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Maddie doesn’t know how she ends up in her brother’s loft.
One moment, she’s driving home after a much-needed diaper run, and the next, she’s pulling up in front of Evan’s building.
She sits in her car for a few minutes and wonders if she should even bother going up knowing that the loft is empty, and has been empty for a whole week. With her brother in the hospital, there’s nothing for her here, no reason for her to go inside–
Before Maddie knows it, she’s leaving the car and getting on the elevator.
She doesn’t know what her plan is. If she’s going to sit at the table and think about all those times that Evan sat across from her with Jee on his lap. Or if she’s going to stand on the balcony and picture him walking through the door with drinks in his hands.
Or if she’s going to sit on the steps and cry.
She hasn’t cried since the accident. Not really. She came close when she got the news, but Jee-Yun was with her when Chimney called and she didn’t want to scare her daughter by breaking down into tears. When she was allowed to see her brother, it was only for a quick minute before they dragged him away for another series of tests and she had been so shocked at seeing Evan so pale, so quiet, so still that she just stood there in silence, her eyes just as dry as her throat.
She shed a few tears while on the phone with her parents, but that was different. Those tears were out of anger and frustration because, even after explaining to them that Evan was hurt, that it was bad– that he was in a coma , her parents refused to reschedule their flight back to Hershey to come see him at the hospital. Something about an important retirement party that they had to attend. Maddie doesn’t know, she hung up in the middle of her mother’s frantic explanation.
She still doesn’t know what she’ll say if her brother asks why their parents aren’t here, why they didn’t stay. Then again, if Evan can ask, it’ll mean he’s awake and then, he would have to be able to pull himself away from Maddie’s vice grip to notice that their parents are nowhere to be seen.
God, if he wakes up she’s going to hug him so hard they’re going to need the Jaws of Life to pry them apart.
‘When’ not ‘if’, Maddie thinks, when he wakes up.
The elevator pings. She steps out.
As she makes her way through the familiar hallway, Maddie considers if maybe that’s why she hasn’t let herself cry. A part of her feels like crying would mean admitting her brother is gone, that she’s mourning him, that he’s not going to wake up.
And he can’t- He can’t be gone.
Maddie’s just the first one of a very long list of people who love him, who have been taking turns sitting at his bedside for seven days, begging him to wake up, who would be devastated if Buck died. There’s Bobby and Athena, Hen and Chimney, there’s Maddie and Jee. There’s Eddie and Christopher.
God, Eddie and Christopher.
Maddie was there when Eddie finally brought Christopher to see Evan. She knew Eddie had been putting it off, hoping that Buck would wake up before he finally caved to Christopher’s pleas to see him. But a whole week of wandering around the hospital, getting little to no sleep at all, had probably left Eddie feeling too tired to refuse his kid any longer, so he’d finally said yes.
She was on her way out of Evan’s room, heading home to her own kid when Christopher and Eddie walked in, Eddie’s hand set firmly on his son’s shoulder.
They didn’t say much to each other, already used to running into the other at the hospital– one of them asking if anything had changed and the other ruefully shaking their head. After doing that, Maddie kissed Christopher’s head, told him that Buck would be very happy to hear his voice, and gave Eddie’s arm a squeeze before heading out.
She lingered by the door, watching as Christopher sat down next to the bed and reached for something in his backpack.
“Hey, Buck,” Christopher said softly. “Dad says you can’t talk, but you can hear me. I miss you. I brought the Percy Jackson book we’ve been reading. I thought I could read to you like you always read to me.” When he got no response, he looked up at Eddie in question. He nodded, telling Chris to go on. The moment his son’s eyes were no longer on him, Maddie saw his face change entirely. It was only for a moment, before he managed to pull himself together again, but Maddie still saw the grief-stricken expression. It pulled at her heartstrings, and at that moment, she wanted nothing but to wrap her arms around Eddie and tell him everything was going to be okay. To wrap them around Christopher too.
Instead, she stepped out of the room and headed home to her kid who, much like Christopher, kept asking for Buck. Too young to understand why he hadn’t been around.
Maddie had always thought she and Eddie had a lot in common, and not just their close relationship with Buck. Just last year they’d both been in a bad place roughly at the same time. She doesn’t know exactly what Eddie went through after being shot and Eddie doesn’t know the details of why she left or her struggles with her postpartum depression or with coming back home to her baby after six months of not seeing her, but she knows they both needed help and Evan was there to offer it to them. Now they’re both in the same place as the other again– worried about losing a brother and a partner while being forced to keep it together and stay strong for their children. Only this time, they don’t have Evan to help them.
