Some Quiet Place (Some Quiet Place #1)(42)
This girl really is an extraordinary being. Lying in this hos-
pital bed, shrinking away before my eyes, she thinks about how hard this is for me. I blink, pursing my lips, unsure how to respond to such sentiment. “What’s the secret you wanted to tell me?” I finally say.
She turns her head again to look out the window. It’s a cloudy day out; no rain, but no sun either. Unfair that on a day like this there shouldn’t be brilliance for her.
Maggie swallows several times before admitting, “I’m afraid.” Her breathing becomes more frantic, and I do the first thing my instincts tell me to do: I lean over and I hug her. She hugs me back, desperate for comfort, for someone to tell her everything’s going to be okay. Now Fear is there, among the others, but for the first time I barely notice him.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” I whisper in Maggie’s ear. “You’re going to be all right. You’ll see. You’ll see.” Empty words from an empty person.
She lets out a ragged breath in my ear, and I know that even as gentle as I’m trying to be, I’m causing her pain. I pull away, and Maggie lets me go reluctantly.
“It just wasn’t supposed to end like this.” She looks at me with red-rimmed eyes and yellow skin. Colors should be a good thing, but now, they’re marks, omens of bad tidings. “I was supposed to grow up, go to college, get a job,” she continues in that gut-clenching croak. “Meet my dream guy, marry, have k-kids. You were going to live next door and we would grow old in the same nursing home. Chuck oatmeal at each other and watch soap operas all day in our rocking chairs. That was my daydream. My perfect life. I don’t want to keep asking myself why until the end, but … ” A lone tear trails down her sunken cheek. This time I don’t reach out to wipe the water away; I let it go. Down, down, until it drips off the side of her jaw. This is humanity. This is life and death in one room.
Time is running out. I feel the air drawing closer, sense the Element we all meet once in a lifetime coming this way. I cup Maggie’s bald head in my hand, leaning close a third time to offer her a sweet story. Truth or not, I don’t know, but I won’t send her on her way afraid.
“There’s a place”—my voice is a whisper again—“that everyone goes when they die. It’s beautiful, so perfect it seems unreal. There’s always sunlight, and when it rains the water is warm and glittering, so that you can dance in the storm without having to worry about sickness or danger. Your friends and family are waiting there for you, they’re so excited to see you. All those babies your mother didn’t get to have are there, all your brothers and sisters. In this place you can have that perfect life you want. There are gorgeous cities and everything is so easy there. Time passes much more quickly, so that by the time I get there you won’t even realize it’s been a while.”
Something dark moves out of the corner of my eye, and the room chills. When I glance over, I see Death, watching us patiently. He’s so hard to look at. He’s everything and nothing. Beautiful and ugly, terrible and wonderful. His eyes are black waters that are too easy to drown in. I can’t even look at what he’s wearing; it’s impossible to look away from that face. He doesn’t spare me a glance—Maggie is who he’s come for.
I move to get her parents, but she stops me. “Elizabeth?” Maggie’s eyes have begun to flutter, and since my hand is on her wrist I feel her heart accelerate and slow down at the same time. “Don’t stop talking. Your voice is so pretty … like bells … ”
“I’m right here,” I say, tearing my gaze away from Death. I act like he’s not there at all, act like the dozens of Emotions in the room aren’t there. “I’m not going to leave you.”
“How long until I see you again?” She’s fading fast now. I should go get her parents. But I don’t move. It would seem like a betrayal to her, somehow.
I press my hand to her forehead, her cheek, her hand. “Soon. Don’t wait up for me, okay?”
Death doesn’t move, but his power is a gentle, unstoppable force. She doesn’t even get a chance to answer me, because Maggie Stone is gone. When I look to Death again, he’s gone, too. All that’s left of my best friend is the shell in the bed. Quiet, empty, nothing.
Sixteen
I sit on the front steps of the school during lunch hour. I stare down at the sidewalk, waiting for the bell to ring so I can go inside and get back to class. A shadow falls over me, but I don’t bother glancing up. Only one person would make the effort to seek me out.
Joshua doesn’t try to say anything. He just stands there. After a while he sits down. Silence. A bird calls. A car goes by. Joshua chews the inside of his lip, and I know what he’s thinking: he’s debating over the right words, how to comfort me. He can’t begin to comprehend that none of it matters, that no comfort is needed. I let him flounder.
He finally chooses to say what thousands, millions before him have said. “I’m sorry.”
Feeling his gaze on me, I just count the lines in that sidewalk. I expected something different from him, somehow.
When I don’t respond, Joshua clears his throat. “I know people around here aren’t making that big a deal out of it, but it’s because none of them knew Maggie. I knew her, though. She was in one of my art classes, once. She made fun of my tree.” He laughs at the memory. I can imagine the scene, and it’s classic Maggie. Decked out in all her black and skulls, she’s pointing at his sketchpad and laughing.