by Becca Fox
“How’s Esmer doing?” he asked after a while.
“The doctors say she’s progressing well, might even be able to go home soon. It’ll still be a while before she’s strong enough to start physical therapy though.”
“Good to hear. What’s in the backpack?”
I tugged on the strap, bringing it closer to my knees. “Esmer’s homework. The doctor said she should be able to hold a pencil now without hurting her finger so she can’t avoid it anymore.” I’d also thrown in the Nintendo Switch and a handful of two-player games, but he didn’t need to know about that.
“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that,” my uncle said with a quirk of his lips.
I honestly doubted it, but it’s what a friend would do. It was weird, having to think about friend etiquette and what Esmer might expect from me. But it was also nice in a way. It made me feel just a bit more normal.
When Uncle Victor dropped me off, he told me he’d be back by dinner time. I waved as he drove away and then proceeded indoors. The women at the reception desk knew me by now; they let me pass without a hassle. The hospital seemed to be experiencing an unusual lull. The halls were quiet. Only the occasional doctor or nurse passed me by. Most of the doors were closed, but only soft murmurs and low TV voices came from the few that were open. It was a welcome change from the usual.
I stopped before Esmer’s door and peeked in to be sure she was alone. The few times I’d run into Aunt Dinah during a visit had been too awkward. I’d do another lap around the floor and come back if I saw her in there with Esmer. I did catch a glimpse of the old woman standing by the window but she was looking out at the weather with her back to the door. Esmer lay in bed, her phone pressed to her ear.
That was new.
It was rare enough to see someone my age actually talking on the phone, but even stranger for Esmer to be doing it since the only two people she talked to were in the same building with her. Then I thought about her mother, the person Esmer had been avoiding since she’d landed herself in the hospital. From the stress lines on her forehead and the frown tugging at her mouth, I could only assume this call hadn’t been made voluntarily.
Esmer rubbed her forehead and said something. Paused. Then leaned back into her pillows with a sigh. She looked tired. Running a hand through the top layer of her hair, which was long enough to fall into her eyes now, Esmer glanced at her great aunt. A few more words were exchanged and then she hung up. Staring down at the sheets, she lowered her phone into her lap. Neither she nor the old lady spoke for a while. I was considering doing my usual walk around the floor when Dinah turned to address her niece. Her voice was curt and muffled through the door. Esmer nodded and said what I thought was, “Thanks.”
When it looked like Dinah was going to leave, I ducked back and away. The door swung open a moment later.
The old woman nodded at me as she passed. “Charles.”
“Dinah.”
Thankfully, that was it. I stepped into Esmer’s room, tapping a knuckle against the door as I did.
She looked up and offered a close-lipped smile. “Heya, Charlie boy.” She still wasn’t comfortable exposing her teeth because the front four were broken. Her lips were back to their normal size, though; the bruises around her cheekbones were fading to yellow.
“Everything all right?” I asked as I ambled toward her.
“Yeah, just…” She placed her phone on the bedside table by her earbuds, avoiding my gaze. “Couldn’t keep my mom in the dark anymore.”
“How’d she take it?”
“She threatened to fly out and see me.” Esmer shuddered. “I promised to give her weekly updates from now on if she promised to stay in Boston.”
I sat in my usual chair and lowered my backpack onto the floor. “You don’t want to see her?”
“Wherever she goes, Hunter follows, so no.” A roll of the eyes. “He’s like a possessive, insecure boyfriend, only worse because he’s supposed to be an adult. Marty was the same way with me. He was always, like, ‘where are you going?’ ‘who are you going with?’ ‘how long are you going to be gone?’ Like, geez, let me breathe, will ya?” She tugged on the front of her hospital gown as she said that last part, giving me a glimpse of her pale collarbones. The re-revealing of her spear-shaped burn mark reminded me why she’d had to put up with that.
I looked down to unzip my backpack. “Sounds like a drag.”
“It was! I can’t believe I let it go on for so long. Then again”—A scoff—“there wasn’t much I could do about it, was there?”
When I glanced up, she was scowling at her hands as she picked at the sheets.
“Is he waiting for you back home?”
“Doubt it. He was sleeping around even while we were together. I’m sure he’s claimed one of those whores as his official girlfriend by now.” She smirked at me. “I couldn’t so much as look at another guy without getting the third degree, but he could do whatever the hell he wanted and I couldn’t say nothing about it. Shitty, right?”
“The shittiest,” I muttered. “Sorry.”
She shrugged. “Nobody forced me to start dating him. But at least it’s over now.” A deep, cleansing breath. “I’m free.”
I smiled at the blissful look on her face. “Try to hold onto that feeling because…” I shoved a hand into my now-open backpack and pulled out a bundle of folders. Esmer groaned when I set them down on the bed between us.
“Seriously? Don’t they know I broke my finger?” She held up her hand as if presenting proof.
“Doctor said you shouldn’t have any problems writing.”
“Yeah, well, I will once I’m through with all of this,” she grumbled, flicking the bundle of pages with her good hand. “It’s still raining outside. You could’ve ‘accidentally’ dropped them in the street or something.” She jutted her bottom lip out at me. “Don’t you care about me at all?”
