HEY MOONBEAMS! PLEASE CHECK OUT MY OTHER BOOK KEEPING UP WITH THE WIND, NOW ON AMAZON AND AT BARNES AND NOBEL! (pen name Suleyma Moon)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR COMMENTS AND VOTES ❤️

"I knew you would come." Faith looked on expectantly, still waiting for me to say something.

"I told you I would. I promised. I..." I took a deep breath. "I came before, but I couldn't..."

"You punked out." She smiled weakly. "I know. Spider told me."

That little...! Faith suddenly seemed to grow weak and closed her eyes.

"Come over here. It makes me tired to talk to you all the way over there." Why was she talking so low?

I looked at Li'l Jay, who was watching me closely. I didn't want to get any closer to her and that breathing machine. I didn't want to get close enough for Faith to grab me, like she had in the dream, but I went anyway. Silently I prayed that I was not having yet another nightmare.

My feet started to move, and the rest of me got carried along with them. I sat stiffly in a chair by the bed and looked once again at Li'l Jay. He was leaned against the wall and looking dully at the needles in Faith's arms. I noticed that it was raining through the window behind him. I looked back at Faith. She had been watching me the whole time, while I made my unnecessarily long journey to the chair.

"I love the rain. It sounds beautiful, doesn't it?" she asked. "Like music."

"Like music," I repeated.

"Everyone's gone?" Her eyes continued to bear into me.

"Except us," answered Li'l Jay.

Just that quick, I forgot he was there. He had moved to a chair and now put his feet up on the windowsill, looking out at the rain. It had been so sunny just a few hours before.

"Faith?" I asked cautiously, "What's about to happen?"

"I don't know."

"Why do I feel like something really bad is about to happen?" I had a large dose of hysteria in my voice.

She gave me a motherly pat. Involuntarily, I jumped at the coldness of her hands. Faith looked surprised, but her warm smile didn't fade.

"Sometimes life is better when we don't know what's going to happen next," she said.

"I don't want to think about it," I interrupted, quickly shushing her. For the first time in over a month, I looked my "big" god-sister directly in the eye.

The same feeling snuck up on me that I had when I was in the hospital watching my mother die. She had just stopped talking all of a sudden. I hoped that Faith wouldn't do the same. I caught Li'l Jay looking at me funny, and wished that he would look away.

He pulled his chair over to us. "Faith, tell me a story. No, sing me a song."

She looked at him sadly. "I can't sing, Li'l Jay." He looked at her and finally accepted the fact that people aren't the same dying as they are living. "But I can tell you a story."

We both knew that the only time Li'l Jay ever asked anyone to do either of those was when he was about to freak out. I guess Faith agreed to do it because she was trying to appease him, for all of our sakes.

He looked over and smiled happily at me when she agreed to do it. Faith looked at me, too, and again held out her hand. "Don't be afraid." I looked down at it, but remembered how cold her hand had been earlier and refused to take it. "Please? Just until I'm finished." Faith stretched out her thin, frail fingers.

I swallowed. "With the story?" She only smiled. I willed myself to put my shaky hand in her steady one. Hers was colder than my mother's had been when she died. I fought the urge to pass out.

Faith reached up and touched Li'l Jay's face. He leaned over so that she could reach him better, and then she showed him her wet fingers. Quickly, he wiped away his tears.

"Do you remember the story that Big Bear used to tell?" she asked him. We both nodded, remembering the story well. "Do you want to hear that one?" Again, Li'l Jay nodded.

We had both heard the old Native American tale a million times before, but we still didn't mind it when she began to unravel the story once more, just as her grandfather and mother had done time and again. As Faith went on with the story, her voice became softer and softer until it was just above a whisper.

Li'l Jay and I leaned in closer in order to hear her better above the machines.

Finally, Faith left the story unfinished and closed her eyes. I froze. This could not be happening again. She reopened them and looked at me with her beautiful, bright green eyes. They did look a lot like my mother's. Blaze was right.

"It doesn't hurt so much anymore," she said happily. "Will you tell my brother that? And tell him...tell him that it was raining."

I nodded, but didn't understand. What did she mean, it was raining? I wanted to cry. I wished with all of my might that the tears would flow, because they hurt so much worse locked up inside.

"Faith," I asked quietly. "What are you talking about?" It thundered gently and she smiled at me. Faith always had liked thunderstorms.

I smiled back at her and waited for her to go on with the story, but she never did. Li'l Jay put his face in his hands, and Faith's hand let go of mine. She sighed peacefully one last time, and then she closed her eyes and died.

I looked at Li'l Jay, not quite sure if what I thought had just happened had actually happened. "I guess she was finished," I said. "With the story, I mean."

Li'l Jay looked down at Faith's hands, then at her face. "Faith, I know you're tired, but please, please finish the story. I'll know everything's gonna be alright if you just do that. It's a really good story, I promise." I could hear hysteria rising in him now, too.

Looking into his fragile thirteen-year-old face, I knew that Li'l Jay wouldn't be able to take many more losses. That was, assuming that he would be able to handle this one.

"That's ok. We don't have to hear the story right now," he continued. "You can tell me later. Why don't you just sit back and rest for a little while? I'll call Spider and get him to play a song for you over the phone." His offer was hopeful.

Li'l Jay sounded so innocent and so urgent, like he truly believed that he was going to make Faith answer him. His desperate pleas ripped my heart in two. I could do nothing more than sit and watch him, like a bad movie that wouldn't go off.

It occurred to me that we needed to call a nurse. I'd assumed that they always came on their own when a patient flat-lined, but this time they didn't. I was so mad at the thought of those nurses leaving Faith to die alone if we hadn't been there that I started pushing the button like my own life depended on them answering.

Li'l Jay jumped at my sudden movement and looked at me. His face reminded me of the sky right before it broke wide open and a tornado came tumbling out. "She's not going to answer me, is she?" he asked sadly.

"No," I answered and had to look away from him. His eyes had already burned an image into my own that I would never be able to get rid of. Li'l Jay leaned over to kiss Faith's nose, and then he left.

I waited until the doctors came in, and then I left too. It thundered again as I walked out into the rain to look for Li'l Jay.

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