Sloth

by Ella James

  “What are you doing?” I smile up at him. “Just brushing off some white lint.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yep. We can resume now.”

  The walk is long, so I can tell he must really want to go here. And then we reach the “ambulatory transfer” area, and I blink. It looks a little like the warehouse where we met Pace and Manning that night. I see some nurses at a nurse’s station, and a door to an ER, but otherwise it’s empty.

  “Nice place. Lively.”

  He smiles down at me. I wish I could see his mouth, because based on his eyes alone, the smile looks sad.

  “It was lively that day. Lots of people.” I can’t help wrapping an arm around him. Standing extra close to him. I look up at his face. “People for you?”

  He nods.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, because I really don’t want to make this about me and my guilt.

  His gloved hand rubs my arm through my sweater. It’s an absent gesture, showing how in tune we are with each other’s unspoken thoughts; he doesn’t know I feel sick with guilt, but he can tell I need his touch. I watch his eyes circle the room. And I realize with a jolt: I think he wants me to ask.

  So I put on my big-girl panties. “What was it like?” I ask softly.

  He pulls me under his arm, up against him, then he wraps an arm around my back.

  “I don’t remember that much,” he says, looking thoughtful. “Lots of Dil.” That’s what the nurses call Dilaudid.

  I don’t mean to—not at all. But my eyes fill up with tears, and they spill down my cheeks. His eyes widen. He grabs my shoulders. “Hey—what’s wrong?” His voice is low and hoarse, and warm... and loving. “Cleo baby...” His arm comes around me. “You want to go back upstairs?”

  “No.” I press my face into his sweater. I can feel him urge me down the hall. “I’m sorry, Cle. There’s flashing lights. That means they’re bringing someone in.” I open my eyes to see flashing lights over the hall.

  “Oh shit. I’m sorry.”

  We move quickly down the hall, and then we spot an elevator. His hands touch my chest. “Cleo—look at me.”

  I do.

  “Tell me you don’t feel... sorry? That you didn’t fly with me that day?”

  Tears drip down my cheeks. “Of course I do. I hate it that I didn’t come. I didn’t know what to do, so I did the wrong thing,” I whispered. “I took a taxi to my car. Rambled around and figured out the R. connection. And then I got here and…” I shake my head.

  “That bad, was I?” I see his cheeks under the face mask. He’s smiling. Trying to make me feel better.

  “It was that bad. You didn’t even look at me.”

  Kellan pulls me to him, wrapping me tight against his chest. He leans against the elevator’s corner and tightens his grip on me, squeezing me so tight it almost hurts. His face presses into my hair. I feel his chest rise with a deep breath...

  I hold onto him as we ride up up and then back down... and up again... and down. No one gets into the elevator, so we sink down to the floor and I sit tucked under his arm.

  I can barely breathe. My heart is vibrating. My throat is so so full. I can feel it in him too. The things he wants to say are living in the air around us. Tap tap tapping. They are waiting to be heard.

  So I’m surprised when he lifts his arm off me and pulls me to my feet. He tucks my hand in his, and we get off on our floor.

  We walk to our room with no fanfare, and when we get there, Arethea connects two IV bags and Kellan lies on his side holding his phone, and I snuggle in behind him like I always do.

  But when she leaves the room, he cuts the lights and turns toward me and grips my face so hard his fingers maybe bruise me and he whispers: “It was always you. That’s what I think. Ask me when my mother died, Cleo.”

  “When did your mom die?” Chills sweep my skin.

  “The day that Olive did.”

  Tears fill my eyes. I swallow, and they fall.

  “Have you ever heard about string theory? Everything is tied together, works together, shrinks, expands, and breathes together. Maybe we’re on the same string, baby. We’re right beside each other. We’re the same thing.” His mouth takes mine. He pulls away. “My blood, your blood...” Another kiss... his voice hot on my cheek. “One day I tried to calculate the odds of how we met. The odds of February 14. There are no odds. For us, there are no odds because it isn’t chance.”

  He’s inside me mere seconds later. No one pushes the chair under the doorknob. There’s no need to. Arethea skips the two a.m. IV—the only time she ever does it.