A door down the hall opens and a couple walks out, talking to each other, and Maddie realizes she’s just been standing in front of Evan’s apartment, staring at the door. She doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there, but it’s going to be weird if she continues to do it, so she rummages through her bag for her keys and then looks for the one Evan gave her when he first moved in.
She’s only had to use it a handful of times, mostly when Evan needed help after his leg was crushed by that engine. But that was a long time ago and Maddie can’t help but feel a little weird about walking into his brother’s empty loft.
Or what Maddie thinks is her brother’s empty loft.
The door just clicked behind her when Maddie realizes she’s not alone and freezes.
Her first thought is Evan and then he’s awake , but her brain quickly catches up, and realizes that – well, it makes no sense. If Evan was awake you would’ve heard by now, someone would’ve called you, there’s no way they would’ve let him leave the hospital so soon.
Which means that whoever’s here isn’t Evan.
Maddie knows she should leave. She should go home and tell Chimney about this so they can come back together and make sure no one broke into her brother’s apartment after noticing it had been empty for an entire week. Maybe she should call Athena, just to be safe.
It would be stupid to stay here by herself. She shouldn’t even be here in the first place.
Maddie turns around, ready to leave, reaches for the doorknob and–
And then she freezes again because she hears it, the sound that made her realize she wasn’t alone in the first place. Only this time she can place it.
Crying.
She drops her hand, turns on her heels, and steps further into the loft. There’s no one in the kitchen or the dining table, which is as much as she can see from there. Then she takes a few more steps, her head whipping around, looking for the source of the sound.
When she finds it, Maddie’s heart all but plummets to the floor.
On the steps of the loft sits Eddie, hunched over, hiding his face in the soft fabric of what looks like one of her brother’s sweaters. And he’s crying.
No. He’s sobbing. An onslaught of gut-wrenching sobs tearing through his chest with so much force that his whole body shakes with it.
Oh, Eddie.
She doesn’t realize she says it out loud, not until Eddie sits up, uncovering his face, and oh.
Maddie’s heart breaks a little more.
Eddie’s eyes are red-rimmed and wet, tears caught in his long eyelashes. They fall when Eddie blinks at her, adding to the tear streaks already on his cheeks.
Her eyes dip down to his hands which are shaking a little and holding what she can confirm is one of Evan’s sweaters, now with a dark wet spot from Eddie’s tears.
She watches as Eddie tries to put himself together as soon as he notices her; he clenches his jaw, squares his shoulders and he takes a few shuddering breaths, but it’s almost as if now that he let out all that he’s been keeping inside for the last week, he can’t find a way to shove it back in. His expression is still grief-stricken. Heartbroken.
“Maddie,” Eddie says, his voice hoarse from crying. He clears his throat, wiping furiously at his face with his hand. “I didn’t hear you come in, what are you- why are you here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Maddie says and wonders, for the first time since she found Eddie, why he’s at Evan’s apartment. Her blood runs cold when her brain suggests that something might have happened, something that led him to the state she found him in.
Oh God, Eddie had been at the hospital–
“Did something happen to Evan? Is he-” Maddie can’t bring herself to finish the question, her heart in her throat, her eyes welling up. This is it, the tears she’s managed to keep in for a week, they’re coming because her brother is–
“He’s okay,” Eddie says. “He’s- there hasn’t been any change.”
She sighs in relief. “Oh, thank God. Chimney said you were at the hospital and I thought-” she shakes her head. “Is anyone with him right now?”
“Yeah, Bobby, he uh- he was the one who sent me away,” Eddie explains. Maddie notices that the tears haven’t stopped running down his face, Eddie swipes at them uselessly, but ignores them otherwise. Maddie does the same. “I was supposed to go home and get some sleep, but I uh- I ended up here.”
Maddie gives him a sympathetic smile. “I was driving home from the store and before I knew it, I was parked out front,” she says, speaking softly. Gently . She doesn’t want Eddie to storm off when he’s like this. “I figured since I was here I could, I don’t know tidy up maybe, throw away whatever might’ve gone bad in the fridge.” Cry on the steps. That’s one thing Maddie thought she could do. She didn’t expect Eddie to beat her to it.
