Urban God of Rebate: Infinite Returns Of Women And Powers

”Take care of her,” Sean said.

Max nodded without hesitation.

”I will.”

Sean smiled.

”Good.”

He gave him one last nod before turning toward the exit.

Just before walking through the doors, Sean looked back and raised a hand.

”Good luck, Max.”

Max smiled and returned the wave.

”Thanks, Sean.”

”Tell Amara I’ll be back to visit once she wakes up.”

”I will.”

Sean nodded one last time before leaving the waiting area, wishing Max and Amara the best as he headed toward the hospital exit.

—--

A few hours passed before one of the nurses approached Max with a smile.

”Your sister is awake,” she said. ”You can see her now.”

Without wasting another second, Max shot up from his chair and hurried toward his sister’s recovery room. His heart pounded in his chest as he reached the door and pushed it open.

She was awake.

She turned her head toward the sound, and when she saw him her face did the thing it always did when she saw him, that specific expression she’d never bothered to hide because she’d decided a long time ago that loving her brother was not something she was going to be embarrassed about.

Max sat in the chair beside her bed. He’d been holding himself together since the doctor’s words, through Sean’s hug, through the walk down the corridor, through the nurse showing him to the door. He’d managed all of it.

He lasted approximately four seconds in the chair before his voice changed.

”The doctor said,” he started. Stopped. Started again. ”The operation was successful. You’re okay.” He looked at her. ”You’re actually okay.”

Amara looked at him for a moment.

Then she started crying.

Not quietly. Not the controlled tears of someone managing a difficult moment. Properly, the kind that came from somewhere that had been locked for a long time and had just found the door open. The specific release of a fear she’d been living inside so long she’d forgotten what it felt like not to carry it.

Max was already crying before she finished exhaling.

They sat there together, both of them completely undone, and the nurses passing the open door glanced in and smiled at each other quietly, because they’d been here long enough to recognize the difference between every kind of tears, and these were the best kind, the kind that meant something had gone exactly right.

After a while, when they’d both said the things that needed to be said and some things that didn’t need to be said but were said anyway because that was what happened when people had been holding things for a long time and were finally allowed to let them go, Amara wiped her eyes carefully and looked at her brother.

The room was quiet. Just the monitors. Just the afternoon light coming through the window.

Max looked at his hands for a moment. Then he said, ”I wasn’t alone today. In the waiting room.”

Amara looked at him.

”Sean was here,” said Max. ”He showed up before I even arrived. He’d been sitting there waiting for me.”

Amara was still. ”The Sean you’ve been telling me about.”

”Yes,” said Max.

She was quiet for a moment, processing that. ”He came to the hospital.”

”He said he wanted to be there when the news came,” said Max. ”He left before you woke up. Something came up that he needed to handle.” He paused. ”He told me to tell you he’ll come back to visit.”

Amara looked at the ceiling for a moment.

”He’s also the one who paid for everything,” said Max. ”Your surgery. The fees. All of it. I told you it was a scholarship fund because I didn’t know how to explain it at the time. But it was him. He walked into the billing office and covered everything before I could even figure out how to approach it.”

Amara’s expression did several things in quick succession. Something complicated moved through her face, and she looked away from Max briefly, toward the window, the afternoon light coming through the glass, the city continuing its business outside.

When she looked back her eyes were wet again.

”I want to meet him,” she said. Her voice was quieter than before. Something different in it from the sharp, direct Amara of the last few minutes. Something softer underneath. ”I want to meet him and thank him properly. For the fees. For today. For all of it.” She paused. ”I don’t even know how to say what that means. That someone I’ve never met would do all of that.”

Max looked at his sister for a moment. Then he smiled, the real one, the one that had been harder to access lately and felt different now that it had room again.

”You will,” he said. ”I promise you will.” He reached over and took her hand gently. ”But first you need to get better. Doctor said you’re looking at three more months before you’re fully discharged. You focus on that. Sean will still be there when you’re ready.”

Amara nodded slowly. Something settled in her expression, the specific settling of someone who had been given something to look forward to and had decided to hold onto it carefully.

Then she shifted slightly in the bed, making room, and looked at Max with the particular expression she used when she was done discussing things and wanted to simply be.

”Come here,” she said.

Max looked at her. ”What.”

”Your head,” said Amara. ”Put it here.”

She patted her lap.

Max looked at her for a moment with the specific expression of a twenty-year-old man who had just spent three hours in a waiting room doing bone marrow donation recovery and hadn’t slept properly in weeks and was approximately four seconds from doing exactly what his older sister told him to do.

He leaned forward and rested his head on her lap.

Amara’s hand moved to his hair. Slow, steady strokes, the same way she’d done when they were children and he had bad dreams and she was the one who heard him first. Her IV line moved carefully with her arm.