by Elle Tyler
I cupped her cheeks. “Nothing is hurting you on my watch.”
We walked to the shaded side of the pool, and I climbed in first. Everly glanced toward the other end of the pool where Tatum and Nick floated and kissed, Amelia sunbathed, and Noelle was passed out in a doughnut tube.
“Mindful,” she repeated.
“I won’t let you wake up with a doughnut tanned on your ass cheeks. I promise you.”
She let her bathing-suit cover fall away, revealing her navy-and-white suit beneath. She was pin-up perfect. A white bow tied in the middle of her conservative cleavage held all of my attention.
“Can you feel this spot?” she asked, tapping her sandal to the cement. “Is it hot?”
I blinked. “The ground?” I placed my hand there and told her it was fine. She kicked off her sandals and shorts, and I didn’t wait for her to inch her way down the steps. I reached out and grabbed her by the hips, pulling her in, causing us to fall into the deep water. She surfaced with a splash to my face.
“So much for mindful,” she said, laughing as she wiped her face.
I floated to her. “You’re tougher than you know.”
“Not tough enough to play Marco Polo.”
“No?” I circled my arms around her, leaning in toward her ear. “Then what would you like to play, topolina?”
Her hands briefly fell on my shoulders. “How about we finish the game from earlier? You never got to say what your gift is.” Briefly because, the moment she latched on to me with my arms around her, nature and need began to form a partnership. I kissed her cheek and let go.
“No one bothers with me because what do they know about me?”
“Being a doctor is your career choice, not a gift.”
“But that’s what they’ll expect me to say,” I argued.
“Who cares?” she mocked.
“Okay, well, what if I don’t know what it is, outside of healing people?”
We bobbed and waded as she thought. Her fingers grazed mine, and I longed to reach out, pull her closer. Her hips to my hips. To hold her and stare into her eyes as she talked.
I kept my hands to myself.
“Then I have bad news for you,” she finally said. “You’re going to have to keep me around so I can point it out for you at every chance possible.”
“Point away.”
“Your gift is hope.”
“Have we met?”
She smiled. “You cling to me because you want to believe in something again. It’s why I’m here with you. Why you agreed to help me. Your hopefulness never burned out.”
“You’re here for one reason and one reason alone, topolina. It starts with white and ends with bow.”
She covered her chest. “I knew better than to get in here with you.”
I laughed and slid away then pressed my back against the wall of the pool. Everly swam close, holding onto the edge of the pool as she paddled her feet. Her skinny legs caught my attention. Her endless black and blue patches caused me to look away. I wasn’t allowed to know those secrets. I hadn’t unraveled the mystery yet. And I wasn’t allowed to cheat. I closed my eyes and listened to her kick the water.
“Callum Andrew?”
“Everly Anne?
“How did you get my father to agree to this?”
“This might come as a shock, but your father has a thing for farm animals.”
She shoved a wave of water at me. I took her wrist between my fingers and told the truth. “I told him about our plans.”
“You what?”
“You taught me to use someone’s hope against them. So I did. I hit him where he was most vulnerable—losing you.”
“But that makes coming here pointless. Now he knows.”
“So you’re not enjoying my company?”
She looked away, and I was about to release her wrist, but then I caught sight of her hand. Red and blistered with burn.
“Oh, Everly. Your hand. Look.”
“My hands are hideous. I know.”
“No. Look.”
I turned her palm up and showed her the fever blister. She only sighed.
“I didn’t think the plate was as hot as it apparently was. It’s from earlier at the grill. It’s no big deal, Callum. I already saw.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s no big deal. You’ve seen my hands. You know this isn’t a first.”
“I mean, you must be in so much pain. How could you not say something?”
She stared at me as if to say, “Go on. Figure me out.” I looked at her hand again. It was impossible for her not to be writhing in agony.
“Come sit on the lounge chair. I’ll bring some supplies out.”
“I don’t want to make a scene,” she said. “It’s always a scene with me. Please.”
“I can’t let your hand stay like that.” I pulled her closer. “Fuck, this is a second degree burn, Everly Anne.”
“Maybe a farfalla doesn’t flinch at pain,” she replied. “Maybe she takes it in stride so she can live free for one day.”
“Even a brave farfalla couldn’t stand the agony of second-degree burns.” I climbed out of the pool and retrieved a medical kit from inside. My pop was looking outside from the kitchen window when I crossed through the room to exit.
“What happened?” he asked, looking straight through the window, talking straight through his glass.
“She burned her hand helping me with the grill... even though she didn’t even touch the grill.”
He didn’t say anything except, “You should be mindful of Everly.”
I stared at him. “How did you know Everly is who I meant? I never said her name.”
He took a final sip before he looked at me. “I didn’t think anyone else was in the room when she was in your presence.”
I looked away. “You clearly haven’t had enough to drink, old man.”
“You need to be mindful,” he repeated, turning back to the window.
