by Elle Tyler
“I wanted to kill a stranger for touching her leg. I might have killed him, if Noelle hadn’t stopped me.”
“You poor, poor fool.”
“She’s Brighton’s daughter, for Christ’s sake. His nineteen-year-old daughter.”
“You poor dead fool.”
“I’m contemplating walking her home after class tomorrow as if this is 1945. I’m thinking of courting this girl, Tater. Do you hear what I am telling you? Do you hear these unfathomable thoughts coming out of my mouth?”
“I think it’s gonna rain. Bring an umbrella.”
One of the monitors suddenly flat-lined. And superfluous problems no longer carried weight.
***
The worst part of working in the hospital was obvious: no one wanted to see anyone suffering, and no doctor wanted to see a patient die on their watch. But these were two evils that existed so that doctors could exist, and it was an odd partnership you didn’t want but couldn’t become a doctor without.
We stood across the street from the hospital after Baby Violet died. Tatum dealt with death by smoking cigarettes. I dealt with death by swallowing it down in silence.
Standing on the curb, I both understood and detested the robotic need some doctors carried. To feel each death would be the equivalent of shoving your head in a plastic bag and trying to breathe. In some cases, you had to become a machine void of emotion, and when it came to dealing with sick children, dying children, and innocent deaths—my switch, for the sake of my sanity, had to be completely flipped off.
“I’ll tell them,” I said, leaving her on the curb with her cigarette.
Inside, I found my way back to the pediatric wing and two curious parents who held the weight of the world inside of their eyes. Some carry hopefulness when they see a doctor, because some doctors can hide the agony they feel—the good ones can hide it; but even with my switch flipped off, they knew as soon as they saw me what words were about to leave my mouth.
***
“Logan wants to know...” A yawn escaped me as I tried to ask Everly questions in class. “Sorry. The idiot wants to know about your family history.”
“What hour are you on?” she asked.
“I lost track after thirty.”
“It slays me that people expect zombies to make life-saving decisions.”
I stared at her fingers as she traced patterns on my notebook, trying to place my attention on something that would keep me awake. She wore a blue dress with small sunflower print, showing more skin than I had seen before. Her legs were bare; the dress stopped at her knees when she first entered class and, when she sat, hiked up to her black-and-blue-bruised thighs. A white cardigan hid her arms, and I put my attention there, trying to imagine what her bare shoulders would look like, how soft that skin would be to circle with my thumbs. Her hair was a wild mess. She was a work of art. And I... I was a poor, tired, dead fool.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” But I couldn’t stop staring.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She glanced away for a moment. “Why do you always look at me like that?”
She pulled my attention forward. “How do I look at you?”
“Like you’re scared of getting caught.”
That amused me.
“I’m not scared of getting caught.”
“But you are scared of something.”
Silence.
She tried again. “My father?”
“I’m not scared of your father, either.”
I stared down at my laptop and tried to keep adding notes from our group. Everly turned quiet, and I glanced up to find her face sullen. She traced patterns with her fingertips across the top of her desk, thinking I was not going to answer. Brighton called out our five minute warning, but she still didn’t look up.
“I’m not scared of your father,” I repeated. “I’m scared of how beautiful you are.”
It felt like she looked up, but I couldn’t say for sure, because my eyes didn’t wait for her reaction. I busied myself with the notes, burying the anxiety from that truth deep, deep down.
Everly stole my pencil and began to write inside of my notebook until our time ended.
After class, during my one free hour until the shift from hell started all over again, I waited for her outside the classroom. She exited with her father. Both of them stared with surprise as they saw me.
“Dr. Brighton,” I said. “I was wondering if I could take Everly home.”
He glanced at her before turning around to lock the door.
“You have Checks,” was all he said.
“I know,” she replied.
He stared hard at me for a moment. “She needs to be home on time.”
And then it was the two of us.
“So... what’s this all about?” She smiled.
“I wanted to ask you questions outside of class.”
She began walking. “That’s cheating.”
“My questions aren’t medical related.”
“Oh.” She looked forward, her footsteps slowing.
And the thing is I had hundreds of questions I wanted to ask her, but not a single one of them felt the need to show up. Walking alongside her in silence, though, I unexpectedly found a form of comfort. It wasn’t as good as sleep, but it was on par with dreaming.
***
I stared at the words Everly Anne had written in my notebook, as I struggled through the last two hours of my shift.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about living in New York, it’s this: everything is showcased in neon lights, like an extension of the devil’s hand proffering a shiny red apple and thirsting for someone to take that first bite. Growing up in Red Pine, Georgia, I only had to listen to the rumble of my stomach to hear hunger. A handful of wildflowers could mend a little girl’s broken heart. I wonder, now, living surrounded by temptation, when will the dew of my roots dry out? When will I, too, reach for something too sickly sweet and shiny?
I closed my eyes and imagined Everly playing in the wildflowers as a little girl growing up in... Georgia!
She was the little girl from my father’s dreams.
There was no explaining that to Logan or the group, however. I logged into our notes that she grew up in Georgia and kept the rest for myself.
