Page 99 of The Beautiful Collision
There’s Maine the Deceiver. That Maine is easy to hate. He fits perfectly into the narrative I’ve been telling myself my wholelife—that people will use your vulnerability against you, that showing your real self is just handing them ammunition, and that rebellious independence is the way to stay safe from it all.
But then there’s Maine the Caretaker. The one who sat with his sick sister with such tenderness. Who stayed with me on the kitchen floor when I was a mess. Who covered me with Chloe’s blanket. That man is easy to love, and love him I do… or did…
Those two men can’t both be real. But they are. And the cognitive dissonance is making me feel like I’m losing my mind. I can’t sleep, I can barely eat, and I’ve barely done anything except sit on this couch and binge-watch garbage television for days now. It’s like my brain has decided it’s all too hard and gone on vacation.
But my thumb stops scrolling when I hit a photo from my pediatric rotation.
Ethan.
Seven years old, gap-toothed grin, proudly holding up a crayon drawing of what might be a T-Rex or might be a very angry dog. I took plenty of pictures of him during those last few days, at the request of his parents, and this picture was from three days before he died.
“Fucking hell,” I whisper.
The grief hits like a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs. Not the clean, sharp grief of fresh loss, but the dull, relentless ache of helplessness. Of being able to offer comfort but not a cure. Of holding a small hand and knowing that all your training, all your competence, all your desperate wanting to help means exactly nothing against the indifferent cruelty of disease.
God, is this what Maine feels every day with Chloe?
The memory of her floods back with painful clarity. That afternoon when she’d stayed over—frail in a way that made my clinical instincts scream, but with eyes that blazed with stubbornlife. She’d caught me staring and, with Maine’s exact brand of defensive humor, told me totake a picture, it’ll last longer.
And now those words, it turns out, have a horrible meaning.
Not only would a photo outlast my glance, but it might outlasther.
My phone buzzes, interrupting the spiral, a message from Sophie:
Mike told me the team meeting just ended. Maine forfeited the bet. Told everyone he was an asshole for keeping it from you, and it cost him the woman he loved. He also told them about Chloe being critically ill and that he’s a wreck. Mike said he’s never seen Maine like that before…
He forfeited.
He told them everything.
About Chloe, about the money, about being trapped by the bet.
But more than that, Maine Hamilton—the Maine Show—told everyone he wasn’t OK. He told them that he’s in crisis, that he’s desperate. The guy who performs for everyone and won’t ask for help from anyone took off his mask and put it all on the line.
Something shifts in my chest, tectonic plates realigning. Suddenly I’m not drowning anymore. I’m burning with grief—about Ethan, about Chloe, about losing Maine, about never being good enough for my family—but suddenly, I feel the need todosomething.
Because grief without action is just suffering.
But grief with purpose?
That’s fuel.
I can’t go back in time and save Ethan. I can’t cure Chloe with sheer force of will. I can’t unfuck my parents or my siblings or make them love who I am, not who they want me to be. I can’t undo Maine’s lie or erase the hurt that still throbs like a bruise every time I think about him.
But I candosomething.
My laptop is open before I’ve fully formed the plan. My fingers are already flying across the keyboard, that familiar rush of organizational energy crackling through my veins like electricity. This is what I’m good at. This is my superpower—harnessing chaos and making it something unforgettable.
The idea crystallizes as I type: Run for Chloe.
A three-mile charity run.
Campus-wide.
Maybe city-wide if I play this right.
All proceeds going directly to Chloe’s experimental treatment.