  When I wake up in the morning, I’m so hot. Like I’m living on the sun. I turn toward Kellan and my heart sinks.

  THE HOUSE OF CARDS FALLS SO, so fast. I can tell by just one glance that something’s very wrong. He’s lying on his side, behind me, his right cheek against the pillow. His skin looks slightly gray, his lips a little pale—maybe a tinge of blue. His eyelids sag. His blue eyes almost seem to glow. I don’t have to ask what’s wrong because I feel him up against me.

  He’s hot. Really hot.

  I turn around to face him. “Kellan?”

  I’m so alarmed, I grasp his face. He winces, and I move my fingers off his bruised cheek.

  “Shit, I’m sorry. What’s the matter?” The fever isn’t triggering alarm bells for me. It’s the way his face looks. All his coloring is off.

  He blinks at me, and his eyes have that glazed quality, which makes more bells peel for me.

  He reaches for a strand of my hair. “Nothing,” he says. “I’m fine.”

  But he sounds weird and raspy. Breathless.

  My eyes fly to the little box that keeps track of his pulse and the amount of oxygen in his blood.

  Pulse is 130, blood oxygen is 92 percent. I lay my hand on his jaw, just below the bruising. I stroke the stubble. “You think you’ve got a cold?”

  He reaches out for me and pulls me closer. “Just come here...” He tries to tuck me up against him.

  “K.—we need to call someone.”

  His eyes squeeze shut. “Nothing…to…tell them.”

  “I can see the pulse ox and hear how breathless you are. Talk to me.” I stroke his burning brow and feel a sheen of sweat. I look into his eyes in time to see them swim with tears.

  “Oh... K. You feel really bad, huh? I’m sorry. Just let me call Arethea and we’ll figure out what’s up.”

  He shakes his head, and one tear spills down toward his nose.

  I brush it off and lean to touch his temple with my lips. I smooth my palm over his hot forehead and Kellan grabs my forearm. “Cleo—please. Don’t call... please. Not yet.” He grasps at me. He wraps an arm around me, pushing me from behind, pushing my backside against his dick.

  “I want to be inside you... I need it. Cleo please.” His voice cracks, and I know I have to call Arethea. “Kellan, you can. I swear, I’ll ride you just as soon as you have oxygen, okay? We have to call. We have to let them know.”

  His hand comes up to his face, and my chest aches. “Kell... You’re so strong... you’re doing so well. I love you.” I reach for the bed’s remote, with the call button.

  His hand grips my elbow. “Cleo—no.” He pushes up, half sitting. He looks pale and dizzy. “Don’t call. Please. Hold me… I need you. Cleo, trust me—please.”

  I scoot back toward him, wrapping my arm around him even as I press the nurse call button.

  “Yes?” It’s Arethea’s voice, thank God.

  “Hey, could you come here please? Something’s up—we need your help.”

  “Of course.”

  I look down at Kellan. He’s wrapped both arms around me and his head is on my thigh. I’m sitting cross-legged but I shift us so we’re lying face-to-face on our sides. I wrap an arm around him... kiss his fingers.

  “You’re okay. Don’t be scared... I’m here. I’ll be with you.” I smooth my palm over his hair... behind his neck. Good God, he’s warm. I feel his back shake and my heart s
tops.

  “Baby... Hey...” I try to lift his face but he won’t move. He’s crying.

  Arethea bursts in at that second and I’m so confused. She’s flanked by several doctors from our team: the pulmonologist, the infectious disease expert, the trial coordinator, and finally, a few seconds later, Dr. Willard himself. Their faces are grim.

  My eyes fly to Arethea’s, questioning. Her face is careful. “Oxygen,” I manage.

  She nods, then looks at Willard.

  “Kello, baby... It’s okay.” I kiss his forehead. Something’s very wrong. I’m not sure I want to know.

  Dr. Willard steps to the bed as Kellan curls up to me.

  “Cleo—I spoke with Kellan yesterday, while you were meeting with Arethea about an outing.”

  “What?”

  “You ever heard of CMV pneumonia?” he drawls.

