Page 70 of Wish For Me

I sold her short.

“He didn’t wake up today,” I whisper. “The doctors tried something to wake him up and he didn’t.”

A long silence passes, where the sound of the creek trickling over the rocks fills my ears. The birds have moved on, leaping and fluttering in the brush by the water.

“Whatever happens with Leif,” Mom says, “I know you’ll be okay, honey. You’ll make him proud. You’ll make us all proud.”

I can’t speak. I can only blink, and look at the birds, wondering what I was ever scared of, and hold my mom’s hand.

* * *

There are so many of them the next night. Aunts, uncles, grandparents. Nieces, nephews, cousins. Friends. Colleagues. More who don’t look related to the Kelly’s at all. One of Connie’s friends flew in from Florida. Another from New Mexico. Even my parents and brother and Marissa, shockingly, are here—she texted me, I told her what was happening, and she just dropped everything and showed up.

“That’s what happens when tragedy strikes,” Mom says. “People hold you up.”

“I can’t believe they let them all in,” Sasha says to me now, her voice soft and distant and barely there, the way it’s been since it happened. I squeeze her hand. Someone pulled some strings with the nurses. I don’t know who. I just hold her up, as best I can.

Once everyone’s gathered around Leif’s bed, his dad clears his throat.

“Thank you for being here,” Griffin says, his voice as broken as he looks. Deep lines cleave his face—he’s aged a decade since Leif’s accident. He looks to Sasha. Her lips are tight, her face pale. But when Griffin looks to me, as he and Sasha have been doing over the course of these terrible days, I give him an encouraging smile.

My heart feels like shattered glass, but I reserve my pain for the hidden corners of the hospital. The bathroom. And the rare private moment by Leif’s side.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Griffin says, “and I know you all want to be home with your families—”

“No,” Enzo says, cutting him off. His eyes are rimmed red. He’s taken this hard. He was on the phone; he heard the car hit Leif. “I don’t know about everyone else, but this is exactly where I want to be.”

“You’re our family, Griff,” Cass says.

Murmurs of assent ripple across the crowd. Sasha’s eyes spill over with tears and I squeeze her hand. She clings tight as Griffin nods.

“The doctors are being cautious with their prognosis,” he says. “But Sasha, Noelle, and I are choosing to believe Leif is going to be okay. I’m not a religious man, But Leif is religious about his love for this universe we live in. So I’m making a request to the stars above tonight, and today, we need your help.”

He looks to me then, along with Sasha. Everyone follows their gaze. From my pocket, I pull out the thing I found in my coat pocket after conquering the birds: the little gold necklace Leif took into space. I held onto it until now, feeling like I needed everyone’s strength to imbue the little piece of jewelry. I affix it around Leif’s neck, resting the clover against the pulse in his throat.

Then I clear my throat and set my shoulders back. I’m a trained actor, not a singer. But singing was a part of my education, and I can hold a tune. My voice is clear as I begin the first line of Silent Night.

At first, no one joins me. But when she sees me look imploringly at the crowd, Leif’s aunt Reese, the actual singer, joins in, harmonizing with my melody. A moment later everyone’s singing along, and to me, it sounds like a chorus of angels.

After the last note, we sit in the silence for a moment. Then Griffin asks that no one say goodbye to Leif. “We’ll all be saying hello to him soon.” His confidence threatens to crack my heart in two.

Tear-drenched hugs and goodbyes amongst the rest of us ensue a moment later. My parents both squeeze me so tightly I can hardly breathe, and Mom hands me a cloth bag I set down in the chair unopened. Snacks, probably. She’s been the only reason any of us are eating anything at all.

I hug her again, whispering thank you.

Dan hugs me too, for once without a drop of brotherly head ruffling or teasing. “Love you,” he says.

A short while later, it’s just me and Leif’s parents around the bedside, along with a doctor who waited on their rounds until the crowd had left. She shines a flashlight in Leif’s eyes and writes notes.

As she tucks her flashlight back in her pocket, Sasha grabs her arm, looking at her with such pain my heart does crack then.

“Why didn’t he wake up?” Sasha asks, her voice anguished. “When you did that thing?”

“It’s possible he wasn’t ready,” the doctor says. It’s the same thing she said yesterday. But today, she glances at all of us, and says, “But I’m afraid you’ll also have to prepare yourselves for the possibility that he won’t wake up.”

Sasha sucks in a shuddering breath and turns into Griffin’s chest.

There’s nothing else we can do but wait.

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