HE KNEW SHE WOULDN’T be in the cafeteria. What kind of person wanted to eat at a time like this? It didn’t take much searching to find her sitting outside on one of the benches. She was staring at the water, motionless. Maybe she didn’t know what was going on but he was sure she knew enough. And as much as she cared about Henri she probably felt it just like him in the pit of her stomach that something was wrong. That something bad was going to happen.

He didn’t move either. He stood there waiting for her to see him. This wasn’t the kind of news he wanted to tell anyone.

Finally when it didn’t seem she was going to look, she did, and it was time.

Flynn moved fast, before he knew what he was doing his feet took on a mind of their own, his dark eyebrows lifted causing a slight horizontal row of creases in his forehead. “Hey…how are you?” The creases smoothed. Flynn stuffed his hands in his pockets, dropping his gaze to the ground taking the spot next to her.

She was wearing a navy blue pair of shorts and a billowy white tank top, the bottoms of her shorts cuffed, hitting her high on the thigh. White beads dangled from her neck, and her hair collected in the back in a braided twist secured with a white clip. Small strands falling in her eyes and around her ears from the nap upstairs in the family waiting room

“How is he?” She asked, clutching her arms to her chest.

Flynn cleared his throat. He scratched his head and then ran his hand through his brown hair. Suddenly he wasn’t sure how to go about saying it. As her blue eyes stared, clinging to his every movement he was taken far out of his comfort zone. He exhaled, clapping his hands together and dropped forward. His elbow digging a little too hard into the muscle of his leg, he was tense.

“Henri wanted me to tell you what is happening.” He started, licking his lips and releasing a silent breath of stressed air. “His heart is failing.” Flynn refused to look at her as he recounted what he could of what the doctors and his mother threw at him. None of it made any sense to him, but he spit it out anyways. “His heart is failing. They want him on the donor list, but Henri refuses just like before.”

Maven’s face heated. She touched her chest, feeling her heart speeding up on the inside. “What happened, Flynn?” Before she heard the worst she wanted to know what brought them all to this ungodly result. Where had Henri gone off to that night?

“We found him behind the yogurt hut. Someone attacked him, but Henri says he doesn’t know who it was.” He knew it was a lie. He wasn’t sure why he was lying for him. “He’s a little banged up, but now he has some kind of infection or something.”

She squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “I should have let him walk me home. I was so excited for him to have the surgery that I told him not to worry about me.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s my fault, I snuck him out of the house knowing he needed to stay home for this surgery coming up.” Flynn sighed. “They won’t do anything for him until the infection is gone, he can’t have the surgery and they want to set him up on some device to pump his heart for him until he can receive a transplant…” Flynn trailed off.

Maven didn’t know what to say. The moment seemed to be staring all of them head-on now. The moment she never wanted to come.

Maven pushed the nagging thought out of her head that Jake had anything to do with Henri ending up in the hospital. She would deal with that later. There was too much happening to focus on Jake.

“Maybe you could get through to him,” Flynn said, breaking the quiet, the thought striking him for the first time.

Maven was doubtful. “He told me how he felt about getting a heart. He most likely won’t listen to me.”

Flynn stood up. He took her by the wrist. “But you’re willing to try right?”

The truth was, she was beyond scared. She was afraid to see Henri knowing he was not doing well and not going to get better if he didn’t accept some kind of help.

“I’m afraid this is going to be goodbye.” She admitted following Flynn through the doors of the hospital, her hair falling into her eyes, but she didn’t bother pushing it out of the way to get a better look at him. Flynn’s brushed her hair away from her eyes quickly, he planted both hands on her shoulders, squeezing them lightly and looked into her eyes with a desperation she had never seen before.

“What if he says no?” She finally blinked, tears spilling from her eyes.

Flynn scanned her expression. “How could he say no to you?”

Maven hesitated. She didn’t agree with Flynn’s insubstantial assumption. This was life or death. Henri wasn’t going to change his views because of who she was.

“All we can do is try.” He offered his hand. She placed her hand in his palm. They moved to the elevators in a hurry to try to talk some sense into Henri.

 

WHO SAID?

EVERY FOOTSTEP brought her closer to Henri. Past the never-ending beige rail that swept the entire length of the hospital wall, only vanishing at each doorway, doorways that held people on their deathbeds, people recovering, all kinds of people.

They stopped right outside the door of the family waiting room. Henri’s Aunt Janet dabbed her eyes and stood. She put on her best smile and greeted Maven, but her voice was tense and marked with sadness.

“Maven is going to try and knock some sense into Henri.” Flynn informed his mother.

Maven glanced at the rest of Henri’s family. Sandra was asleep with a hospital blanket draped over the greater part of her body. April busily read a magazine, gnawing at her nails. And Henri’s parents sat on separate sides of the small room, lost in their own kind of darkness.

Janet’s tight squeeze as she wrapped her arms around Maven shook her back into reality. “No matter what happens, I want to say thank you for trying, Maven. If anyone could convince Henri it would be you. You mean a lot to him.” She smoothed her hair with the back of her hand and watched Flynn lead her down the long hallway to Henri’s room.

She knew if he didn’t agree there was nothing they could do about it when his heart failed. They would have to say goodbye. It filled her with such sadness she wasn’t sure if she could endure it. To say goodbye to her nephew, who was more like her own son. The kid that used to race around her house as a child shooting Nerf guns with Flynn, the kid that made her a birthday card every year. Who wished her a happy Mother’s day before his own mother most years. She didn’t know how to do it.

She remembered the night Henri came to stay with them. He was angry. And depressed. He wanted to run as far away from his old life as he possibly could get. He hated what he did to his family more than the illness. He hated disappointing all of them. That night they sat on the porch talking about all the reasons why he was there with them and how. no matter what, he still meant the world to them. She promised him she would love him until she was physically unable to anymore, and then after, when all she could do was hold his photograph.

***

Henri stared out the window, too far away to see below. But he could see the white clouds and the smooth blue of the sky. Occasionally a fleck of black shot past the window—birds. He was already feeling claustrophobic pinned in the small hospital room with all the beeping devices and the sterile smelling air.

And then he saw her. Right before he shut his eyes for the millionth time she came into view. Her blonde hair inciting his heart, she rounded the doorway, shoving her hair behind one ear. Hesitating before coming all the way into the room. Flynn touched her back, letting her know it was okay.

Maven felt the rush of adrenaline as she finally laid eyes on Henri again. Even though it hadn’t been that long since the last time she had, it felt like forever. She studied him, there wasn’t more than a cut near his hairline, but he wore quite a lot of scrapes on various other parts of his body.