Eddie nods. “That’s- It’s how I found this,” he says, holding up the sweater. “It was on the table, Buck was wearing it the day before he uh- we were taking Chris to the movies and we both showed up wearing green and Buck said- he said he wanted to match with us so he changed.” His mouth twitches up in a sad smile. “Christopher was so embarrassed.”
“Of course he was,” Maddie smiles, picturing Christopher rolling his eyes like any pre-teen would at his embarrassing parents. One of which is currently in a coma. “How is he?”
Eddie’s smile falls, and so do a few other tears. “He keeps asking when he can see Buck again,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t want to keep making excuses. I don’t. But taking him there that first time was hard enough. He’s a brave kid, Maddie, but he’s- he’s still a kid, you know? He shouldn’t see Buck like this. He’s been through so much already. He’s lost so much.”
“He’s not the only one,” Maddie says softly.
She thinks about Shannon. Maddie never actually met her, but she was at her funeral. She doesn’t remember much about it, but she remembers seeing Eddie and Christopher holding on to each other once it was finished, she remembers her heart breaking for them. She remembers feeling a little better when she saw Evan walk up to them, squeezing Eddie’s shoulder and picking up Christopher before carrying him to Eddie’s car. She remembers thinking well, at least they’re not alone. At least they have him.
But now–
Now if Evan doesn’t wake up, Christopher will have lost another parent and Eddie will have lost another partner.
She feels the telltale prickle of tears start to build up behind her eyes.
Eddie swallows thickly. “I’m fine,” he says, but Maddie finds that impossible to believe. It must show on her face because Eddie insists. “I am, Maddie. I just- I know it’s not fair, not letting Chris see Buck when I see him every day, but I don’t want this to be how he remembers him if-”
Eddie doesn’t say it, it’s like he can’t bring himself to do it, but Maddie hears it anyway. He doesn’t want this to be how Christopher remembers Buck if he doesn’t wake up.
Her fists tighten around the straps of her bag at the thought. Eddie notices and drops his head between his hunched shoulders.
“Fuck, Maddie, I’m sorry, he’s your brother, you don’t need to hear this-”
Maddie tilts her head, her face scrunching up in sympathy. “It sounds like you need to let it out-”
With a shake of his head, Eddie says, “I’m fine. I need to be strong, for Christopher.”
“Christopher isn’t here, it’s just me,” Maddie says, dropping to her knees on the steps and looking up at Eddie. “And I know how you feel, Eddie, I know what it’s like to have to keep it together in front of a kid that keeps asking for Buck to come home. Jee might be too young to understand, but kids know when something’s wrong. You have to be careful with everything you say and do and it’s exhausting. I feel like I’m about to break down every time she asks about Uncle Buck.”
Eddie bites his lip. “I just- I want to tell Christopher that he’s going to be okay, but I don’t know and I-”
“You don’t want to lie to him,” she finishes.
He nods. “I- I think that’s why I came here. I’m so tired of going home and having to tell Christopher that Buck’s still-” His face twists like he feels bad for saying that. “Does that make me a bad father? I- I should be there for my son and instead, I’m hiding here.”
Maddie is shaking her head before Eddie’s done talking. “Eddie, you’re not a bad father, you don’t have to be strong all the time.”
“I just don’t know for how much longer I can do it,” Eddie admits, his voice only slightly above a whisper. Maddie grabs his arm, giving it a squeeze. “We don’t know for how long this is going to go on. We don’t know if-”
And Maddie hears it again– what Eddie can’t bring himself to say.
We don’t know if Buck’s going to wake up.
“Eddie-”
“I know I shouldn’t think like that,” Eddie says, letting his head hang between his shoulders, probably so Maddie can’t see him shed a few more tears. “It doesn’t help anyone, but it’s been a week and the doctors say there hasn’t been any change, his body is starting to shut down-”
Maddie’s other hand also grabs Eddie’s arm. “Evan is strong,” she says, giving it another squeeze and putting as much confidence in her words as possible. Both for Eddie and for herself. “He’s gonna make it, Eddie. He’s gonna wake up.”
After a moment where all that can be heard are Eddie’s slightly shuddering breaths, he lifts his head and looks at her through damp eyelashes. “Do you really believe that?”
She gives a little shrug. “I’m trying to.”
“For Jee?”
“For Buck,” she says, her own eyes prickling a little with tears. “He’s never let us down. When- when I left, he never stopped believing I would come back. When I thought I wasn’t cut out to be a mother, he never let me believe it. I think I owe him at least that.”
