by Elle Tyler
“The verse? Or about Julep?”
She paused for a moment. “I think they’re kind of the same thing, Callum Andrew.”
***
“Let’s talk to God.” Marta bowed her head as we sat around a table full of food. “Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessings you’ve given us today. For our friends and family. For bringing Nicholas home to us. For the food you have provided...”
“Save Mart,” I coughed.
“For my wonderful son, who doesn’t interrupt the blessing of our food. For the nourishment this food will provide our bodies. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”
Tatum kicked me under the table. “What?” I said. “I saw you steal a roll, so don’t even fuckin’ come for me, Tater.”
“Don’t curse at my table. And I saw both of you steal rolls,” Marta said. “For the record, so did God.”
Everly looked at me. “‘The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.’”
“Well done,” Marta said. “Everly, thank you for bringing a bit of maturity to the table.”
I looked at Everly. “‘What the wicked fears will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.’” I placed the roll on her plate and grinned.
“Do you go to church?” Marta asked her, passing a bowl of salad.
Everly passed on the food but answered, “I do.”
Marta’s eyes lit up as if Jesus Himself had just sat down for steak and baked potatoes. “Where do you attend?”
“Currently I’m attending at your dinner table.”
“My table?”
“We prayed, didn’t we? Isn’t that what church is? Gathering to praise God?”
“I... suppose.” Marta began to cut her steak. “It’s more than I get from my children. I’ll give you that much.”
“I attended ‘church,’ too,” I said. “Bowed my head like the rest of you.”
“And stole bread during prayer.” Everly laughed.
“Stop sucking up to my stepmother and put some food on your plate, topolina.”
Everly took a roll while Marta made her a plate filled with steak, potato, and broccoli rabe. I could feel Everly’s discomfort as I ate my dinner. When I glanced over to her plate, I spied she had only pushed her food around.
I leaned in. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.”
“Not hungry?”
“I’m just tired.”
“You’re what? What are you?”
She smiled. “I’m tired.”
“You slept for three hours this afternoon.”
“Callum.” She shook her head.
“Sorry.” I turned away but noticed my father watching us from across the table.
Tatum wiped her mouth and asked Everly, “So, you go to school with Callum?”
I tried to kill her with my eyes.
“We met at Cornell. Yeah.”
Amelia snorted. “Aren’t you a little young for Cornell?”
Tatum added, “Yeah, are you like a prodigy or some... thing?”
Everly glanced between them. Tatum smiled at her.
“I started college when I was thirteen. So yeah, I guess I’m some... thing like that.”
Tatum laughed quietly to herself. Amelia and Noelle gaped.
“You started med school at thirteen?” Noelle asked. She looked at our dad. “Is that even possible?”
I interrupted. “She can even spell amnesia. How incredible is that?”
Tatum laughed harder, shaking her head at me. “We’re just screwing with you.”
“But Callum and I do go to school together,” Everly added.
“Why would you go to school with Callum if you’re not a student?” Noelle asked.
Everly looked at me, but I didn’t say anything. Finally she answered, “I’m a subject.”
Amelia’s turn. “Why would he be studying you? Are you, like... sick or something?”
Tatum looked at me. “She’s something. Isn’t that right, Callum?”
“Definitely a something.” I glanced to Everly, expecting her smile, but she looked like I had slapped her in the face, and I didn’t have time to recover before Amelia spoke again.
“Well, that makes more sense. You’re studying a sick girl and brought her home to your fancy beach house for July Fourth weekend. You’re just a little Make-a-Wish foundation these days, Callum. So noble.”
“Shut the fuck up, Amelia.”
“No,” Everly said, “it’s fine. Go ahead, Amelia. I’m not afraid of the truth. Go ahead.”
“That’s what the look is for, peach?” I asked. “You’re pissed off at me? We were just joking.”
Amelia said, “So what do you have? Cancer?”
Everly ignored me. “I’m not allowed to say. I’m part of a differential.”
“They have to diagnose her,” my father explained, lifting his glass to his lips. “Good luck with that.”
And then Marta inserted her two cents. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you just tell us that she was part of your class assignment?”
“Yes, Callum,” Everly said. “Why not just tell them?”
“You’re honestly angry with me?” I laughed, disbelieving the turn this had taken. “Angry that I didn’t tell a table full of people about your private medical history?”
“You can’t tell them my history because you don’t even know my history. But you do know that I’m not a prodigy, and I’m sorry, but yeah, I’m going to get upset about you snickering back and forth with your friend about me as if I’m a joke sitting here.”
“He wasn’t...” Tatum began to explain but I cut her off.
“No, it’s okay, Tot. You don’t have to defend me, because I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“But she doesn’t know that,” Tatum said. “Just tell her.”
“Tell her?” I exclaimed. “In front of everyone at this table just tell her? In front of Amelia just tell her?” I reached for my drink and then looked at Everly. “If you want to be pissed off at me, that’s fine. I’m sorry you misunderstood. I’m even sorrier that I thought I understood.”
“Everly?” Nick began, but I cut him off.
“No more questions for Everly. Everyone needs to eat and mind their own business.”