  “No.” I look at the crew at the foot of our bed. “What is it?”

  They explain. He caught it from my blood. My blood was positive from CMV when he received the transplant.

  “We’ve been monitoring him since then. It came up on his blood work recently, and now he’s started showing symptoms. We’ll need to do some imaging to really know but—”

  “If it is, what will you do for it?”

  “We’ve already started treating it with antivirals,” Willard tells me. “It’s a virus.”

  “And?”

  “It all depends on Kellan.” He looks over at Arethea, then at Kellan’s pulse ox stats. His pulse is 112 and his blood oxygen level is 95 now.

  “This is all that he can have,” she says.

  Fuck.

  Dr. Willard looks into my eyes. “What he’s got is serious. But I think he could beat it. Might have to spend some time on ventilation, but—”

  That’s all I hear.

  A ventilator. Kellan on a ventilator.

  Arethea rubs my shoulder as the doctor shakes his head. “I’ll be honest, I’ll be real surprised if we don’t need to try the vent with him, we’re on full-blast here and we can’t pull a 97, 98... It’s not what I’d prefer to see. But Kellan’s strong. He can come through this.”

  I look down at him but I can’t see his face. His arm clutches around my middle.

  I take a few deep breaths and start my questions. Forty minutes later, all the doctors leave.

  Kellan kisses me. “You said.” His eyes are tired. “I want to be inside you.”

  “You’ve got a CT scan in thirty minutes.”

  He shakes his head, his grip on my shoulder surprisingly strong. “I need it. I need it.”

  I wrap my arms around him. “I’m sorry.”

  His hands rub mine. “I love you. You remember what I said?”

  I shake my head.

  “More than anything.”

  I nod and cry and stroke his cheek.

  He starts pumping his dick. I know what that means. He’ll get himself close and then I’ll ride him home. We did it more when he was sick.

  A ventilator... fuck.

  He nods, the signal for when, and I sink down on him, facing his feet. I bounce on him with practiced zeal, rolling his balls in my palm.

  Kellan moans and bucks against me. Just when the monitors begin to peel, he spurts in me and grunts. My pussy quakes around him.

  “Ahhh. Oh God,” I whisper. We cling to each other.

  “Cleo baby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “During the CT... go get me... I want another robe... one with an extra tie... in case... the ICU.” His eyes roll slightly, and the pulse ox sounds its alarm.

  Arethea comes running. They take him straight back to CT. I veer the other way, like Kellan said.

  “I’M SORRY, MA’AM BUT you’re not listed as a visitor.”

  I thrust my arm out across the desk. “I have an armband. I’m with Kellan Drake. He had a bone marrow transplant.”

  The woman scans the bar code on my arm band, and I hear a low, discordant thrum. “Your band expired, honey. If you want to get into the ward again, you’ll need to have your relative notify us.”

  “I can’t! He’s going on a ventilator.” I burst into tears. “Please let me in, I have to see him now. I don’t have time to wait!”

  “Sit down over there.” I fidget in a plastic chair as the woman makes calls. Then she beckons me to the desk. “Someone’s gonna come talk to you.”

  A moment later, Arethea comes through the doors... pushing a cart. My belongings are heaped on it.

  I clamp my hand over my mouth and have to struggle not to pass out.

  “It’s okay.” She nods, and tears start dripping from her eyes.

  “Arethea, what the fuck is wrong?” My heart is pounding wildly.

  “He’s okay. Come here...” She steers me around a corner to a more private nook, and sits beside me on a leather couch, wrapping an arm around my back.

  “Cleo—he doesn’t want to let you back in.”

  “What?”

  “He’s worried about this. This ventilator,” she says.

  “Are you kidding me?” I feel a swell of, followed by a sharp ache in my chest. “Can’t you help me? Go get Willard!”

  She shakes her head. “Yesterday, the going out. We all knew. I think he will change his mind. Kellan is strong. You might have to give him time.”

  “Just give him time?” I start to sob. “I want to talk to him. I need to see him, please!”

  “I am so sorry.”

  “You can’t do this! You guys can’t just... throw me out!”