“He’s never let me down either,” Eddie says, his voice only slightly above a whisper. “And I believe in him, I do, but waiting-” He trails off with a shake of his head. “I just wish there was something I could do.”
“Eddie, you got him off that ladder,” Maddie says and Eddie looks up at her with wide eyes.
When Chimney gave her the news, she’d asked to hear exactly what happened. She wanted to know what happened to her brother, what they were dealing with. She’d never been more grateful for Eddie than she was when Chimney told her that after lightning hit and sent Buck flying, Eddie climbed that electrified ladder like his life depended on it and lowered Buck to the ground in record time. “You saved his life,” she says, sounding a little choked up to her own ears.
Eddie shakes his head. “No, Chimney and Hen did that-”
“After you got him down,” Maddie says. “Someone else might have frozen or- or hesitated, knowing they could get hit by lightning too, but you didn’t. You risked your life to save him.”
“He did it first,” Eddie mutters. Maddie tilts her head to the side.
Eddie swallows thickly. “When- when I was shot. I don’t remember all of it, but I remember lying there, the sniper was still taking shots and everyone was taking cover, but Buck- he risked his life and got me out of there. He saved my life.”
“Is that why you climbed up that ladder?” Maddie asks even if she already knows the answer.
“No.” Eddie shakes his head. “I wasn’t trying to pay it forward. I climbed that ladder because I can’t- I can’t lose him, Maddie, he’s-”
Maddie doesn’t push as Eddie struggles to find a word to describe what Buck is to him, she simply rubs her thumb over his arm in a soothing motion. She sees it in his face when he finds the word, but it’s like he can’t bring himself to say it, or maybe he doesn’t want the first person to hear it to be anyone but Buck.
It’s okay. Maddie doesn’t need him to say it. “I know,” she says. And she does, she knows all too well. She would have climbed up a ladder in the middle of a lightning storm to get to Chimney too. “And I think,” she starts, treading carefully. Eddie looks at her. “I think Evan knows too, but you should still tell him. When he wakes up.”
Eddie nods, wiping his cheeks now that the tears finally stopped. He looks slightly more put together than he did when Maddie found him, but he still might need a little more time before he can go home to Christopher without worrying him.
“I should- I should probably go,” Eddie says before she can even voice her thoughts. He stands up and Maddie has no choice but to let go of his arm, her hands falling to her lap. “I need to send Carla home and make sure Christopher did his homework and had something to eat-”
“When was the last time you had something to eat?” Maddie asks, using the banister to lift herself up, her knee popping. If Evan was here, he would make a joke about her growing old. If Evan was here, he wouldn’t let Eddie leave when he’s like this. Maddie isn’t about to let it happen either.
No matter how much Eddie seems like he wants to run out the door. “I, uh. I had breakfast when I left the house this morning.”
Maddie’s eyebrows fly into her hairline. “That’s it?”
Eddie shrugs. He’s still holding Evan’s sweater and he bunches it up in his hands, fidgeting under her stare. “I don’t like hospital food and I was there all day-”
With a firm nod, Maddie says, “I’m making you something to eat.”
“Maddie, I- I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking, I’m offering,” she says, walking toward the kitchen. “I’m sure Evan has something I can use-”
“Maddie-”
She turns around, levels Eddie with a motherly stare that has him stopping in his tracks, and says, “Eddie, Christopher is with Carla and I’m sure she’s taking good care of him. He’s probably all done with his homework and well-fed. You, on the other hand, haven’t eaten for hours and look like someone kicked your dog so you’re gonna sit down and let me cook you something. I might not be my six foot-two brother, but I will kick your ass if you try to leave.”
Eddie blinks at her. Maddie feels a little embarrassed for going off on him like that in what’s probably (shockingly) one of the few one-on-one conversations they’ve ever had, but when he sits down on one of the spinny chairs, he doesn’t seem upset. He’s smiling a little.
“What?”
“Nothing, I just- I don’t know how Buck got away with anything ever when he was young if he had you looking after him. That was scary and I grew up with two sisters and my mother.”
Maddie shakes her head, her mouth twisting up in a rueful smile. “I wish I could say it was as effective on him, but you know my brother and how stubborn he is.”
Eddie’s smile is fond when he says, “Oh I know.” And of course, he does. After Maddie, Eddie might be the one to know Evan best.
But there are still things that he doesn’t know.