***
I was finishing up my last set of rounds when the attending for pediatrics, Dr. Bloomfield, found me in the neonatal nursery.
“How are you doing, Callum?”
“I’m fine.”
“Was last night the first patient you’ve lost?”
I was taken aback by her question for a moment. “No. I had a man die in the ER last year. We worked on him for almost forty-five minutes, but his vitals never changed.”
“A little bit different losing babies, though, isn’t it?”
I rested my patient’s chart back into the slot on the incubator. “Is this a psych evaluation? Are you worried about me or something? I’ve covered all my patients for the last forty-eight hours without a hitch. There wasn’t anything we could do for that baby. There wasn’t… We did everything we could have possibly done, but it died. It completely sucks… but it’s part of this job.”
She smiled small. “You’re doing well. I was only making sure everything was all right. Matter of fact, I was curious if you had picked a specialty yet? I’d love to have Andrew Trovatto’s son on my team. And you have to be dying to get away from Brighton.”
“I haven’t picked a specialty,” I said, “but I don’t think I’m suited for pediatrics.”
“No? That’s hard to believe. Your father was one of the best. Thought maybe you’d like to follow in his footsteps.”
“I don’t wish to follow in his footsteps, as contradictory as that might be to the profession I’ve chosen.”
Dr. Bloomfield laughed. “Well, if you change your mind, let me know. There’s always a place for you here.”
“How did you know my father?” I asked.
&
nbsp; “He was my attending.” She smiled. “A very good teacher. I wish he was still here.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell you what...” She lifted the patient’s chart. “I’ll finish up here. Go home. If I know Brighton correctly, you have to attend class at noon, right?”
“Actually, in about an hour.” I laughed tiredly. “If you can call nodding off in between lectures attending class, that is.”
“What other definition is there?”
“Okay, I admit, you’re definitely more enjoyable than Brighton.”
She poked my coat pocket. “And better looking.”
***
On my way through pediatrics, I spotted familiar peach hair through the window of a playroom. Everly sat on the floor with three bald-headed children who were listening as she read them a book. She had a smaller child huddled in her lap who curled a long section of her hair around their finger. As she read, her face lit up with expressions that made the children laugh, and her voice sounded out the longer words for their young ears, slowed down for important parts, and ended with a soft, slow wrap up of the book’s final words.
She helped each of them to their feet, and a nurse who’d been waiting patiently in the corner helped them back to their rooms. Everly caught me spying from the door as she sat in one of the chairs adjacent to the bookcase.
I sat beside her as she said, “You know, a playroom for kids too sick to get out of bed is just about as useless as a call room for doctors who need sleep.”
I smiled. “What were you reading to them?”
“The Velveteen Rabbit. One of my nurses used to read it to me as a child. You know, trying to make me feel better about myself.”
“Did it work?” I asked.
“It was better than Peter Pan, that’s for sure. I mean at least this book is telling them the truth. Once you are real, you can never be ugly. That’s the truth, and kids should know the truth.”
“What’s your favorite book—as an adult?”
Everly studied my ID for a moment, briefly touching it with her fingers. “Is this one of your questions? One of your ‘I want to walk you home’ questions?”
“That’s a good idea, actually. I was on my way home. Come with me. Keep me awake with your smile.”
“You’re never short on flattery. I’ll give you that much, Callum Andrew.”
“It’s not flattery. I’m simply abiding by your standards.”
“And what standard is that?”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Well, thank you for that.” She reached to my shirt, shooing a fluff of lint away. “But I can’t walk home today. Doctor’s orders.”
“Oh, good.” I sighed. “Because I drove to school.”
She laughed. “So you’ll have three whole minutes to ask me your ‘take me home’ questions. I bet they’ll be riveting.”
“Can I ask you one before we leave?” I stood, and she stared up at me. “May I hold your hand?”
“We’re in the hospital,” she answered quietly.
“When we get to my car then?”
Everly looked away for a moment and then stood.
***
I don’t remember the name of her favorite book, because I was holding her hand when she told me the title. I drove unlawfully slow, drawing out our time together so I could savor her fingers sliding in and out of mine as she talked. I asked her about the Peter Pan book she’d given me, so I could focus on driving. “Why are there so many passages blacked out with pencil? Like you colored over them?”
Her fingers squeezed firmer. “It’s not blacked out. It’s how I highlight the parts of a story I love. If I used a marker, it would bleed through the pages.”
“You highlighted a lot of passages in a book you swear to hate.” I laughed.
Her fingers stopped moving, and I felt the drift again, like she wanted to pull away and hide. I slid my fingers back and forth through hers as if speaking secretly to her through my touch, my thumb telling her wrist that I thought about her nonstop when she was away, my fingertips telling the back of her hand, as I squeezed, that her laughter had claimed me. That nothing she could tell me now would make a difference. It was written. She was threaded to a part of me I couldn’t wish away... that I had no desire to wish away.
I parked in front of her house but didn’t let go of her.
