“I’M GOING TO miss you,” Abigail said softly, wrapping her small arms around my neck. “And I’ll come visit you every week.”
I held her in my arms as her tiny body wrapped around me. Squeezing my eyes tightly, I knew one thing.
She isn’t going to come back.
I’d heard this promise of visits along with promises of phone calls, letters, and emails from many friends throughout the years. But after the first few attempts, the effort to keep in touch would taper off and eventually stop altogether.
It didn’t make me angry. It was the way it was supposed to be.
Life carried on outside these walls.
Abigail’s grandfather, Nash, was being discharged today. He would no longer be confined to a hospital bed. His life was moving on, and so too would Abigail’s. She would have no more visits to the hospital and no more long conversations with me. She was leaving, going back to the life she’d had before she was introduced to scary things like heart surgeries and IVs. Her world would return to the simple life of a nine-year-old, which was exactly how I wanted it to be. No little girl should have to grow up so quickly.
I hugged her a bit tighter, sending a million wishes for her future with every firm grasp.
“Keep writing,” I said into the crook of her neck. “But don’t do it to please your grandfather or because I said so. Don’t write what you think you’re supposed to. Write what makes you happy even if you write about pandas and dolphins every day for the rest of your life.”
She pulled back from our embrace, and the tiniest smile kissed her precious face. “Well, I do like pandas,” she said with a faint giggle.
At that moment, her mother appeared in the doorway to collect her. I gave Abigail another quick hug, and she hopped off, sprinting out the door and down the hallway back to her grandpa’s room.
I thought about Abigail for the rest of the day, seeing her little cherub face in the back of my mind, as I reread Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and later wrote in my journal.
Would she be a writer or grow up to do something entirely different? The world was at her feet, and she didn’t even know it. None of them did—the normal ones; the ones who didn’t have to worry about the day to day, hour to hour, and minute to minute; the masses of people who woke up each and every day not fearing the hours ahead and the day that would follow; or those who didn’t have to wonder if they’d be around to celebrate the next holiday.
How easily people took life for granted when it had so easily been given.
How I wished for such simplicity.
When the sun started to settle in the horizon and my dinner had gone cold, I reached into the drawer by my bed and pulled out the list I’d created so many years ago.
One night, while sitting at home in my room, I had curled up in my bed and watched some ridiculous high school drama flick. The plotline was the typical he-said, she-said with a bit of show tunes thrown in. It was horrible, and I would deny ever seeing it to anyone who might ask. But as I had sat there, watching these girls in cheerleading uniforms trying out for school plays, crying over boyfriends, and arguing over prom dresses, I’d realized my life would never be anything like that.
Except for the medical drama in my life, I’d never had any of the highs and lows that came with being human. As the teenyboppers had sung about broken hearts and stolen dreams, I’d pulled out a fresh notebook and started this list. It had become a way to almost purge my soul and let go of the life I’d never had. I’d known I would never do any of the things written on the pages of this journal, but seeing them would at least remind me that I could have, if things had been different.
I cracked the worn spine and ran the pads of my fingers over the pages of my Normal list, my Someday list. My eyes wandered down each item until I stopped on the last one listed on a page near the middle of the book.
Make a meal from start to finish.
A wisp of a smile tugged at my lips as I remembered standing in the industrial kitchen of the cafeteria, rolling out pizza dough with Jude. Reaching down to where I’d set my journal next to my legs, I grabbed the pen I’d used and uncapped it.
Feeling like something monumental was about to happen, I took a deep breath and slowly drew a dark black line through number sixty-two.
He’d done that for me. Jude had made one dent in my Someday list.
For one day, I’d felt real and whole, and finally, someone had looked at all of me instead of just the broken parts.
But like all the other times I’d spent with Jude, as soon as he’d begun to open up, he’d fled. Without warning, his mood had gone from light and teasing to edgy and quiet.
What makes a man act that way? Regret? Guilt? Did I do or say something?
I didn’t know much about life on the outside, but my instincts told me something much deeper was going on with Jude. He never shared anything personal, and from what I’d learned from the gossip Grace told me, he was about the most antisocial person in the hospital. He was known to take every shift he could. He apparently had no known friends, and he never attended any social functions.
What self-inflicted prison is he holding himself hostage in, and why?
Finally starting to give in to my heavy eyelids, I began to nod off when I was stirred back awake by a noise in my room. My eyes fluttered open, and through my blurry sight, I saw Jude standing by my bed.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” he apologized, pulling chocolate pudding out of his pocket. He placed it on the tray table next to my bed and set a spoon on top.
“Not planning on joining me anymore?” I asked, motioning in the direction of the single snack pack.
“You were asleep. I didn’t wanted to disturb you.”
“Well, I’m awake now. We can share.” I pushed myself up in the bed until I was in a sitting position.
I took the pudding from its perch on the tray and began pulling the foil wrapper from the top. I watched while Jude looked around the room as if he were deciding where to go. His eyes wandered to the chair where my mom always sat, before finally traveling back to me.
He took a step forward and sat on the edge of the bed facing me. His knee brushed mine under the blanket, and I became very aware of how close we suddenly were. Tucking one leg under the other, he crossed his arms across his chest and leaned forward.
Oh, okay, so even closer now.
Hello, heart rate.
“So, are you going to share? Or are you just going to hold it all night long?”
“What?” I said in confusion, waiting for my brain to kick back into gear.
I could smell the scent of his soap or aftershave or whatever the hell it was that made him smell so mouthwatering. It was like rainwater, pine, and something earthy all wrapped up in a Jude burrito.
