Chapter Four

    Grayson

    “Hey there,” I murmur. Meadow’s eyelashes flutter as she wakes up. Turning her head towards me, her golden curls fall away from her pale skin. She looks different and it’s now that I really notice the different.

      Meadow looks frail, like she can fall apart at any moment. I want to touch her – to run my fingers along her skin, but I’m scared I will break her.

      “Grayson,” she whispers, a smile appearing on her rosy lips. “Nobody told me that you were coming.”

      “Coming?” I laugh. “I’ve been here for three days. They refused to let me step into the room until now.”

      Meadow’s smile quickly turns into a frown. “Why not?”

      I avoid her gaze. “You weren’t well.”

      I raise my eyes when she turns towards the window. Slowly, she sits up. When I reach out to help her she pushes me away.

       “I’m fine, Grayson.” She doesn’t meet my eyes.

      I know better than to fight with her when she’s in a hospital bed. I move to sit on it next to her and follow her gaze outside. She gets the view of a patch of grass and a small swing set and I wonder if she’s stared at it before.

      “What did the doctor say?” I ask curiously.

      “That there’s nothing they can do until there’s a transplant,” she deadpans. Though her words are harsh, her voice is softer than usual.

      “I mean about what happened.”

      She lets out a breath and looks down at her hands that fidget in her lap. “That the running was too much for my heart and that I’ll have to take it easy from now on.” She briefly looks up at me and smiles. I can’t tell if it’s genuine. “I guess I’ll have to be a couch potato.”

      I smirk. “Would you like me to buy you some chips?”

      Meadow clasps a hand to her chest and feigns hurt. “Grayson, how dare you! That’s potato cannibalism!”

      I roll my eyes and she leans into me, resting her head below my shoulder. “You’re the best, you know.” She lets her eyes close. “You’re the only one here who’s actually brightened my day.”

      Hours later I pace my kitchen and ignore my mother’s protests to sit down. She stares at me through worried eyes but I can’t lessen how she feels. Right now I feel like I’m solving a rubix cube in my head with more than six sides.

      “There has to be some way,” I say out loud. Though I’m talking it’s more to myself than my mother. Keeping all my thoughts inside and holding onto them is driving me mad. “How can we get her moved up on the waiting list?”

      Mom frowns. “How many people are ahead of her?”

      I stop my pacing and turn towards her with a cold expression. “Enough to fill a high school.” My mother opens her mouth to respond but I cut her off. “Enough to fill a tri-state hospital.”

      She looks as defeated as I feel. “You can’t just hope for a bunch of deaths, Grayson. Beyond that, you can’t hope for a bunch of hearts to suddenly appear.”

      Even though she didn’t intend it in a mean way, her words cut me all the same because her point is true. There is no way Meadow is going to get a new heart in time and I can’t learn to accept that.

      I feel so defeated. It’s like I’m blaming myself for not being able to fix Meadow’s problem but this is the way that I’ve always been. She’s practically family to me; of course I’m going to find a way to help her, no matter what it costs.

      “Grayson, I know how terrible you must feel,” my mother says with sympathy, “but at some point you’re just going to have to accept it. You should try talking to Meadow about it.”

      I can’t help but give her a dirty look. “I’m not going to bring up that I’m upset that she’s going to die to her. That’s not fair.”

      My mother frowns. “You told me that she’s okay with it. All I’m saying is that maybe if you talk to her about why she’s okay with it, it will help you.” When she sees I’m not satisfied she shrugs. “It’s worth a shot, isn’t it? It has to be better than this.”

      The next day I visit Meadow again. Doctor’s wanted to keep her longer to run more tests but decided that she could leave at five o’clock tonight. When I go to her room I don’t find her there and my heart picks up its pace.

      What if something happened? Did they find something wrong in the test? Is she already gone?

      I feel crazy as all these quick assumptions enter my thoughts. Normally I’m not this quick to freak out but when it comes to Meadow and her life, I’ll pick overreacting over underreacting any day.

      “She went to visit another patient.” The nurse’s voice startles me. I didn’t realize how out of it I had been, just staring at Meadow’s empty, disheveled bed in shock. “I can show you where she is.”

      I graciously follow the nurse down the hall, stopping at another white on white room. She smiles before leaving and I quietly step inside. My knuckles rap gently on the door as I poke my head in, seeing Meadow instantly. She’s sitting on the edge of a bed, smiling at a little girl who honestly, looks kind of like a younger Meadow. They could be sisters.

      Her head perks up and she grins when she sees me. “Grayson,” she says quietly. “Come here. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

      I feel like I’m moving in slow motion as I make my way over to the bed. The tiny, pale girl looks almost like a large doll. Before, I thought Meadow could break at any second, but she’s looking pretty sturdy right now compared to the girl.

      “This is Lily,” Meadow says, turning to the little girl. She brushes her light brown hair away from her large, doe eyes. “And Lily, this is my best friend Grayson.”

      “Hi,” she smiles, her cheeks turning pink. “Meadow has told me a lot about you.”

      “Whenever I’m here I come visit,” Meadow admits. I’m surprised, and slightly offended, that she never told me before. Usually, she tells me everything. I’m always the first one to know. Turning to Lily, Meadow, cups her cheek. “Do you mind if I visit with Grayson for a few minutes? I promise I won’t be long.”  

      A doctor brushes past me into the room just as Lily nods. She exchanges greetings with the girls and turns to Lily. “I want to do another MRI if that’s okay. Shall we get you prepped?”

      Meadow kisses Lily’s forehead and skips into the hall, linking her arm with mine as she leads me away. “Lily is in here for the same thing as I am,” she whispers as we pass her room. She’s taking me towards the visitors lounge.

      “She’s…” I can’t finish my sentence. A little girl, barely seven years old, is sick and dying?

      Meadow nods. “She needs a new heart, too.”

      I swallow a lump in my throat and realize I have nothing to say. Meadow starts talking about Lily and how sweet of a girl she is, saying how she always wanted to be a ballerina. Whenever Meadow would visit and was well enough, she would go into Lily’s room and show her the moves she learned on the internet just for her.

      “She never gets to leave the hospital except for holidays for sometimes,” she continues as we sit on a couch in the lounge. “I wish I could give her my heart, but I can’t.”

      Meadow intertwines her fingers with mine. Her eyes look up at me, waiting for a response but I still can’t find any words.

      “These things happen for a reason, Grayson,” she whispers. “I don’t know what mine is yet, and maybe I never will, but there is a reason.”

      I sigh and turn away from her, not wanting to meet her eyes. I don’t know how there can be a good reason for killing my best friend, but Meadow can’t see the negative in this. She never can.