You should have known something was wrong the moment she'd shown up at your window and said she was sick. Maya Hart doesn't get sick. You're worried, and you ask if she's okay, and she says, "It's nothing, Riles. It's just a fever. I need a day off of school but if I stay at home my mom'll want to take me to the doctor and it's not worth it. Can I stay here?"
You say yes, of course, but I'll stay here with you.
"No," she says, "you shouldn't miss school for this. It's not a big deal; I can take care of myself."
You leave (reluctantly, because you've never had to go to school without her) after handing her some Tylenol for her headache and hugging her goodbye.
She's asleep in your bed when you come back, sweat beading on her forehead, her face pale. You frown and smooth some of her hair that had fallen over her eyes and mouth away from her face.
"You're back," she says weakly without opening her eyes. "Missed you."
"Maya, are you sure you're okay? It looks like you've gotten worse…."
"'S fine." She sighs and sits up. "I mean, it is worse, but I'm sure it'll be fine by morning. And if not, then definitely by tomorrow night. I'll just tell my mom I'm staying here."
"Okay. But if you're not better by then you'll go to the doctor, right?"
"Yeah, sure."
So you have dinner, do your homework while she sleeps beside you in the bed, and accidentally disturb her when you crawl under the covers for the night. She tries to insist on sleeping on the floor, but you won't let her. It's just a fever, you say. Fevers aren't contagious. You need to get a good night's rest.
She's worse in the morning and that's when you really start to worry. She's got chills, there are several bruises on her arms and her collarbone which she claims to have no memory of, and she stumbles on the way to the bathroom as if she's barely able to support her body. You stay home today. She's too tired to resist.
Your dad can't miss a day of work, but your mom is able to take off a couple of hours to bring Maya to the doctor after calling Katy about it. You don't go with them; you stay at home and twist your ring around your finger over and over and over again because Maya doesn't get sick. She doesn't get sick, so what is this?
Your mom calls you on her way back and tells you that Maya has been referred to another doctor and that she's taking her back to her own home, and that you should go to school and catch the rest of your classes. You do as you're told, but you don't remember anything that your teachers said. You know you shouldn't be so worried; people get sick all the time, but you can't help it. You can't shake the feeling that something is horribly wrong.
You don't hear from Maya that night or the next day, and you have to force yourself to push down the anxiety bubbling up inside you. She's probably just resting, and she had to go to that other doctor, anyway. They'll probably give her some medicine for whatever it is she's got and she'll be better in no time; no big deal. Stop being so paranoid, Riley, pull yourself together.
She crawls through your window at seven the next morning to take you to school, and she doesn't look any better. She doesn't mention it during breakfast or on the subway or during class, but underneath the illness she looks dejected and vulnerable. You want to ask about it so badly, but you can tell she doesn't want to talk about it. You'd asked on the subway why she was going to school at all, but she'd only changed the subject.
She finally brings it up after school, and you suspect that it's only because you'd both been so quiet sitting in the bay window.
"I had to go to a hematologist," she says quickly. "They wanted to take blood tests and the results won't be back for a few weeks."
"Blood tests?" Your breath catches. "Why? What do they think you have?"
"You don't wanna know, Riles," she says with a sigh. "I'll tell you if it comes back positive."
"Whatever it is, it's going to be negative," you say firmly. Maybe if you believe it enough then it'll be true.
"I really hope so."
She slowly gets worse as the days pass. Some days seem not so bad, but it never lasts long, and you can't keep your mind off of it. If she doesn't have whatever they're testing her for, then why isn't she getting better? Why is she always so tired? Why does it seem like the strength is sapping from her body and why does it look like she's losing weight and why the hell does her nose keep bleeding?
You look up the symptoms and immediately close out of the internet. That can't be it; it's something else. It was stupid to look.
Maya misses school a few days later. You text her once, twice, seven times, but she doesn't answer. You want to cry, but you can't. Crying gives in to the assumption that it's as bad as you think it is. You can't sob your way through seven hours of school, anyway; that would only make it worse.
You go straight to her place after school and find her sitting on her bed with her back against the wall, her knees drawn to her chest, chin sitting on top as she stares blankly at the opposite wall. Her eyes are red and puffy, she's still in her pajamas, and she doesn't even look at you when you come in and sit down next to her. You wrap her arms around her and feel her begin to shake as she starts crying again.
"I-It's positive," she chokes out eventually. "Riley, it's…it's real. It's real."
You shake your head and bury your face in her hair. You're crying, too, but you try to hide it. It's not fair.
"What is it?" you ask. You're sure you know the answer, but you're still praying that it's something else, something less serious. You feel like you're going to throw up when she only confirms what you were afraid of.
"Leukemia," she says flatly. "Acute myeloid leukemia. The shit that kills you."
"No." You shake your head again and draw back to push Maya's hair behind her ears and cup her face in both of your hands. "No, Maya, you're not going to die. There are—there are treatments, there are ways to fix it! Transplants, or chemotherapy, o-or—"
"Stop." Maya pulls her face out of your hands and shrugs away from your touch. "Just…stop, Riley. You know we can't afford any of that. My mom could barely scrape up enough for the tests. Hope is stupid for this; just accept it now and we'll both be better off."
