Page 3 of Maybe We Can Fake It

“What does that mean?” I ask, distracted by May bouncing on my thighs.

“Brenden.” April’s serious tone yanks my focus back to her. “I’m asking if you’ll adopt her and raise her once I’m gone.”

Everything in the room goes still and silent. Or maybe the low beeping of the machines has been drowned out by the sudden whirring noise in my head. May stops bouncing, as if she’s just as stunned by her mother’s words as I am.

“You want...” I say. “Adopt... I...”

“I know it’s a monumental thing to ask of you. It’s way more than I have the right to. But...” She pauses, gestures vaguely at her own body in the bed, at the machines she’s hooked up to, and lets out a small, humorless laugh. “But I’m dying. So I’m asking you anyway, because I need to.”

At her bluntness, the ability to speak finally comes back to me. “But why me? What about your parents? That doesn’t make any sense. Obviously, they’ll raise her.”

She glances down at her arm, drawing my attention to the bruising on the inside of her elbow. They must be sticking a lot of needles through there. Selfishly, I’m glad I haven’t been here to witness it. “They could. But I don’t want them to. I want you to do it.”

“Why?” I ask again, a sharp tinge of desperation on the word. I’m twenty-one. I’m not ready to be a father.

“Because you love her.”

My eyes swing back to May’s perfect face. The blue eyes, the chubby cheeks. Of course I love her, but that doesn’t mean I’d be the best parent for her. I have one more year of college, and then... Well, I don’t know, really. My future has always felt like this entirely vague concept, something I didn’t need to have all figured out ahead of time. I’ve always had this idealistic belief that I’d just somehow end up where I was supposed to.

“And she already loves you,” April continues, making this totally crazy idea begin to sound slightly less crazy with every word. “Yes, I know my parents love her, and I know they’d keep her healthy and safe and provided for.”

“They’d be able to provide for her better than I would,” I say. “They’d know what they’re doing.”

She shakes her head. “Brenden, Iknowyou’re the right choice. She deserves more than just a roof over her head and food to eat. If she grows up to be anything like me, she’s going to need someone who will understand her, who won’t try to force her into some bullshit societal role she doesn’t want. I want my daughter to grow up in a house filled with music and games and laughter. I want her to be healthy, but also to know that sometimes it’s okay to have cookies for dinner.”

I laugh despite how much I want to cry. This can’t be happening. How is it fair that this little girl in my arms is going to grow up without ever really knowing her mother? How is it possible that I’m about to lose my best friend right after I lost my parents?

How am I supposed to survive in this world alone?

“I...”

“Please think about it,” she says. “Sometimes you doubt yourself, but you’re strong as hell. And I know May will be strong too if you teach her how.”

To prove her point, May starts marching in place in tiny little steps atop my thighs. My need to hold tightly to her right now formy own comfort is overwhelming, but I resist the desire to crush her small body against me.

“What if I mess it up?” I ask, my voice breaking pathetically on the end.

April smiles at me, and for a moment, I imagine she’s not sick. She’s just my best friend, and we’re talking about something silly, like whether that cute guy in my economics class was flirting with me or not. “As long as you love her,” she assures me, “you can’t mess it up.”

My mind is racing with thoughts of what I’d need to do. If I could stay in school, do I have enough money from my parents’ estate to hire a nanny, would I trust anyone else with May, is Philadelphia the safest place to raise a child... And under all this is the horrible thought that I’d be doing everything alone. Because April would be gone.

A choked sob escapes me, startling May. I gently hug her to my chest before she starts to cry, and I stare at April, struggling to hold back my own tears. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“I know,” she says softly.

And fuck, I’m a piece of shit, making this about me. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not. She should be the one who gets to cry, not me.

But she’s not crying. She looks calm, her eyes moving gently between her daughter’s face and mine. And then she says, “I’ve had time to think about this. There’s not much to do in this bed besides think. So if you need time too, I understand. But Brenden. I don’t only want you to have May because I know she’ll need you. I want you to have her because I know you’ll need her. Once I’m gone, I don’t want you to be alone.”

Oh god.The fact that she’s thinking about me at a time like this, that she’s worrying about me when she’s the one going through something terrible, is why I love her so damn much. It’s why I don’t know what I’ll do or how I’ll make it without her.

But then I look at the baby in my lap who has brought me so much joy since the day she was born. And with a sudden clarity, I realize what I’m seeing right in front of me.

My future.

“Okay,” I say, and the floor feels solid beneath me for the first time since walking into this hospital room. “I’ll be her father.”

CHAPTER ONE

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