The Masked Truth(99)

When her parents told the media they needed money to care for her properly, she shut them down. Said she’s not going home. She’s talking to a social worker. Mom has offered to be her temporary guardian. Brienne’s not sure she wants that. However it works out, I’ll be there for her. She was brave for me. She risked her life to save me. I will repay her for that, in every way I can.

Max joins us partway through my visit. That is not coincidental. I’d texted to say I was going to see her. We visit Brienne together for a while. Then we leave, still together, and he says, “Do you have a few minutes?”

“I texted Sloane to say I don’t need to be picked up for another hour.”

He smiles. “Good.”

He takes my hand and leads me through the hospital without another word. We’re moving fast, ducking down side corridors, tensing every time we hear a voice, and, yes, I do flash back to the warehouse. Like I said, that doesn’t go away. But it’s a quick flash, pushed aside quickly with a wry observation that these last few days I do feel a little bit hunted, in need of escape. Everyone wants to talk to me, it seems.

I’m so glad you survived that. Um, yep, I am too. It must have been terrible. Yes, yes it was. Really and truly terrible, all those kids dying. Yes, and thank you for reminding me. I’d forgotten for three seconds. How are you holding up? I’m vertical. It’s a start. If you need anything … Quiet. Right now, I need peace and quiet, and I know you’re trying to help, and I appreciate that, but I just need a little time to myself, okay?

Max takes me to the one place where we can find that peace. The rooftop. It’s not easy getting there, but he’s scoped out a route that only requires sneaking through two Do Not Enter doors. When we step into the sunshine, the first thing we both do is turn to the huge ventilation system, making enough noise that I swear my teeth are vibrating.

“Hmm,” he says. “Not quite as quiet as I hoped.”

I laugh and tug him across the roof until the noise of the ventilation system fades behind us. We find a spot on the far side and sit on the edge.

“Much better,” he says.

“As long as no one needs that,” I say, hooking my thumb at the helipad behind us.

He smiles, and we sit in comfortable silence, our legs dangling over the edge as we look out at the city, dappled with sunlight, and I savor that sight, because it reminds me how close I came to never seeing it again.

We’re still sitting in silence when something taps my hand, and I look down to see him holding out a jeweler’s box. I take it without a word and open it to find a necklace with a drop-shaped pendant.

“It’s a raindrop,” he says. “Not a teardrop. I realized after I bought it that might require clarification.”

I notice etching, and I lift it to read Right as rain, and my eyes fill with tears.

“I wish I could tell you I really am right as rain,” he says, his voice low. “That everything’s fine now, and things are never going to get that dark for me, and I’m stronger than that, because I want to be stronger than that, I want to show you I can be, but …” He takes a deep breath. “For now, I’m as close to being all right as possible. Much, much closer than I have been in a very long time. It’s not where I want to be, but—”

I turn and throw my arms around him. “I know.”

We hug, and I feel … I feel everything. I’m scared for him and I’m scared for me. Worried for him. Worried for me. Worried for what’s going to happen, and feeling a little bit helpless because I know it’s not up to me, but that I’ll do my best, for both of us, and he’ll do the same, and that’s where it starts. With understanding and with trying and with wanting. And it’s not all fear and worry and anxiety. There’s more. So much more.

I hug him, and I’m happy. That’s what it comes down to. He makes me happy, and he makes me a better person, and he makes me stronger, and I can only hope that I do the same for him, and if I do, then the rest doesn’t matter.

I pull back, and then I take out the necklace and he helps me fasten it.

“I looked it up, you know,” I say. “Where the phrase comes from.”

He smiles. “Of course you did. And?”

“No one has a bloody clue.”

He throws back his head and laughs. “In other words, it’s utter rubbish.”

“No,” I say. “In other words, it means whatever we want it to mean. So I say that we are, in our own very special way, right as rain.”

“We are indeed,” he says, and leans over to kiss me.





MAX: INCREDULITY


Incredulity: the state of being unable to believe something.



That is what Max felt, sitting in class, catching a glimpse of Riley waiting outside the window. Incredulity. Not that he is surprised to see her there, considering she drove him and will take him home again. No, the incredulity is more a general sense of wonder, that she is there, that she is still there, that she might continue to be there, and that nothing he has said or done in the past six weeks has changed that.

He looks at the instructor, wrapping up class with a note about the assignment. Would Max have imagined himself here a few months ago? Dreamed of it, yes. Believed it possible? No. It was Riley who had brought him registration information for a creative writing class, just something to get him out of the house. His mother had not been pleased. Not at all. She’d told him, in no uncertain terms, that she would not allow it until they were completely certain his medication was working and maybe next fall … a full year away.