Poking her head inside the fridge, looking for something she might be able to use, Maddie says, “Did you know I tried to talk him out of going to your firefighter ceremony?” After she finds some cheese that smells good enough and that it’s perfect for her homemade mac and cheese, she turns around just in time to see Eddie shake his head. She starts looking for the other ingredients she needs while talking to Eddie over her shoulder. “Well, I did. I was worried that he was pushing himself and his leg too much. I lectured him- I yelled, I pleaded, I even thought about hiding his crutches, but I think he would’ve dragged himself to the station anyway. He kept saying he couldn’t miss it, that it was too important. Eventually, I realized he wasn’t going to listen to me.”
Maddie places the butter, the milk, and the sour cream on the kitchen island, and when she looks up, Eddie is staring off into space, taking in what she said. Maddie lets him. Meanwhile, she opens and closes cupboards until she finds her brother’s cheese grater. That’s when Eddie speaks up. “I didn’t know- He was in a lot of pain that day. He was trying to hide it, but I could tell. I offered to drive him home a few times, but he wouldn’t let me. He said I couldn’t leave my own party, but when I offered to find someone to give him a drive, he refused. I gave up eventually, though I did convince him to stay seated, but that was only because I made Christopher sit on his good leg with instructions to stay there.”
With a laugh, Maddie says, “he can say no to us, but not to Christopher.”
Eddie’s mouth twists into something that’s half-grimace, half-smile. “He’s had to learn. It’s hard to parent a kid when he knows that no matter how many times you tell them no, he can ask Buck and he’ll say yes.”
Maddie almost slices her fingers off with the cheese grater when her hand slips at hearing Eddie talk so easily about him and Buck parenting his kid together. She catches herself and keeps a straight face while she finishes grating the cheese, thinking about how she didn’t fully realize that her brother has been raising a kid with his best friend for years.
It’s not that she never saw Eddie, Christopher, and Buck and thought how much they looked like a family. It’s just that she didn’t realize that she was wrong because it’s not that they look like a family, they are one.
The silence stretches as Maddie thinks it over. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Eddie start to fidget a little so she picks up the conversation where they left off. “I know what you mean, a few weeks ago I got home after work to find Chimney trying to stuff two ice cream pints into the trash can so I wouldn’t see them. Turns out that our two-year-old managed to talk her dad into thinking that it was a good idea to have ice cream for dinner!”
Eddie laughs, a warm hearty laugh that doesn’t sound at all weighted down by grief. Maddie mentally pats herself on the back. They trade stories like that, back and forth– about Buck and Christopher, about Chimney and Jee, and Maddie shares a few of Buck and herself when they were kids. Maddie gets to learn about a different side of her brother– the side of him that’s a parent to a teenager. And Eddie gets to learn about Buck when he was younger.
She’s in the middle of telling Eddie about the first time she made Buck the same mac and cheese that she’s cooking now when she realizes she’s missing a very important ingredient. She starts opening and closing cabinets, looking for the macaroni, her eyebrows knitting more and more the more she looks and can’t seem to find it.
“Need any help?” Eddie asks amusedly when she checks the same cabinet for the third time.
With her hands on her hips, Maddie asks, “Any idea where my brother keeps his pasta?”
Without missing a beat, Eddie points over her head. “Top shelf on the left.”
Of course, Eddie is familiar with how her brother organizes his kitchen.
Maddie blinks at the cabinet and then at Eddie. “Eddie, I told you I’m not my six foot-two brother.” He blushes when he belatedly realizes that she can’t reach it and hurries to help. Eddie can reach it, but he can’t see what he’s reaching for so he ends up picking a box of dino-shaped pasta instead of the elbow-shaped ones that he was probably aiming for.
She accepts it and lets out a snort. “Of course my brother has dino-shaped pasta.”
Eddie looks down at the box in her hands and melts a little before Maddie’s eyes. “They’re Christopher’s favorites.”
Of course they’re for Christopher. Maddie is finding it increasingly difficult to find anything in the loft that doesn’t relate to Christopher or Eddie– the photos of the three of them that Buck keeps on his fridge, the half finished school project on one end of the table, and now even the contents of her brother’s cupboards. She thinks that if she went to Eddie’s house, she would find evidence of her brother everywhere too.
“He keeps saying he’s grown out of them, but I keep a stack of them back home in case he ever needs a pick-me-up. I guess Buck does too,” he says with a smile that’s both fond and a little sad. He reaches for the box to put it back where it came from. “Here.”
Maddie doesn’t let him take it, cradling it against her chest. “Well, you need a pick-me-up so I’m making these.”
