The Summer Proposal

I smiled sadly. “The feeling is mutual.”

Tate stood next to me. “Do you want me to go in with you?”

I shook my head. “No, I just need a minute.”

“Take all the time you need, sweetheart.” His mother rubbed my back.

After a few deep breaths, I nodded and walked behind the curtain.

My heart stopped. Tate had warned me, but nothing could have prepared me for this moment.

Max didn’t look like Max. If there hadn’t been a curtain around him, I could have passed right by, still looking for the strong, beautiful man I knew. His skin was gray, and his face was so swollen. Tubes and wires were connected all over him, and bandaging wrapped around the top of his head from his eyebrows up. But his lack of expression scared me the most. I hadn’t realized just how much Max’s personality lit his face until now. Whether it was a smile, a smirk, or a frown, he was so animated and expressive. Now he looked…

I couldn’t even let myself think it.

I had to pull myself together and be his strength until he was ready to fight on his own. So I stepped forward to the bed and took his hand.

“Hey. It’s Georgia. You’re going to be okay, Max. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, and we can do this together.” I took a deep breath and squeezed his hand. “I love you, Max. I love you more than anything, and I never got the chance to tell you that. So I need you to get better so I can look in your eyes and make sure you know it.” I shook my head. “I also need to yell at you for hiding all of this from me. Just because you had a little brain surgery doesn’t mean I’m letting you off the hook. I’m sure you know that.”

The curtain rustled behind me. Tate stepped inside. “Just checking to see if you’re okay.”

I nodded and looked back over at Max. “I am. We’re both going to be okay.”

For the next twelve hours, Max’s family and I stayed by his side. Doctors came and went, nurses adjusted monitors and hung new bags of medicine, but Max stayed the same. He didn’t get better or worse. The doctors said they didn’t anticipate any improvement in the short term. They just needed time for him to rest and heal. At midnight, Max’s brothers got everyone together, and we made a schedule for the next twenty-four hours so someone would be by his side at all times, but each of us could get some sleep. Tate, Max’s mom, and I were all going back to Max’s house for a few hours.

But as we walked out of the ICU, I remembered something. “Can you just give me one minute?”

“Of course.”

Max’s brother Will was sitting by his side when I walked back behind the curtain.

“Do you want me to give you a minute?” he asked.

I shook my head and dug into my purse. “No, I just forgot to leave this.” Pulling out Yoda, I set it on the tray next to his bed.

“Is that one of his?”

I nodded. “Yeah, he gave it to me the night we met.”

Will chuckled. “If I had any doubt about you being the one, that just sealed the deal. He knew the day he met you.”

I smiled. “I did, too. It just took me a while to admit it to myself.”

“I’ll keep my eye on the little guy. Go get some sleep.”

“Goodnight, Will. Goodnight, Max.”

CHAPTER 31

* * *

Max

She was snoring.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Georgia. Her head was in the crook of my shoulder in a hospital bed, and her body was curled up in a ball beside me. And she was damn snoring.

I smiled. That might be my new favorite sound ever.

I looked around the dark room, confused. I didn’t remember how I got here, though somehow I did know where I was. Bits and pieces came back to me.

I remembered sitting on the bench, lacing up before the charity hockey game.

I remembered people talking to me while I slept. I could hear them, but they sounded very distant, like they were cutting through a thick wall of fog.

I remembered beeping. And someone washing my face. And being wheeled somewhere. And the nurses and Georgia laughing while they…did something. And the number ninety-six. What was ninety-six?

My throat was dry, and my neck hurt, but I didn’t want to move and wake Georgia. And I was so damn tired. So, so tired. I think I might’ve fallen back asleep for a little while, because when I woke up, Georgia wasn’t snoring anymore. She was staring up at me. Our eyes met, and hers grew wide.

She jolted upright. “Holy shit! Max?”

It was hard to talk because my throat was so dry. “You were snoring.”