nod, and Christ, the look on her face nearly kills me.
There’s pain there, obviously. I put that pain there with my lies and my cowardice.
But there’s something else too. Resolve…
pride at having organized this… and—and I know I’m probably imagining this—something that looks almost like longing…
Then someone calls her name, and the moment breaks. She turns away, back to her clipboard and her mission, and I’m left standing there feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. But, like an addict, that small hit of her just left me wanting more, because she’s a drug I just can’t quit.
No matter how much I hurt her.
No matter how much I know I can’t have her again.
“Runners to the starting line!” The announcement booms over the speakers, jolting me back to reality.
I shuffle forward with the crowd, ending up somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Mike’s here somewhere—I saw him earlier with Sophie—but I can’t find them in the sea of blue and white.
The rest of the hockey guys are here, too.
Hell, even my parents wanted to come, but I asked them to stay with Chloe.
The starting gun fires, and we’re off.
My legs move on autopilot, muscle memory from years of conditioning taking over. The crowd spreads out quickly, runners pulling ahead while the walkers fall back. I find my rhythm, just cruising speed, because the Maine Show doesn’t need to win this one.
This isn’t about me.
This is about being one small part of something Maya built.
This is about Chloe.
The route takes us around the campus perimeter, past buildings where I’ve had classes, failed tests, and shared moments with Maya. But as I pass them, I realize every landmark is a reminder of how badly I screwed up the best thing that ever happened to me.
My breathing settles into a steady pattern, and I let my mind wander.
I think about Maya organizing all of this on top of her studies and clinical rotations and her fucking heartbreak.
I think about her building that website, choosing that photo of Chloe, coordinating with sponsors, recruiting volunteers…
All to make strangers care about a girl they’ve never met.
While I was wallowing in self-pity on Mike’s couch.
After I broke her heart.
The shame is a physical weight, making each step harder than it should be. But I keep running because stopping feels like another betrayal, another failure to show up when it matters. And I’m so lost in my head that I almost don’t notice when someone falls into step beside me.
I don’t need to look to know who it is. My body recognizes her presence before my brain catches up.
The sound of her breathing, controlled but with that slight catch she gets when she’s pushing herself.
The way the air itself seems to change when she’s near me, becoming charged with possibility and danger and want.
Maya.
She’s left her command post to run beside me.
I risk a glance sideways, trying to be subtle about it, but subtlety be damned—I need to see her. Her face is set with determination, jaw clenched, eyes fixed straight ahead. She’s not here for a casual jog. She’s here with purpose, though what that purpose is, I can’t fathom.
Her ponytail swings with each stride, and there’s a sheen of sweat making her skin glow in the morning sun. She’s breathing hard but steadily, maintaining my pace, and then she gives me a single, tiny nod without looking at me. Not a greeting, exactly. More like an acknowledgment.
And then it’s clear what the purpose is.
She’s telling me she’s here. With me.
A guy who needed help, getting it.
Even if he doesn’t deserve it.
Even if he hurt her.
The gesture hits me harder than any words could. After everything—the bet, the lies, the catastrophic way I destroyed us—she’s choosing to run beside me. Not ahead, not behind, but with me. Matching my pace step for step. It’s the biggest act of respect and care anyone has ever shown me.
I want to say something. Thank her again, though that’s still pathetically insufficient. Or maybe apologize again. Or tell her that seeing her organize this entire event for my sister has only confirmed what I already knew: that I’m desperately, completely, irrevocably in love with her.
But I don’t say anything. Because this isn’t the time for my words, my apologies, or my declarations.
I haven’t earned the right to say a damn thing to her, and if I ever get that right again, it’ll be on her terms. I’ll wait until the end of time for the chance, but it’s her place to decide if I get the chance.
The chance to love her.
So in the meantime, I just run and accept her gift—not just the race, not just the money for Chloe, but this moment, running beside me when she has every reason to stay away. Helping me when I need it, but was too pigheaded and proud to ask for it.
Being there for me, even if she doesn’t want me there for her anymore.
Even if she doesn’t need me anymore.
We match each other stride for stride, breath for breath. The sound of our footfalls creates a rhythm, a partnership in motion that reminds me of other rhythms we’ve shared—dancing at the club, moving together in bed, the easy back-and-forth of our conversations before I ruined everything.
Around us, hundreds of people run for Chloe, but in this moment, it feels like we’re alone. Like this is our own private race toward something I can’t quite see yet but desperately want to reach. Not forgiveness, maybe—I know I haven’t earned that—but perhaps a starting line for something new.
Something built on truth this time, not lies.
Every cell in my body wants to reach out, to take her hand, to pull her against me and never let go. But I keep my arms at my sides, maintain the space between us that she’s chosen, and just let myself exist in this moment where Maya Hayes is running beside me even though I don’t deserve it.
My chest burns, but I’m not sure if it’s from the running or from having her this close after weeks of distance.
And the route marker ahead shows we’re at mile two.
One more mile of this gift, this grace I haven’t earned.
One more mile of breathing the same air as her, of pretending that maybe there’s still hope for us.
One more mile of running together toward something that might heal more than just Chloe.