When I returned, Everly was sitting on the same lounge chairs we’d sat on to eat our lunch, her bathing suit cover, sandals, and shorts all back on. She sat on my towel. Silently, I took her burned hand into mine, and, although I wasn’t trying to cheat, I could not help but to observe. She never cried as I cleaned her hand. She didn’t flinch or tug her hand away when I applied ointment. She didn’t even groan.
“I think my topolina has another gift I know nothing about.”
“It’s not a gift,” she said quietly. “It’s a curse.”
I bandaged her hand and offered her ibuprofen. She laughed and stood.
“Show me your house,” she said. “And forget my attention-seeking hand.”
SOME… THING
16.
THERE HAD BEEN girls in my room before, but never curiosity.
Everly roamed my shelves of books, the textures of my driftwood-colored walls, and seashell stories from years past. She wanted to know why I liked hanging my clothes instead of folding them. She wanted to know the history of my dreams as a boy—a boy who had been gifted the view of a million sea-cradled stars to dream under during his summers away from school. She wanted to know about my mother Julep and the color of her hair and eyes. Do you look like your mother? Does your black hair come from someone else? I know it’s not from Andrew.
And our house had pictures—we had hundreds of pictures. I was on display in every room, but there was no truth. There was no Julep Trovatto. There was no marriage that led to my creation. There were only chipped-off bits of a life. A birthday party. A graduation. A moment on the beach with a first caught fish. These were captured times, not treasured memories.
I couldn’t satisfy her curiosity in this house, because it held no attic filled with stories, harbored no secrets. Everything of my childhood days spent in Montauk on Fourth of July weekends and summer school breaks was locked inside boxes and tucked into a dark space no one wanted to acknowledge.
***
We spent the afternoon
walking along the beach. I collected seashells in my pocket for her. She roamed salty stores with open fronts and bought herself a large hat to fend off the sun. I bought her a miniature lighthouse of Light Point to remember our day. We shared an ice cream. We watched a couple of kids play in the ocean. I watched the sun sink down, down, almost down. Two more days and this would end. I’d go back to class, where she’d sit across from me and be Everly Anne the Case Study and I’d be Callum Trovatto trying to earn a passing grade. There’d be no topolina. No farfalla. Salted air would be replaced by sterile.
I offered her my arm as we walked back. Her feet moved as slowly as mine, and I knew she was right about me, because, in that moment, I hoped. But her hold was too tight. She was clinging and not for the reasons I desired. I put my arms around her and gathered her hand in mine. Her body pressed to my side was a blanket of heat. I pulled away and palmed her cheeks. She was flushed but dry.
“You’re burning up. Take off some of this stuff.” I pulled away her bathing-suit wrap and hat, then walked her to the edge of the ocean and washed her arms and neck in the cool salt water, but it wasn’t enough. I pulled her waist deep and let her hair dunk. This time I did hold onto her hips, gathered close to me, as I tried to cool her down. She was fire without the fury. I cradled her to my chest and stared down into her eyes.
“I’m not doing a very good job of taking care of you.”
Barely, she whispered, “You don’t know what you’re up against.”
It took us twice as long to walk back to the house. I brought her to the bathroom inside of my bedroom to check her vitals and offered her a cool bath. Pulling the thermometer away, I felt my eyes widen in cartoon-type surprise.
“One-oh-four!”
She swayed forward on the edge of the tub, and I held her steady with one hand, turning the faucet on with my other.
Stripped down to her bathing suit, I set her in the tub, but she lurched forward, vomiting the remnants of vanilla ice cream into the water. It dripped down her navy-blue bathing suit. Without asking, I pulled it away, not looking, not wondering. I was only dutiful. Fully-clothed, I got into the tub and lifted her up, kicked the plug out of the drain and turned the shower on, sending cold water streaming across her skin. I held her like that: a limp little doll, my topolina. She threw up twice more. I held her steady. It was the first time in my life I was honestly angry that my father was shit-faced and useless. If she had a seizure... If her fever wouldn’t break quickly enough... If I had to call Brighton and not be able to give her one fuckin’ day of happiness without doom...
“You’re all right,” I consoled, trying to move her wet hair away from her face with one hand, holding her up with the other. “It’s all right, Everly Anne. Just let me hold you. You’re all right.” But she sounded as if she was crying. We stood under the cold water for what seemed like forever, waiting for the fever to calm.
“You’re shivering, Callum.”
“I don’t have a fever threatening to boil my brain. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re the first man who has ever seen me naked, and I puked on you.” She groaned weakly, leaning out of my grasp and against the tile wall. “This is why I don’t have friends.”
“I don’t give a damn about you puking on me. It’s the last thing on my mind right now.”
“I...” She leaned on me for support again. “I want to lie down. I can’t stand up anymore.”
“Hold onto me, peach. You’ve got me? No, I won’t drop you. I promise. I promise. I’d never let you fall.”