  Arethea wraps her arms around me. I hop up and pace and try to reason with her. Cut a deal.

  “He doesn’t want you in there. Not right now,” she says softly.

  “Talk to Willard. He could let me in!”

  She shakes her head. “Kellan is the patient. Cleo, we are with you... in spirit, but I can’t let you in. Not today. You want me to try to text you?”

  “No!” I hold my head and sob so loudly, someone peeks into the little room to see what’s going on.

  Arethea sits with me until she’s paged. She says she’ll try to text me. I nod, even though inside I hate her. I hate all of them.

  He’s mine. Kellan is mine. I won’t stop until I get back in.

  I don’t leave the transplant unit’s waiting room for three days. Arethea said she’d try to text, but I don’t see a message from her. I play on my phone and do sit-ups and change my clothes in a nearby bathroom, never leaving the area outside the locked doors for too long, in case he calls for me.

  As for me, I call the ward incessantly. I talk to every nurse I know and beg them all. When someone walks through my waiting room, I try to talk to them. I call Kellan’s dad, his brother, leaving messages. I call Manning, Whitney. Nothing.

  At the end of the third day, the woman at the desk appears in front of me with a short, red-haired woman, who explains that I can’t live here, as they put it.

  I go back to my hotel for long enough to find an envelope with my name on it: a new notebook from Kellan. When did he find the time to write in this? I flip through the pages. Love notes. There’s an envelope as well.

  Afterward, it says. Fuck that.

  I dress in something clean and go back to the hospital. I shower in the day and sleep in the main lobby at night.

  The receptionist who sent me packing can’t help noticing I’m back. I tell her our story. She seems sympathetic but she never gives me any news.

  Five days pass. I forget to eat, forget to sleep. My mother calls. My phone rings and rings.

  Six days.

  A week. Unfathomable.

  I go wandering the city blocks. I call his phone, and call and call. I buy myself a neck pillow so I can sleep out in the waiting room. The receptionist is my friend now. She says she is praying for me.

  Manning shows up on the eighth day, and Whitney on the ninth. Something Whitney says turns my friend the receptionist against me. I’m asked to leave the waiting room and not come back.

  I wan
der the hospital halls. I wonder if I do this long enough, if I can catch his cancer. They would let me in, then.

  I ask every day about him. Sometimes janitors I recognize, a few times nurses. No one tells me he’s dead. So I assume he is alive. I write him letters. I send them. I start a list of quotes I wrote on the sparrows and one day, in a fit of delirious exhaustion, walk a few blocks down and get one tattooed on my ribs.

  “Unless you love someone,

  nothing else makes any sense.”

  –e.e. cummings

  My clothes hang loose. I find a pair of Kellan’s narrow-waisted longue pants in my bag and vow to never take them off. One afternoon—day twelve, I think—I take the subway to the Carlyle, where I still have a room, and shave my head. My mother comes and tries to make me go. She threatens me, like Kellan’s dad did him.

  I call his dad’s office. I call Manning, begging. Whitney comes again, this time with a plane ticket home. I refuse it. She claims she doesn’t know how Kellan is. He made it through the first night on the ventilator, but no one is being updated.

  He’s on a ventilator. Kellan is.

  “So he’s in a coma?” My voice sounds dead and dry.

  “Cleo... I don’t know.” She holds my hands. We’re in my suite at the hotel. “You need to eat.”

  “I eat chili dogs. Did you know it’s my blood?” Tears leak from my eyes. “I made Kellan sick.”

  “No you didn’t. CMV is common. Very common. He got it at the most likely time to get it.”

  Whitney pulls me into her arms, and I sleep a little while. She takes me downstairs to the hotel restaurant. I push some eggs around and ask her to go with me to the hospital.

  When we get there, she cries. “Cleo—I’m worried. You’re so much like I was.”

  “Is he dead? Are you telling me that Kellan’s dead? I’m not like you! Lyon is dead!”

  I run away and don’t come back to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for two days. One of them, I drink in central park. I call Kellan’s father’s office. I call and leave another message for his brother, Barrett.

  Manning calls me, asking how I am.

  “How’s Kellan?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.”