I pulled out the Nintendo Switch next and held it up.
Placing a hand over her chest, she gave a fake sniffle. “You do care.”
“Don’t go spreading rumors. I have a reputation to uphold.” I handed her the controllers before going over to the TV hanging from the wall.
“What about you?” Esmer asked while I connected the Switch to the hospital’s TV.
“What about me?”
“Any crazy ex-girlfriends or boyfriends I should be worried about?”
I gave her a flat look, my arm wedged between the TV and the wall.
“What?” she asked with an innocent look. “I bet some goth or vamp kids would find the whole cursed-by-Death thing super sexy.”
Once I’d plugged in the HDMI cord, I lowered the Switch onto a nearby end table and walked back to the bed. “What do you want to play? I have racing games, sport games, puzzle games, first-person-shooter games—”
“Come on,” she practically groaned. “I shared. Give me something.”
I held her gaze. “This friend thing we have going on is the closest I’ve come to a relationship since freshman year of high school. She found out about the curse. It scared her, but she felt sorry for me so she pretended like everything was fine. Until, one day, she snapped. Broke down crying, saying she couldn’t do it anymore. I let her go. Are you happy now?”
I knew I was probably red in the face and it pissed me off. I bowed my head over my backpack before shoveling my hand in. After selecting the first game I came across, I got up to stuff the chip into the slot in the Switch. Then I leaned back in my chair and watched the screen light up. She didn’t say a word, but I knew she was watching me.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I finally snapped.
Esmer held her hands up. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Really?” I waved at the space between us. “Because it feels like you’re feeling sorry for me.”
“Well, I can’t help that.”
I rubbed the back of my neck in frustration. “Then say something.”
“I don’t wanna play this game,” she sai
d as the opening credits of Mario Party came on.
“Fine.” I got out of my chair yet again to eject the card. “What do you want to play then?”
“Super Smash.”
I scoffed. “Your funeral.”
“What? Are you, like, the king of Super Smash or something?” Esmer made her voice a little deeper toward the end there, like she was trying to impersonate me. It was terrible.
But I didn’t feel like smiling just yet. “Kind of, yeah.”
A snort. “We’ll see about that.”
She didn’t bring up the subject of relationships again.
◆◆◆
Esmer dropped her pencil over her homework with a groan. “This sucks. How long have I been here?”
I lay on the linoleum on my back with my legs up against the wall. After sitting in that plastic chair for two hours, I had a twinge in my lower back I couldn’t get rid of. Lying on the floor helped. Especially because it was so cold. It was better than shoving an ice pack into the waistband of my jeans.
I was trying to read the stupid book I’d been assigned for my class on Victorian poets but I was starting to go bleary-eyed. I could’ve sworn I read the same sentence three times.
I lowered the book over my chest and rubbed my eyes. “How long have you been struggling with your algebra assignment or how long have you been in the hospital?”
“Both,” she huffed in my periphery.
I looked for my discarded phone, blindly slapping the floor beside me. I glanced at the screen once I’d found it. “You’ve been bitching about your homework for almost an hour. You’ve been in the hospital for three and a half weeks.”
She shoved the folder away and slouched back against her pillows. “This is stupid. I ain’t never gonna use algebra. I don’t know why I even signed up for it.”
“Because your mom wanted you to have a full schedule for your first semester of college?”
Blowing a raspberry, Esmer turned her back on me. “Well, I’m dropping it. It’s too damn hard.” Then she crossed her arms and burrowed further into her pillows.
I bent my knees and pushed my heels against the wall, putting more distance between it and me. With a grunt, I heaved myself into a sitting position. My back complained mildly. I stretched on my way to her bed, book in hand.
“Well,” I said, “that’s my cue to leave.”
She twisted around, giving me a pinched look. “What’re you talking about?”
“You’re whining. It means you’re tired.”
“No, I ain’t.”
“Yes, you are.” I’d get her to drop that obnoxious habit if it was the last thing I did. I stuffed the book into my backpack and zipped it up. “You should get some rest. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Come on. Don’t be like that.” She snagged my hand as I turned to leave. “Stay, Charlie boy. Please? I’ll stop complaining. I promise.”
It wasn’t the “please” and it definitely wasn’t her promise that had me freezing in my tracks. A tingling sensation started at the tips of my fingers and snaked its way up my arm the moment my hand was trapped between hers. This room was freezing but somehow her hands were warm. I slowly looked down. She was white, but she might as well have had a tan when compared to how pale I was. Seeing her fingers clasped around mine…it brought about something I hadn’t felt in years, something I didn’t realize I’d been missing.
I glanced up at her, knowing my face was blank because that’s how I felt. Like a new canvas, open and vulnerable.
Esmer dropped my hand and leaned back against her pillows with a forced laugh. “Geez, you look like Aunt Dinah when I first dropped the F bomb.”
I stuffed my hand in my pocket, gaze averted. “Sorry.”
Why was I apologizing?
“Look, you’re right. I am tired, but I don’t want you to leave yet.” She gestured to the chair. “Can you just sit there until I fall asleep?”
