Page 1 of Maybe We Can Fake It

PROLOGUE

BRENDEN

Ihatehospitals.

Hospitals smell like sick people, they have ugly fluorescent lights that highlight the sick people’s sick faces, and people go into hospitals and don’t come out. That’s what happened to my parents less than a year ago, and now it’s happening again. To my best friend.

I can’t lose April too. I can’t.

But I’m going to.

And knowing it ahead of time doesn’t make it any easier.

Although I guess there’s no easy way to lose people. Whether it’s sudden like a car crash or slowly like with a terminal disease... the ending is the same.

The nurse at the desk points me toward the correct wing, and I steel myself before walking through the giant automatic doors. As much as I don’t want to do this, I need to remember that this isn’t about me. This is about April, and she wants to see me. I want to see her too, only I’m worried that I won’t be able to hold it together in front of her.

Since hearing the news, the final verdict—about a month to live—I’ve cried so much that hopefully I’ll have no tears left to spill in front of her.

Losing my parents at twenty years old was the worst thing to ever happen to me. But April was there for me through that. She’s been there for me most of my life. When I came out in eighth grade, she was the one who got the bullies to back off me after she kneed Jeremy Mathers in the balls and made him cry. I finally managed to find my stride in high school, but then I was nervous about starting college and she was right there beside me, matching her class schedule up with mine.

Now I have to say goodbye.

I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to my parents. The paramedics were able to extract them both from the car, but they died shortly after reaching the hospital. And while I spent so many days after they were gone thinking up all the things I would’ve said to them if I’d had time, I can’t think of one single thing I want to say to April now.

Exceptplease don’t go.

Today isn’t the day for goodbye speeches, though. Today I just need to show up for her. The way she’s done for me countless times in my life.

I reach the outside of room 403 and pause. Deep breath.

All right, I can do this.

I knock tentatively on the doorframe and hear a chorus of permission to enter.

Stepping into the room, my eyes scan everything—the sterile white walls, empty cabinets, beeping machines, wires and plastic tubing, April’s parents sitting beside each other in two armchairs in the corner, the wriggling baby in Elise’s lap—before I force myself to look at my best friend.

She’s pale, lying propped up in the hospital bed in one of those ugly white gowns with a weird pattern. Her hair is dyed lightpink, a change from the teal it was two weeks ago, the last time I saw her. It almost makes me laugh.

“Nice hair,” I say, barely able to keep my voice from cracking.

She smiles. “What? You think just because I’m sick, that means I’ll get boring?”

“No.” I swallow around the lump in my throat. “You could never be boring.”

A small sigh comes from her mom in the corner, and it’s hard to say what that means. The Richardsons were always kind of strict. Or maybe not strict, exactly, but they liked conformity. And that clashed with April’s deep-seated desire to be original. She used to get in trouble for things like dying her hair without permission, but she did it anyway. Now I’d wager her parents would happily let her do whatever she wanted if that would only stop this disease from taking her.

“Too bad I won’t be able to convince you to get that tattoo with me,” April says.

The tiny laugh that escapes me is pained. She’s been on me about getting a tattoo since we both turned eighteen. I’m all for every person decorating their body however they choose, but needles terrify me, so I always told her there was no chance of that happening.

But you know what? I’d walk out of here, find the nearest tattoo shop, and get a full sleeve right now if that would be enough to save her.

“Brenden,” Grant, her father, says, “why don’t you take this chair? I’ve been sitting for days. My legs could use a stretch.”

I murmur a thanks when he brings it over to me so I can sit by April’s bed.

“Maybe you two should go get something to eat,” April tells her parents.

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