With her arms around my waist, I eased her down into the tub. She curled against me as the water sprayed on us. The fire on her skin had calmed considerably, but she was still weak. I washed her hair and face, careful to keep my eyes to myself as she sat naked in front of me, touching me with her hands on my knees to hold herself up.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I cradled her face. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“You should be downstairs having fun. Not doing this,” she replied.
“And you think this is the first year I have avoided being ‘downstairs’?”
“Last year you were having fun with Amelia.”
I groaned. “Let’s recount last year, shall we? Last year Noelle had a boyfriend and didn’t give a wild fuck about her friend Amelia. Last year Amelia sat on my bed, trying to get me to drink with her while I was studying. Last year, I kissed her—she tasted like cigarettes and tequila. Last year I touched her—I felt nothing but her shape. Last year? Last year, Everly Anne, she passed out drunk with her underwear still on, and I was grateful for the extra time to study. I slept on the couch downstairs.”
“That’s not what was implied earlier.”
I touched her cheek. “Are you asking me if I’ve ever had sex with her?”
She was quiet and then said, “Yes.”
“I’ve slept with her. It was during high school. In another life practically.”
“Did you date?”
“I thought I implied we didn’t date.”
“High school seems like a long time to carry a torch for someone you’ve only slept with.”
“It’s the doctor shit. I already told you this. First time I heard a peep out of her since high school was after Cornell accepted me.”
Everly was quiet, despite the questions lingering in her eyes. She looked down, roaming my wet clothes, and then held her arms across her chest as if she’d suddenly realized she was nude.
Her face was cool. I drew her up, pulling a robe from the back of the door to wrap around her.
A wall was now between us where there had once been a tether. She might as well have been in the clouds. Without speaking, I bent and lifted her into my arms to carry her to my bed.
I pulled my wet shirt away and tossed it into the tub. Grabbed a dry pair of shorts from my closet, changed, and went back to her.
So quiet and guarded, she stared up at me as I swept her peach hair across her forehead. Only our fingers spoke as I soothed her scalp with a massage, and she traced absentmindedly along my knee.
I took her temp, sighing when it read under one hundred.
As I handed her a glass of water, I asked, “How badly would you kill me if I hooked up an IV?”
“I’d donate your body as a cadaver after I was through with you.”
I smiled. “At least your sense of humor is returning.”
“But you’re still gonna hook me up, aren’t you?”
“Ah, so you can see the future, farfalla.”
“Great. Timothy is gonna see the needle mark and know something happened.”
“I’m sure your second-degree burns will be more troublesome to him.”
“Fever can cause brain damage,” she argued. “Or worse. I’ve always been scarred.”
I left for a moment to find saline, and when I returned, her eyes were closed. My heart leapt.
“Everly Anne?”
“Relax. I’m tired, not dead.”
I hung the saline bag by anchoring it to a decorative oar above the headboard. She of course didn’t flinch as I inserted the needle into her arm, but her eyes were open, watching me with a million hidden secrets.
“You better not ever tell on me, Callum Andrew,” she whispered.
“Timothy is going to find out.”
“I meant the nurses,” she said. “Don’t ever tell them I let you do this to me without a fight.”
I smiled. “My lips are sealed. And thank you.”
Everly closed her eyes again. “Aren’t you going to ask?”
“I’m not allowed to cheat, remember?”
“No one is going to diagnose me correctly. No one ever has. I’ve been doing this differential since I was thirteen. The only thing that has changed is the boldness of the male students with the increase of my bra size.” She looked at me. “It’s meant to make you fail. I’m not the real test, Callum. Don’t you get it?”
“Then what is he looking for?
”
“That’s the test.”
I watched her for a moment. “Has anyone ever passed?”
“Well, they’ve become doctors. Has my father ever hired them? What do you think?”
“I think...“ My hand reached for hers. “...using you is unfair. That’s what I think.”
“It’s the only way I get to attend to college.”
“But you don’t like the questions,” I argued.
“It depends who’s asking them.” Her fingers pressed into my knee. “You ask all the right questions, and you tell me stories in return. Figuring out a mystery goes both ways with you, and in that, I feel whole.”
We were clouded in star dust as our eyes locked.
She looked at me for a moment longer before slowly closing her eyes.
“Read something to me,” she finally said.
“I don’t know if I have anything...” I rifled through a drawer at the bedside. “Unless you want me to read from the Bible.” I laughed.
She didn’t laugh. “That’s perfect.”
“What story do you want first? The part about the rivers parting or the part about turning water into wine?”
“The sea,” she whispered. “Moses parted the Red Sea.”
I smiled down to her, but her eyes were still closed. And her face was suddenly peaceful, suddenly... suddenly more beautiful than I had ever dreamed; the sun streaming through the window glowed a golden halo around her head.
I touched her soft cheek and whispered, “‘I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.’”
Everly opened her eyes and looked at the closed Bible in my hands.
I touched her cheek again. “I’m not as much of a heathen as you think.”
“You knew that verse by heart?”
“I was taught that verse by heart.”
“By whom?”
My fingers traced her jaw. “The same woman who believed we become what we start out as.”
“Tell me more.”