Her Eyes

Mason O’Rear was exceptionally talented. She could dance, she could cook, and she could write. When it really came down to it, though, she had this innate ability to completely shut down. When it came to relationships with both men and women, Mason was guarded, if not suspicious of the way people acted when they were around her. That’s why it was so hard for her to believe that she was opening her entire life like a book and letting Kris Letang and Max Talbot read it.

When the two very large men came bursting through the door to her tiny hospital room, she was surprised. When they told her that they had ditched Jordan at a press meeting and come to see her by themselves, she was even more surprised. But when they opened up to her and made her finally feel like she was part of a family, she couldn’t handle it anymore, and she finally cried.

It started off as silent tears rolling down her cheeks, but the second Max Talbot reached out to hold her tiny hand in his, the silence broke and the tears become sobs that she couldn’t even attempt to hide. She untangled her arm from the wires and tubes that she was connected to, and she pressed the heel of her hand against the bridge of her nose to try and rid herself of the terrible headache that was forming.

“Mason. It will be ok.” Max whispered to her quietly. She just shook her head violently, pushing down even harder in a desperate attempt to relieve the pressure in her skull.

“No. It won’t. Please tell me, Max. How could it be? I’m dying. I’ll be gone before the months over. How will this be ok?” Her voice rose several octaves before it broke. Max wanted to comfort her. Kris wanted to comfort her. But they didn’t know how to without stepping over the line.

So they both settled with talking. Talking about their lives. Talking about hockey. Talking about how much Max wanted to play the Blackhawks so he could have a really good Chicago hotdog. Kris talked as much as his thick French accent would allow him, and when they ran out of things to talk about, the two started bickering and playing something Max called “the annoying game.” Kris wined to Mason, who was watching the two with great interest, and she played the part of buffer between the two.

“Your turn!” Kris said, propping his heels up on the bed and leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head. Max shot him a dirty look that Mason could only have attributed with brotherly affection, and she let a laugh bubble out of her throat. And that was the opening of the flood gate.

Mason talked. She talked about growing up with a dying mother, and how her father took that as his opportunity to become distant from her. She talked about how she didn’t blame her father, and she wished that he would have gotten remarried so he could have had the chance to start over and be happy. She talked about the drugs she did and the mistakes she made. When she started to talk about Jordan, however, her voice cracked again. For fear of bursting into tears again, she pushed through and told them all of the things she had been holding back from the man himself.

Mason spoke about how she was in love with him. How she could honestly see herself with him for the rest of her rapidly shortening life. She spoke about how before she met him, each day was rough because she didn’t ever look forward.

“If you’re going to die, what’s the point of making goals and having hopes for the future?” She told them. She spoke so well and so personally that Max and Kris began to understand not only why Jordan was in love with her, but they began to understand Mason herself. They began to understand her struggle, her brief triumph, and her ultimate failure. And that was a turning point for the two men.

Time passed quicker than the trio thought, and before they knew what was going on, Jordan had walked into the room. He smiled softly at the very tight knit atmosphere in the room and sat down. Immediately everyone’s moods brightened, and the room was full of laughter and smiling.

And as soon as it started, Mason started coughing and wheezing, causing all the machines she was connected to to go off. And as Jordan and Max and Kris stood on the edge of the room while the doctors and nurses came streaming in to save her, they knew this was the beginning of the end.

Notes