You feel like you've been hit by a truck. The breath's been knocked out of you and you can't get it back. Your chest aches in a way you hadn't even thought possible.
"We…we'll find a way." Your voice cracks and tears pour down your face; you can't hide them anymore. "We'll fundraise, and my parents will help as much as they can, and you're going to be okay."
She sighs and nods, but you know she's only doing it to appease you. You accept it anyway and bury your face in her hair again, embracing her in as comforting a way as you can.
"I love you, Riley," she says, so quietly you almost don't hear it.
"I love you, too."
You tell your parents you're staying with Maya and you don't let her go for the rest of the night.
Her mother doesn't wait to start Maya's treatment. She and Shawn have to cut into their food money even with the help of your parents and your uncle Eric, but there's enough for one round of chemotherapy. You know one round won't be enough, though, and you're not sure how they can possibly get enough money for more. You set up a gofundme page and hope it'll get spread around enough to save her.
She's trying to be strong about it. You pretend you don't notice her wiping away tears on the way to the hospital. She'll be there for weeks and there's no guarantee that she'll be able to go back enough to reach remission; she'd told you earlier that she feels horrible about the strain on money and wishes her mom wouldn't bother. It's not worth it, she'd said. There's no point in spending so much on a partial treatment.
It is worth it, you'd said, you're worth it. It won't have to be partial. You're okay. You're going to be okay. We'll find a way to get you better. I love you, Maya.
She hears that you love her a lot after that. You can't really help it; you need to make sure she hears it and knows it every second she can, just…just in case. You hate that you never said it more often before.
By the time Maya needs another round of chemo, the fundraiser is half full. It's almost more than you'd expected, but you can't suppress the disappointment that it isn't enough. You want to scream; why is this so expensive, anyway? How can people feel good about themselves knowing people are dying and that so many of them can't afford to save themselves, even with so much help?
You cry with relief when Farkle's dad finds out and offers to pay the rest.
The second round of chemo is making her hair fall out. She got lucky the first time, but not so much now. She shaves her head when it gets too bad, and you say you're going to shave yours too, but she stops you.
"I like your hair," she says. "I like how it smells when you hug me. I don't want that to change."
By the end of the fourth round, she's in remission and you can hardly believe it when you get the news. She's banging on your window at six in the morning on a Saturday, grinning, tears streaming down her face. You hug her as hard as you can (she'd been fragile before and you hadn't wanted to hurt her) and grip the back of her shirt until your knuckles are white and bury your face in her neck. You're both sobbing and gasping for breath; you hadn't realized how much this had really been affecting your life until the threat was gone. You can't even imagine what it must feel like for Maya.
She sleeps over that night and you can't stop staring at her face on the pillow next to you. You take any opportunity you can to touch her, to smooth out the short strands of her hair or grab her hand or curl up enough that your knees touch. She's going to be okay, she's actually going to be okay; it isn't just wishful thinking anymore. She's okay, she's okay, she's okay!
"I love you," you say. "I love you so much, Maya."
"I love you, too, Riles."
Your hand is still cupping her cheek from where you'd brushed an eyelash away several moments before, your thumb gently running back and forth over her cheekbone. You don't know what makes you do it—or maybe you do, but you don't want to admit it—but you lean forward and kiss her. You're as gentle as you can be with it, tentative and shy, and she responds in kind. When your lips part, you skootch closer to her and wrap your arm around her, drawing her close to your chest.
"I love you," you say again, and this time she understands in which way. You fall asleep like that, wrapped in each other's warmth, knowing for the first time in months that everything is going to be okay.
You slip into a relationship with no hesitation. Neither of you really ask the other to be your girlfriend; you just start holding hands more than you already had, and you start kissing, and you both know that things are different now. She tells you once that she'd known how she felt for a while, but hadn't wanted to tell you. Either you'd return her feelings and it would be even worse in the event that the leukemia killed her, or you wouldn't feel the same way and things would be awkward. You say you really don't care about anything as long as she's still breathing.
She comes to your window before school with a fever several months later. You ask her, cautiously, if she's okay, and she says yes, but you can tell she isn't sure whether or not it's the truth. You walk in awkward silence to the subway, your hand gripping hers harder than usual. You're too busy praying that she doesn't start showing any other symptoms again to make conversation and you know she's doing the same.
She goes to the doctor as soon as she can just in case. You pray to God, and to Allah and Odin and Gaia and whatever other gods or goddesses might exist that she's okay, that it's just a regular fever, that there's nothing to worry about.
When she comes to your window after getting the results of the bloodwork, her shoulders hunched, an expression of pure defeat on her face, and falls into your arms without a word, you think you might give up on religion completely. No god worth worshipping would be this cruel.
She needs a stem cell transplant for any real chance to be cured. It's too much, and you know it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for one transplant, and it may have to be done multiple times, all of this on top of more chemotherapy.