Eddie doesn’t fight her, which Maddie counts as another win. He seems to have accepted that she’s taking care of him today. She doesn’t think that’s something he accepts easily from just anyone.
She goes back to cooking and notices that Eddie’s eyes have drifted to the half finished project on the table, a troubled expression taking over his face.
“Is that for Christopher’s school?”
Eddie blinks and spins the chair back around to face Maddie. “Yeah. Science project. He and Buck had been working on it for a few weeks before-” His eyebrows knit together, his mouth pressing into a thin line. “Now I’m wondering if I should take it home with me and help Chris finish it. Not that I would know what to do, science is their thing.”
Maddie reaches across the kitchen island and gives Eddie’s hand a squeeze. “I think you should give Evan a little more time. Besides, he’ll probably appreciate having something to keep busy since he won’t be going back to work for a while.” She tilts his head and makes a face at the thought of telling Buck he needs to stay home and recover. “Or you know, for as long as we can actually keep him home.”
Eddie scoffs. “I give him a week,” he jokes, his voice a little lighter again. The conversation stays that way– light and easy while Maddie keeps cooking. And while the weight of Evan being at the hospital still looms over them, she feels lighter than she has in days. And she thinks Eddie does too.
Daring herself to hope that everything will be okay, she makes a mental note to invite Eddie and Buck to dinner at her and Chimney’s house when everything settles down again. A double date, if both her brother and Eddie have figured things out by then. She’ll make them something better than her mac and cheese and she’ll get to hear Evan talk about Christopher in that same proud way that Eddie does, in that same way that Chimney talks about Jee-Yun every time she utters a new word or makes a new piece of art.
Maddie slides a bowl of mac and cheese across the kitchen island for Eddie, and after giving it some brief thought, gets one for herself and joins him.
Eddie smiles at the dino-shaped pasta and dives in, hungrier than he let himself admit. They eat in silence for a while and Maddie sends a quick text to Chimney telling him that she ran into Eddie and she’ll be home with the diapers soon. Chimney sends back a string of heart emojis that have Maddie smiling into her own bowl of dino-shaped mac and cheese.
Eddie finishes his in record time and Maddie flashes him a smug smile. “Good?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, and then shyly adds, “thank you. I’ve been living off vending machine food and the occasional meal from Carla all week.”
“You’re welcome,” Maddie says. She cocks her head towards the stove. “You can take some home for Christopher. I made too much.”
Eddie nods and Maddie thinks he seems less haunted by the idea of going home to his kid now that he’s had some time to collect himself.
They clean up the kitchen together and Eddie stuffs the remaining mac and cheese into a Tupperware that he finds easily in Buck’s kitchen.
“Ready to go home?” Maddie asks when she’s done tidying up.
“Yeah. Thank you, Maddie. For the food and- well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Eddie.” She gives into the urge she felt that day at the hospital and gives Eddie a quick hug. It takes him a little by surprise. They’ve hugged before– to say hello and good-bye at gatherings or during holidays, but not often. But Eddie is an affectionate guy, she’s seen how he is with Christopher and with Evan, but also with Chimney, Hen, Karen. After the initial surprise, he hugs Maddie back.
“You and Evan should come to the house for dinner,” Maddie says, leaving the ‘when he wakes up’ unsaid. “I’ll cook you something better than mac and cheese!”
Eddie smiles, letting himself hope a little too. “We’d love to.”
Then Maddie walks him to the door, though she can’t help but think that she’s more of a guest here than Eddie could ever be.
Before heading to the elevator, he waves at her one last time and Maddie notices that her brother’s sweater is still in his hand. She politely doesn’t mention it.
***
The next day, they run into each other at the hospital when Maddie is on her way out. They hug and Maddie notices that Eddie’s wearing it– Evan’s sweater. It’s obvious that it’s not his, not to mention that the smell of her brother’s cologne clings to it, but she politely doesn’t mention it again.
She doesn’t get the chance.
They hear a noise coming from the bed and they both break apart to see Evan fighting the intubation. Both Maddie and Eddie jump into action, and while Eddie talks him down from his frenzied state, Maddie finds a nurse.
After everything settles, they sit on opposite sides of the bed. The first thing Evan says, his voice rough after being intubated for a week, is, “Is that my sweater?” while blinking owlishly at Eddie.
Eddie goes red in the face at being caught. And Maddie can’t help it– she laughs. Loud and happy, and through the tears that she’s been holding back for a week.