He looked at me. “No offense, Callum, but I didn’t travel half way across the globe to come here and starve. So…” He looked back to Everly. “If you’re not gonna eat that roll, puff, I’d like to have it.”
She almost smiled and then handed it over. Nick ate half of it in one large bite. “Also, I didn’t come half way across the globe, after being shot at repeatedly, just to hear a bunch of girls cry about high school drama. So...” His attention turned back to Everly. “Let’s get a few things in order, shall we? Callum is an emotional black hole thanks to a time we call Some Very Unfortunate Events. Tatum and I infiltrated his Happy Place years prior to said SVUE, so yes, we’re privileged to know some of the musings of our friend’s fragile little heart that you might not know. I don’t know anything about you, but what I do know about my brother is that, if he brought you home to be questioned, humiliated, and stripped to the bone by the vultures of this table, that is his metaphoric pulling of your braids. And to that I say good. The world is—excuse my language, Mrs. Trovatto—royally fucked. If two people can find some semblance of contentment with someone else, given all the bullshit that’s going on—GOOD. Now, everyone shut up and pretend to eat your food.”
Tatum ran her hand along his arm. “And that’s why he’s the sergeant.”
“Sergeant or not…” I looked at him. “Don’t ever tell Everly Anne to shut up.”
He pushed back from the table. “You wanna go outside, Trovatto?”
“Nick, you can’t even say that shit with a straight face.”
He laughed. “You’re just pissed because I told your girl about the black hole.”
“There you go again, talking about my holes, Nicholas. The army has fuc
ked you up royally.”
“Come here with that mouth, princess, and I would love to fuck you up royally.”
Tatum threw her hands in the air. “Do you wanna switch chairs with me, Cal? Sit next to the Serg?”
“No way.” I glanced to Everly as I reached for my drink. “Even with him pissed off at me, I’d still rather to sit next to this pretty girl.” I took a sip of Coke. “You can keep that pretty girl all to yourself.”
Marta sighed loudly. “Forget the lemons. I should have garnished all of your glasses with holy water.”
And for the first time, we all laughed in agreement.
***
It was a silent, awkward walk to her room. My heart felt heavy. My legs felt heavy. Every inch of me wanted to fix what broke during dinner, but her quietness left me nervous. I wasn’t sure how to heal... I wasn’t even sure what I needed to heal.
I stopped her before we reached her room. “Come somewhere with me?”
“I’m tired, Callum. I want to sleep.”
“You can rest. I promise.” I offered her my hand. She stared at me for a moment, and then rested her hand in mine. “There’s a room that you’ll love.”
She was still silent.
I led Everly inside a dark room on the other side of the house. I didn’t turn on the light; the full moon did all the work for me. Illuminated in the blue glow swung an old wooden boat that Nick and I had found, washed ashore one summer when we were teenagers. We’d tied ropes to it and made a swing for Tatum, pushing her up, up, up, holy shit stop! Stop! Laughing, laughing, up, up, up.
After we’d grown up, grown away from those summers and into the real world, Marta’d had us hang it up in that spare room, where she’d turned it into a bed of sorts. A downy mattress filled the inside of the boat, which was lined with feather pillows.
I grabbed the ropes. “Sit down. I’ll swing you.”
Everly smiled despite herself and sat in the boat. I swung her slow, back and forth, listening to the creak of the wood. After a while she lay on her back, closed her eyes.
“I want to die like this,” she whispered. “And when I wake up in Heaven, I want to wake up like this.”
I smiled. “With me swinging you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “With you swinging me.”
“I wouldn’t have thought so after tonight. After dinner, I would have thought you’d be hoping for this weekend to sprint on by.”
She went back to being quiet. I sighed and came around the boat to sit with her.
“How could you think I was making fun of you after what we went through earlier today? After all that I’ve told you, Everly Anne?”
She sat up and scooted all the way to the other side of the boat. “I was already embarrassed enough, sitting there, and then you added all that on top of it.”
“I tried talking to you,” I said. “I asked you what was wrong, but you brushed me off.”
She lowered her head, but I raised her chin. “Stop. Running. Away. Talk to me. For Christ’s sake, talk to me, Everly.”
“I can’t talk to you! That’s the problem. I can’t say what’s wrong because there’s a barrier between us.”
“I brought you here so you could tell me everything. Did you forget that?”
“Well, I can’t tell you in front of your family, now can I?”
“We’re alone now. Tell me why you were upset.”
“I can’t eat in front of people. Just like I can’t feel my hands being burnt. Just like I can’t handle walking with you on the beach without boiling my brain. Do you see a pattern forming here?”
“Yes,” I said. “A pattern of you constantly running away from me when it comes to dealing with what’s wrong. You’re not scaring me away. You’re only pissing me off.”
“Oh, you’re pissed off?”
“Yeah, I’m a little pissed off, Everly Anne.”
“You were lying to everyone about who I am and then laughing with Tatum like you guys share some private joke about me, and apparently you do. I only neglected to tell you that I can’t eat in a room full of people.”
“We don’t have private jokes about you,” I said.
“Then what does she know about me that you couldn’t say in front of everyone?”
