Page 84

“Hi, I don’t know if you remember me-”
“You’re Mackenzie. Gabriel’s friend.”
Right. Just his friend.
I step inside, my heels loud on the tile floor, and quickly take a seat next to her, noticing her mom isn’t here this time. “How are you doing?”
“My knee itches,” she states bluntly, lifting her left leg under the covers. “Will you itch it?”
“Oh, of course.” I lean forward and scratch, trying not to stare at how painfully slight she is. “Is that better?”
She nods, her brown eyes seemingly bigger with no brows. But when she smiles, that adorable gap in her bottom teeth on display, you forget about anything she may have lost temporarily.
“Do you have a crush on Gabriel?” she whispers excitedly, completely derailing my thoughts.
“Um, what now?”
“He came here Sunday morning.”
I shake the cobwebs from my mind, trying to get up to speed with her wild changes in topic. “Doesn’t he visit on Fridays?”
“He does. But he made a special trip. And he asked what I thought of you.”
Sunday morning… He must have asked me to lunch right afterward. And later that night, I went over to his apartment. “What… what did you say?” Oh my God, am I actually nervous about what an eight year old girl thinks of me?
Yes. Yes, I am.
“I said he should marry you instead. But then he got this sad look on his face and started talking about other stuff. But I’m not a baby. I know he has a crush on you.”
I ignore the way the butterflies are swirling in my stomach, but can’t help the small smile that creeps over my lips.
“And you do too.”
God, did I ever have such blatant confidence at her age? “Maybe a tiny one,” I admit, biting my lip.
“You two doing okay?” the nurse from earlier asks, sticking her head in the door.
“We’re fine, Ruby,” Kaia sighs, practically shooing her out of the room.
“Stay hydrated,” she says, motioning to a styrofoam cup on the tray next to her.
Kaia grumbles but makes a big show of grabbing it and slurping from the straw loudly.
When Ruby’s gone from sight, she sets it down again, turning to me with eager eyes. “You should tell Gabriel you love him. That way he can marry you.”
Wait, how did we jump from a crush to love? I came here to get out of my head, not burrow down deep and make things worse.
“It’s not that easy, sweetie. There are a lot of complicated factors...” I trail off, knowing I can’t explain it all to an eight year old. “Being an adult is hard sometimes,” I shrug, giving her a soft smile. “You don’t always get what you want.”
She stares at me, her eyes seeming to gain a weight that someone her age shouldn’t have. But this isn’t just any girl. She’s facing cancer every day, facing death. “I’ve learned here that life can be really short. You can’t waste it.”
I bite my lip so I won’t cry at her words. “That’s such good advice, Kaia. Thank you.”
I’m not wasting my life, though. Right? Working toward my dreams? My goals? That’s worthy of a few sacrifices along the way.
And I’ve had this dream for infinitely longer than the amount of time I’ve known Gabriel. Besides that, he’s got his own reasons for keeping his marriage to Serena on track.
I stay another twenty minutes, sticking to non-Gabriel topics, and make my goodbyes, but on the subway ride home and long walk up my building’s stairwell, I can’t seem to shake her words. My visit somehow ended up with me more muddled than before.
If any woman I knew asked me what was more important - her dreams or a man - I’d laugh in her face and tell her that no man is worth giving anything up for.
So why is the same advice to myself so much harder to take?