“Our pudding. Hand it over,” he instructed, reaching over to snatch the dessert from my hands.
“Hey!”
“You snooze, you lose,” he mumbled, his mouth now full of the stolen pudding he’d just shoveled in it.
“That’s just mean—stealing food from a sick person,” I teased.
He visibly winced, and I instantly regretted my words.
“I was just kidding, Jude,” I said, placing my hand on his.
Touching him was becoming something I couldn’t stop myself from doing. My hands and fingers wanted to reach out to him whenever he was near. It was as if I didn’t have a choice in the matter.
He placed the pudding on the tray next to us and glanced down at our hands. My frail small fingers were lying gently over his callous large ones. Slowly, as if giving the gesture purpose, he turned his hand over so that our palms were touching. Stretching out his fingers, he caressed the pads of my fingers with his own until he intertwined our fingers and held my hand.
I didn’t think I’d taken a breath since his hand had started moving under mine. His eyes finally met mine, and I saw something I’d never expected to see in those faded green irises shining back at me.
Desire.
His free hand reached up to the forgotten pudding and pulled a spoonful from the small cup.
“Open your mouth,” he said softly.
Taking a quick gulp of air for courage, I parted my lips as he brought the spoon to my mouth. It slipped past my tongue, and I closed my mouth around it, remember him doing the same thing moments earlier. Never breaking eye contact with him, I sucked the chocolate off the spoon as he pulled back. He dipped it back into the pudding and took a bite himself, sucking and licking the same spoon I’d just touched.
It was the single most erotic event of my life.
“See? Now, we’re sharing,” he said.
He dipped the spoon in the cup and fed me once again.
“Well then, I guess you’re off the hook.”
We continued taking turns until nothing was left but trash. He tossed everything in the wastebasket near the bed, keeping our hands joined.
“Will you tell me more about your Someday list?” he asked.
His gaze found the worn notebook lying next to me where I’d left it when I drifted off to sleep.
“Sure,” I answered, grabbing the notebook and placing it on my lap. I opened it up and scanned the pages, remembering the hours I’d spent creating it, writing and re-writing it as I came up with new things to add to it.
“Pick a number,” I said, recalling our earlier game.
“One,” he replied.
“Nope. Try again,” I said, not ready to divulge that particular one just yet.
“Okay, how about ten?”
“Go on a roller coaster.”
“Hmm…Disneyland or Six Flags?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it,” I answered.
“Well, think about it now. Are you a big roller-coaster girl or more of an it’s-a-small-world person?”
My mouth twitched as I tried to hide the smile blooming at the corner of my lips. “Mickey Mouse, all the way.”
“Good answer. Okay, another one. Thirty-eight.”
“Um…” I scrolled through the list. “Oh, go to prom.”
His face twisted in amused disgust. “No, I need to scribble that one out. Give me a pen.” He looked around for a pen.
I grabbed the one near my thigh seconds before he did, causing us both to laugh.
“Be glad you missed out on that rite of passage. It’s way overrated.”
Holding the pen against my chest, I asked, “So, I take it yours was awesome?”
“The best,” he answered sarcastically. “My date got trashed in the limo on the way there and ended up in the ladies’ restroom. I sat outside and listened as she alternated between hurling and tossing every curse word at me that she could think of. Even in her alcohol-induced haze, that girl could fling some obscenities. I’m pretty sure I hadn’t heard of half of them.”
“Well, I’m still keeping it in there. A normal life isn’t about just the good things. It’s about the ups and downs. Whether or not prom is a good or bad experience, it’s an experience all the same.”
“Okay, good point. Did I mention she ended up making out with the prom king? And it wasn’t me by the way,” he added with a half smile, causing the tiny dimple in his cheek to make an appearance.
“So, I take it, she didn’t become the love of your life?”
His expression went blank, and his eyes became vacant.
“No. No, she didn’t. Seventy-two,” he said absently, his voice hoarse and soft.
“What?” I asked before catching on. “Oh, um…okay.” I scanned the list and easily found the number he’d asked for.
“Have my heart broken,” I said softly, realizing it probably wasn’t the best one to reveal considering the current devastation written across Jude’s face. I should have just picked the one above it—go to a movie theater.
His eyes searched mine. “Why would you want that?”
“For the same reason I want a crappy prom. You can’t live a normal life without the heartache. It’s all part of the package. My life has been nothing but surgeries, procedures, and living from one test result to the next. I’d gladly trade all of that for a little normalcy. Give me a terrible prom and a hot, sticky day at Disneyland. Let me fall in love even if it means I’ll get hurt in the end. At least then, I’d know that I’m living.”
His fingers brushed mine as he took the book from my lap. He shut it with one hand and set it aside. His gaze never left mine as he shifted forward, narrowing the gap between us. My heart beat faster, feeling the warmth of his body as he came closer to me. His palm cupped the side of my face, and I leaned into his touch.
“I want all those things to happen for you, Lailah. I want to see you cross out each and every item on that list, if that’s what it takes to make you feel alive or normal. The truth is, you are far from normal. You are light-years away from the word. You are exceptional. The word normal would be an insult to your very nature. I get that you want to experience everything under the sun, everything that life has robbed you of by shutting you out and keeping you prisoner to this bed, but there is one thing I will not allow.” His fingers slid into my hair, and his eyes fluttered close ever so briefly before he whispered, “No one will ever break your heart. I can promise you that.”