Page 28 of Never Give Up

She swallows the food in her mouth slowly, and I’m stuck staring at her throat as it bobs up and down. “I know.”

Her mouth is pulled into a tight grimace and I have to tear my eyes away from her lips to meet her eyes.

“Brian.”

“Maya.”

We’re talking at the same time, and I can’t help the small laugh that escapes when she smiles.

I drop into the chair next to her hospital bed and fight the urge to take her hand in mine. The feel of her hand resting in mine while I watched her sleep is going to be forever burned into my mind, and in this moment all I want is to repeat it.

“I’m sorry,” I finally find the courage to say, refusing to take my eyes from hers.

Maya, on the other hand, glances down to the lunch box and sneaks another of the pizza rolls into her mouth while I talk.

“I didn’t want to bring a full pizza Hot Pocket in case you couldn’t use a knife or fork together, you know.” I motion like I’m cutting. “To cut it.”

Yeah, I just spell it all out like that, and she watches me do it.

But she doesn’t say a word while I fumble through my thoughts.

“Not just for the pizza rolls.” Clearing my throat sounds like a good idea. A great idea. Especially when I don’t really know what I’m doing. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

Maya blinks. Once. Then again.

But she still doesn’t say anything.

“For this.” I wave a hand at her body. “I’m sorry for you being here.”

“Did you attack me?” Her question is soft, almost a whisper. “Are you responsible for stabbing me in the abdomen?”

When I shake my head like an idiot, because abso-fucking-lutely-not would I ever physically harm her, she smiles sadly at me.

“That’s right. You’re not the one who hurt me, Brian. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

This isn’t going at all how I thought it would.

“That’s.” Cough. “That’s not all.” Why is it so hard to tell this woman anything? “I’m sorry for what I said before that.”

Maya’s hand freezes, a pizza roll dropping back into the lunch box, and she’s got to be close to running out of them by this point.

“I don’t want to talk about that.” Her voice is toneless, emotionless. She’s adopting the same inflection that I use when dealing with suspects, and I’m thrown right back into the kitchen at the office, when I used it on her.

And then later, when I told her how she felt, without actually listening to her. Without hearing her.

“Okay.” I’ll leave it alone.

I didn’t listen to her before, but I’m listening now.

And I’ll listen to her every single day for the rest of my life if she gives me the chance.

Silence permeates the air around us, but it’s not tense. How, I’m not sure. But I know I’ve only got a few minutes, at best, before the boys are back and it’s time to go.

“They haven’t found him, have they?” Her question catches me off guard. “My attacker.”

What am I supposed to tell her? That I fucked up? That I couldn’t keep her safe, and I couldn’t catch the asshole who hurt her?

“No.”

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