She tells you she's sorry that night as you lie together under the covers, and you tell her you love her. She doesn't have anything to apologize for and you love her and you will always love her and you'll love her years and years from now when she's better. She gives you a weak smile and kisses you before hiding her face in your chest and falling asleep. She sleeps easier than you do now and you hate that such a nefarious reason is behind it.
Mr. Minkus helps out again. You hadn't thought he would with how utterly expensive the treatment is, but he's a very good man and you make sure to thank him personally. It's hard to get a "thank you" out when you're hugging him and trying to speak through crying and hiccups, but you think he understands.
You're hopeful; Maya is strong, and you know that better than anyone. She has the treatment, and she has you and her friends and her family, and she has hope, too, you think. She reached remission once and you're positive she can do it again. This time, with the stem cells, she should be able to stay in remission.
Only, a month later, she hasn't gotten any better. She's still slowly getting worse, in fact, and it's getting harder to hold on to that hope. The oncologist assures her that sometimes it takes longer for the stem cells to take effect; it could be months or even years before she reaches remission again, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the treatment isn't working.
Months later, he regrets to inform you that the treatment isn't working. There is really only a twenty five- to fifty-percent rate of success with this treatment, he says.
Isn't there something else you can try?
There isn't, he says. I'm very sorry.
You've never felt the world crash and burn around you so quickly and completely. They're giving up. The doctors are giving up. They think there's no choice but for Maya to die, and you can't even fight them on it because you know deep down that they've done all they can.
It doesn't truly sink in until you sit down on your bed that night, alone, and type into google "how to deal with knowing someone you love is dying". You can't even finish reading the first point on the first list before running to the bathroom and bending over the toilet bowl. You can't stop shaking, tears caking and drying on your face even as fresh ones come, retching until your stomach is empty and it feels like it's trying to escape through your throat.
You eventually manage to read the list after what feels like hours of wiping tears out of your eyes and trying not to gag, and you intend on following it as closely as possible. "When someone you love is dying, it's okay to be a mess—just try not to dump your mess on others—especially the one who is dying". You need to keep that in mind. This is harder for Maya than it is for you. "Lead with your heart—keep your love flowing with the dying person and others as well—if possible. Nothing is more important than loving each other. Do your best and then some".
That you can do. You can do that better than anybody else; after all, you've never felt a fraction of the love you feel for Maya for anyone or anything else, and you don't think you ever will again.
You have to take a minute to run back to the bathroom.
It's Maya's decision to stay at home rather than in hospice. "I'm dying," she says, as if she's still trying to accept it, "but I don't want to be treated like I am. I just wanna live my life as normally as I can until…you know." You nod along and promise you'll be by her side no matter what.
She spends most of her time painting. She's too tired and in too much pain to do much else, but at least she enjoys it. She eventually starts teaching you techniques and how to paint things other than purple cats at your request; you'll never be as good as her, but you want to keep this part of her with you. The first thing you paint on your own is a poor rendition of Central Park, where the two of you had gone on many dates, and she cries when she sees it. "I'm sorry," you say—you hate to see her cry—"I didn't mean to—" she cuts you off with a hug and you hold her as she continues to cry into your shoulder.
She's dying, and it still doesn't feel real. You still sleep in the same bed every night, your head resting on her chest so that you can hear the slow and steady beating of her heart. You still hang out at Topanga's with your friends, laughing and having fun. It's easy to forget that it'll come to an end eventually.
There's really no way for you to be ready for it when it does. No amount of "I love you, I love you, I love you, don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me, please, not yet, please!" could stop it, despite what your heart wants to believe.
You don't leave home for weeks after that except to attend the memorial service. You can't make it through the eulogy you'd written and your parents have to escort you away before the coffin is even in the ground.
You start visiting her grave eventually. You sit in front of it and set the bundle of peach roses and forget-me-nots you'd brought for her against the stone. You take a deep breath and let your fingers graze over the dips and crevices of her name as you search for what you want to say.
"I hope it's not lonely wherever you are," you say after several minutes of silence. "It's kind of lonely here. I have our friends and my family, but…it's not the same without you. I miss you so much it feels like I can't breathe sometimes." You pause to wipe your face. "Your mom lets me sit in your room on the bad days. I didn't think it would ever stop smelling like you, but it's starting to. And it's getting harder to remember what your voice sounds—sounded like. But it's okay, that doesn't mean I'm forgetting you. I just—it hurts, is all."
You sigh and tuck your hair behind your ears, looking around for who knows what. A sign, maybe, that she's listening? Maybe a cat would creep out from between the headstones and follow you home like some sort of poetic justice to all this, or a butterfly would come and land on the stone, or anything, really, but nothing happens. The clouds continue to roll overhead in silence and the world doesn't tell you that Maya is here in spirit. You shake your head and curse yourself for thinking this would help.
"Goodbye, Maya. I love you."
You get up and walk back home to sit in front of the canvas in your room that you just can't quite manage to recreate Maya's likeness on and pick up a paintbrush to try again.