That was Maya.
Even when she was scared, she wanted everyone else laughing.
For a while, we let ourselves believe she’d still make it to graduation.
Then the doctors stopped talking about recovery.
And started talking about time.
One Thursday afternoon in April, Maya surprised me.
“I want to go shopping.”
I looked at her.
She was sitting upright in her hospital bed, wrapped in a blanket, her face thinner than it had been a month earlier.
“For what?”
“My graduation dress.”
My stomach tightened.
“Maya…”
“I know.”
Her voice softened.
“I still want one.”
So we went.
The hospital gave us a few hours.
Eli came too.
We drove twenty minutes to a little boutique in a neighboring town because Maya refused to shop anywhere somebody from school might see her wearing the ridiculous hospital bracelet she couldn’t remove.
She rejected seven dresses.