She stared at me with the same hopeful yet shy smile she always had on her face.
“What do you do for fun?” I asked.
“I’m not really allowed to have fun... At least not what you might consider fun. Hence the Book Nerd Syndrome.”
“You’re talking to me about shoving your face in books too much?” I laughed. “Come on, even I could tell you something I do for fun that doesn’t involve books.”
“So go ahead. Tell me.”
“Okay. I like walking around Central Park. They have these little boats you can row around the lake. A beautiful meadow where you can have a picnic. I love visiting Belvedere Castle. And, of course, The Mall.”
She laughed. “Your idea of fun is shopping at the mall? I don’t believe that for a second.”
“No,” I said, smiling at her. “The Mall is a canopy of elm trees that runs from 66th to 72nd street. And if you walk to the southern end of The Mall, you can meet William Shakespeare in The Literary Walk. You know, as someone who has Book Nerd Syndrome, Everly Anne, I would have expected you to know about such places.”
“I told you,” she said, her eyes soft, “I’m not allowed to have your kind of fun. But that does sound nice, Callum Andrew. It sounds kind of like a dream, actually.”
“You have to have one place you enjoy. One time you broke away. You have a bit of a rebel’s heart, Everly. Where does it go to sing its song when your father says not to do something?”
“All right.” She sighed. “I like riding trains. It’s probably my favorite thing. It scares the crap out of me, because I fear getting lost in New York, but sometimes it’s the only thing that makes me feel alive—that fear. So I do it. In my lamer attempts to be a rebel, I’ve been to the Metropolitan Museum and wandered around as if I understand fine art. But the truth is I’m just as clueless as everyone else wandering around there.”
I laughed. “We could go sometime. We should.”
She pulled her hand away. “Callum...”
“Everly.”
“We can’t do this.”
“Sit in a car? Hold hands? Go to the Met? What innocent thing should we abstain from doing?”
She looked at me. “Punch people and pretend it’s nothing. Ask to hold my hand and pretend it’s innocent. Look at me like that and pretend it’s just part of your day. Like I’m just normal and everything surrounding us isn’t the truth. You can’t just wish away reality because it’s inconvenient.”
“I’m going to ignore the fact that you used ‘just’ in my presence and challenge your argument by asking, what part of our reality is inconvenient?”
Her eyes flared, and then she waved her hand across herself. “Me. I am an inconvenient reality.”
“You know what I think you are?” I leaned closer. “I think you’re beautiful.”
“Then you’re a man who likes to waste his thoughts.”
I continued, “That night on stage in Noelle’s café—you were the most beautiful little thing I had ever seen. An inconvenience? Yes, you are that. Because I want to stop thinking about you, but I can’t. That is incredibly inconvenient to me as a third-year med student. But as a man? As a man, it is only inconvenient because you keep running away from me, and I don’t have a clue as to why.”
“The problem and the answer are the same,” she said. “You’re a student, and I’m your subject. I can’t tell you why I have to stay away from you, because it’s your assignment to figure me out. I only wish you would listen to the little voice inside of yourself that I know is smart enough to see me for what I am. Think about it, Callum. I’m your differential. There is something so tragica
lly wrong with me medically that my father has a room full of students studying my case. That’s what you want for yourself? Someone who isn’t promised a tomorrow? Someone who can’t even walk home with you because it’s too hot outside today?” She turned away. “I’m not normal. You know that much. Isn’t it enough?”
“So,” I said, “this is to spare me from being hurt. Am I following correctly?”
“If I’m any kind of decent human being, shouldn’t I be trying to do that?”
“Yes.” I reached for her hand. “But you’re going about it completely wrong.”
“What’s the right way then? Tell me.”
“You already know the answer. You said it a minute ago. We can’t wish away an inconvenient reality. My reality, Everly Anne, is that I want to hold your hand and take you to the Met. It’s inconvenient because I barely have time for one, let alone both, but that’s the truth of my reality. So when you run away because of the truth of your reality, you’re not saving me from anything.”
“Not true,” she said. “I am saving you from my father breaking every bone in your body when he finds out you want to take me to the Met. Oh, and that whole pesky ‘failing you out of med school’ thing.”
“Not true,” I mocked. “He let me walk you home yesterday.”
“He had a speaking engagement in New Jersey and was running late. You were better than sending me home alone in a cab.”
When I didn’t challenge her, she added, “Do you really want to go to the Met with me?”
“No, not at all.” I laughed.
Everly sighed but then smiled despite herself. I slid my fingers slowly in and out of hers as I said, “But I do want to know what it’s like to wander around, a little bit clueless, with you.”
She nodded. And after a moment said, “Where are you the most clueless?”
“If you keep letting me take you home, I’ll show you some day.”
Just then, Dr. Brighton parked his car at the curb. We silently watched him climb the stairs to their home as I felt her fingers squeeze mine.
“I need to go,” she said.
“Wait a second.” I waited for her to look at me. “I lied to you a minute ago.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. The night at the café wasn’t the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Do... do you know what is?”