I deflected. “What should I have said? You’re my teacher’s daughter and we’re here together to swindle your dad into giving up his conservatorship so you can give your heart to a kid who is dying? You expected that to go over smoothly, and then everyone would continue eating and not want to ask a million questions neither of us is prepared to answer?”
“How about a simple Everly goes to school with me, instead of Everly is a prodigy.”
“It was a joke. You were playing along so I thought you understood that we were making fun of Amelia, not you.”
“I was going along with you because I thought you didn’t want them to know the truth.”
“And what’s the truth, Everly Anne? What do I call you? What do I tell everyone you are?”
“Nothing! You don’t tell them I’m anything except lies. That’s not supposed to hurt my feelings? That’s not supposed to upset me? You can’t even come up with a simple title for your friends and family? For the girl who’s pining for you? Tell her what I am in your life?”
“I DO have a title for you,” I yelled back, leaning closer. “It’s a thing. That’s the ‘private joke’ Tatum and I share. She knows you’re my thing. The thing I can’t stop thinking about. The thing that’s distracting me from everything I should be pouring my full attention into. The thing that is making me insane right now, because I am so fuckin’ over the moon about you and believed that I was showering you with that truth, but no, you’re still running away from me.” I clutched her shoulders. “That’s what I can’t say in front of my entire fuckin’ family downstairs when you’re pissed off. I can barely even say it to you, Everly Anne. But there it is—you’re my thing.”
She stared at me for a moment before she softly said, “You could be crushing my shoulders right now, and I wouldn’t even know.”
My hands loosened, but she clasped her hand over mine, holding me steady. “No, do it. Do it, Callum. Crush me. Crush me and then watch as I don’t even flinch. It’ll be like a magic trick.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. Stop this.”
“Hurt me? Now there’s a private joke for you. Want to know the secret? Want me to lay bare for you? I can’t feel pain. There you go.”
I wanted to speak, but I was too awestruck to move.
“Is that me standing still enough for you, Callum?” Her hands fisted around mine, causing me to grip her harder, but I broke free.
“Stop.”
“You asked for the truth,” she said, turning away from me. “That’s the truth.”
I rubbed my face. “This swing used to bring a lot more happiness.”
“You shouldn’t have asked me to sit on it.” She slid forward, but I reached for her arm. Everly’s head hung as if she were crying. I pulled her to me, back up on the boat. “I wanted to believe in your hope, Callum Andrew. I really tried. But this is not our fate. Can’t you see?” Her eyes were crying, but there no tears. “We could have been united once before, when your father cared for me, but we never met. Fate kept us apart on purpose.”
“Then how do you explain you showing up in my life now, Everly Anne? Why did fate bring you back to me if you’re only meant to hurt me?”
“I wanted to believe,” she said. “I really did. I came here to find hope. I know I said I wanted you to help Truscott, but I needed you to help me, too. But not even for one day could we live. Not even for one, Callum.”
I lifted her chin when she let her head fall. “Everly Anne, do you think other people don’t struggle or argue or face obstacles? We are not alone. Today was... Today was one of the best days I’ve had in so long. I am so happy with you. Can’t you see that?” She kept silent. I cupped her face and stared into her hazel eyes. “I’d take one day like this ove
r fifteen with anyone else. I’d rather spend the morning with you in the lighthouse and the afternoon freezing with you in the shower. If our fate was different, I would never want you to suffer. I would take it all away if I had the authority, but I would never trade you because of the difficulty, Everly Anne.”
She breathed like she had been holding in tears. “I don’t want to trade you, either. I’m... This whole thing is too much. You don’t understand.” Her shoulders trembled, and she lowered her head again.
“Come on.” I slid my arm under her legs. “Let me carry you to bed. I promised to take care of you, remember?” She held on to my neck and sank into my arms. The house was so quiet—everyone else had gone to sleep or left. I carried her back to our side of the house, but paused when she whispered, “Don’t take me to my room.”
“Where do you want to go? Don’t you want to sleep?”
“I want to stay with you.”
“In my room?” I asked.
“Is that okay?”
“Only clarifying.”
***
Sacrilege. Blasphemous. Sinful.
Everly Anne sleeping soundly in my bed would be all these things if my stepmother Marta had knowledge of it.
Heavenly. Angelic. Blessing.
That’s all I could think, as I watched her during the hours of blue morning light, when the rest of the house was quiet and far away and we were close but disconnected.
A shirt too big, pajama pants too warm for summer, and satin pink eye mask were the only real sin, covering too much of her pretty face. She slept without misery or nightmares. She slept like she lived on a cloud. So still, I wanted to check her chest for breath. So deep, I wanted to rest myself against her and steal that kind of peace. So soft, I wanted to press against her and revel in her angelic comfort.
***
Nick was the first person I saw in the morning. He came into the kitchen with a huge grin on his face, as I cooked bacon.
“Well, I don’t know about you, Cal, but I slept like a baby last night.” He took a seat across from me at the kitchen island. “Like. A. Baby.”
“I slept perfectly well, thanks.”
“Then why do you look so gloomy?”
“I’m only thinking.” I looked up at him. “That’s when you use...”
“You’re just so funny, Callum.”