I stepped back and lowered myself into the chair without a word, dropping my backpack on the floor as I did. To project an air of nonchalance that I didn’t feel, I put my feet up on her bed. Esmer gave me a grateful little smile before reaching over to grab her phone and earbuds. Shoving one of the earbuds into her ear, she scrolled through her playlists.
I stared at her long fingers. The fingers that had the ability to make my mind go blank and my skin feel warm. I suddenly wanted them in my hair, touching my face, stroking my shoulders, running down my arms, entwining with my own fingers. Swallowing hard, I looked up at her face. I didn’t crave physical contact, not with Penny, not even with my loved ones. It seemed childish to me, the need to be physically comforted. That’s not what this was. The…sudden awareness of the space between me and Esmer, and the loneliness it brought was something I’d never experienced before.
What would she say if she knew what I was thinking?
“What’re you going to listen to?” I asked to pull myself out of my own head.
The side of her mouth curled upward. She tapped on the screen and then lifted her spare earbud. “Here.”
I had to drop my feet to the ground and scoot forward in order to reach it. Then I had to stay there, with my elbows against my knees, so it wouldn’t be pulled from my ear. I didn’t recognize the tune or the voice singing its light, happy lyrics. I thought it might be country music I was listening to but I wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. Esmer lay on her side, facing me. Her phone sat on the mattress between us. After a conspiratorial kind of smile, she shut her eyes. And fell asleep.
I knew the moment it happened too. Her face relaxed, her breathing slowed. Her head shifted ever so slightly against the pillow, moving toward me. I could’ve left but I stayed. I told myself I was making sure she was actually asleep. Honestly? I just wanted to look at her. So I sat there and I stared at her until my uncle texted me, saying he was parked outside the hospital. I carefully removed the earbud and placed it on the bed beside her phone. Then I picked up my backpack, walked out of the building, and slid into my uncle’s car.
“Good visit?” he asked.
“Sure.” I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else as we drove home.
* * *
Chapter 18
Esmeralda
Charlie opened the car door for me and held his hand out. I raised an eyebrow. The last time I’d touched him, he’d looked like some old lady had pinched his butt.
“What?” he asked, smoothing his face of emotion.
“Nothing.” I watched his reaction as I carefully closed my hand around his. I caught a glimpse of his dilating pupils before he lowered his gaze and tugged me out of my aunt’s Cadillac.
I swayed a bit, still unsteady in my bulky cast. His other hand touched the small of my back to keep me from falling. A momentary pressure, but still meaningful. I was glad we were almost the same height because I could look into his face now that we were both standing. He gave a quick smile before releasing me, as if to prove he was fine. But he couldn’t be. I know I wasn’t. Nobody had ever held me so carefully before, like I was something valuable he didn’t want to break. It was so stinkin’ cute; it made me want to cry.
But then he closed my door and left me leaning against it while he took out the hospital issued crutches from the back seat. The moment was over.
I sighed.
“This friend thing we have going on is the closest I’ve come to a relationship since freshman year of high school.”
I wasn’t going to pretend like that didn’t depress me, but it also made me feel special. I was the only person other than his family who’d touched him in a long time. I tried to remember the first time I’d ever held a boy’s hand. And to think, he’d gone years without feeling that warmth against his palm, the pressure of someone else’s fingers tangled with his, that leap in his stomach. It only made sense that he’d be jumpy and nervous.
But this was Charlie, the guy who had to watch people die, for Christ’s sake. The guy who denied himself ordinary joys like friends and flings
so that he wouldn’t have to deal with awkward questions and rejection. The kind of inner strength that took…It was hard for me to find a connection between it and the emotions of a sheltered, damaged college kid.
I pressed my lips together as he handed me the crutches.
He took his ever-present backpack and skateboard out of the back seat before shutting the door. He tilted his head a bit to take in the giant monstrosity that was Aunt Dinah’s mansion.
Who exactly was he?
Luckily, I had plenty of time to figure that out. Our awkward conversations in the hospital last week hadn’t kept him from visiting. My great aunt seemed to like him, maybe even trust him. She would never say so, the proud old bird, but her scowl wasn’t nearly as severe when it was pointed at him. That spoke volumes. I doubted she would send him away if he continued his daily visits now that I was back at her house.
Aunt Dinah rounded the front of her car, keys in one hand and her awful beaded coin purse in the other. “Thank you, Charles. We’ll get her settled upstairs and then I’ll give you a ride back to the precinct.”
“It’s all right, Dinah. I can skate there.”
She actually stopped walking to frown at him.
After an uncomfortable silence, Charlie gave a shrug. “Or you can give me a ride. That works too. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She ambled up the walkway to her front door.
Charlie looked over his shoulder at me, eyes wide, eyebrows raised, mouth drawn in a line.
“That was, like, so rude,” I said as I painstakingly made my way across the driveway. “How dare you suggest you can do something on your own?”
Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he slowed his pace to walk beside me. “I didn’t want her to go out of her way.”
“And being alone with her would be awkward.”
“As hell.”
I stifled a laugh unsuccessfully.
Once inside, I gawked at the motorized stair lift that had been installed along the railing of Aunt Dinah’s staircase. “I know that ain’t for me.”