One Sweet Day

by Elle Tyler

  “He won’t,” she said. “And trying is only going to get you hurt. Even more hurt. I’m so sorry, Callum Andrew. I knew better.”

  She was running away again, and it felt as if this time it’d be for good. I spoke in a rush.

  “And I said I would help you. Don’t make me a liar, please. Don’t make me a failure. Maybe I couldn’t pass the fuckin’ differential, but don’t take helping you away, too.”

  She turned toward me a little. “It’s never going to be like in Montauk. You understand that, right? That weekend was a dream, but this, Callum Andrew, is our reality. And in our reality, you can’t charm and kiss me. You can’t walk me home or take me out on dates. You can’t graduate college and drive me around in your father’s car.”

  “I get it,” I said. “All right? I get it, topolina.”

  “And I’m not your topolina.”

  I sighed. “You don’t have to sound so damn robotic. You don’t have to be so... Fuck, Everly, I care so much about you that I risked going to your house tonight just to see you, and here you sit, cutting the threads that bind us as if it means nothing.” I looked at her. “You aren’t some dream I want to relive. You’re the part of my life that someone has decided to rip away, and I’m trying to figure out how to tie us back together. If you don’t want me, then tell me so. But don’t sit here and act so matter-of-factly about what happened and plague me with all your damn rules. I already have enough rules to abide, thanks to one Brighton. I don’t need another.”

  She sat quietly for a moment before she said, “I told you so long ago that I didn’t want to hurt you. I don’t know how else to say it to you, because if I begin to tell you how much it hurts me or how much I miss you and think of you, that agony will swallow me whole, and I will beg you not to take me back to my father’s house.” Her breath caught, as if she was trying not to cry. “That’s how I feel—your heart swallowed me like a well, and I will never be able to climb out. I fell. I fell into your infinity. And my inability to free myself will doom your life.” She turned away, pressing her forehead against the window.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and soothed my hand along her back. I let her “cry.” I let her have a moment to feel without having to explain herself—the girl who couldn’t even write in her journal without someone snooping.

  “For the record,” I said, “you will always be my topolina. There are certain things that your father has no control over, and how I feel about you, Everly Anne, is something he cannot change. You’re still the girl who’s too beautiful for me to look away from.”

  “Please just stop,” she cried. “Unless you’d like to rip my heart out and give it to Truscott tonight, because that’s what’s happening. My whole heart is ripping at the seams.”

  I reached across the car and pulled her into my arms, allowing her to hide her face in my shoulder and cry tearlessly.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I whispered. “But I don’t want you to ever believe, when I am away from you, that I am not thinking about you. That I’m not missing you profoundly.”

  “Don’t take me home,” she begged. “Don’t make me go back to him.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to, topolina.” I kissed her neck. “I’d keep you right here, if I could.”

  Everly pushed away from me. “Please don’t kiss me. I can’t take how you feel right now. It’s too much, Callum Andrew. It makes missing you even worse.”

  “All right.” I nodded. “What about the other thing? What about your heart, Everly Anne? What about your freedom? Do I ignore those things, too? Tell me what to do, because I have no idea what hurts you more right now.”

  “We should have kept on course,” she said. “It was only ever supposed to be about helping Truscott.”

  My chest burned, even though it expected her answer; expected her to run away. “That’s what you want? You’re sure?”

  “That’s all I can do,” she said quietly. “That’s all I have left.”

  ***

  Brighton whipped open the door as soon as we reached the porch. Everly looked at me with a forced smile. “So, thanks for taking me on that drive-by. I’m just gonna go to my room and snort this coke we scored. ‘Night.”

  I smiled back at her. “Next time, we’ll do hookers and heroine.”

  With her head down, she squeezed past her father, into the house.

  “I swear my only crime was taking her to eat at a crappy diner downtown.”

  “Well, now I know you’re a liar,” he said. “Everly doesn’t eat, so the last place she’d ask you to take her is to a diner.”

  “She did it for me since I was hungry. I gave her a ride around town in my dad’s Chevy.” I nodded to the car at the curb. “That said, I do apologize for keeping her out late. It's not my intention to cause trouble, but as you can understand, my time doesn't always belong to me.”

  Brighton stepped to the edge of the stairs. “You're causing trouble by drifting in and out of her life. She was perfectly content with the way things were before you started poking your nose where it didn’t belong. The differential is over. You don’t have any reason to show Everly interest. There are plenty of girls your own age that you can canoodle with.”

  “Locking her in a cage won't get you anywhere,” I argued. “I understand you're afraid of her getting hurt. I really do. But you're not talking to some teenage kid who doesn't know better. I can give her both freedom and safety. I’m not canoodling or trying to do something reckless with your daughter. I care for her and enjoy her company. Why can't you just allow her a little freedom? Happiness?”

  “She's not like other girls her age. She isn’t capable of doing the same things, of those same freedoms, even though at times she might feel more free because she has no line embedded in her system, alerting her to the danger she’s crossing. Look at what happened to her going to the beach. My rules have made sure she is able to live as long as possible, the most comfortable as possible. You’re screwing that up. You’re making her believe in things that aren’t true.”

  “No, sir, that’s the difference between us. I haven’t made Everly do anything.”

  “That’s interesting, given that I have read pages of passages in her journal that state ‘he makes me’ at the beginning of a sentence when she’s writing about you.”

  His bravado disgusted me.

  “You read her journal? Christ, even on paper you offer her no freedom. And you don’t understand why she’s trying to run away from you? Look at yourself, Dr. Brighton.”

  He stomped down the steps until he reached the bottom, standing inches from me. “Luring my daughter to your family’s beach house so you could strip away her innocence and then throw her away like yesterday’s news made me lose all interest in forming respect for your opinion about how I treat my daughter.”

  “You’re wrong. And Everly is an adult, not an innocent girl. She can think and decide for herself perfectly fine.”

  “I have orders that say otherwise, but it’s none of your concern. Just stay away from my daughter, or I’ll make your life hell.”

  “Already there, sir.” I nodded as he stomped up the steps, slamming the door with me still at the bottom. “But I appreciate being worthy of such a threat.”

  LITTLE LOST COIN

  IN THE DARK

  19.

  WE RIDE THE SUBWAY on my first Sunday off rotation in six weeks. I slid Julep’s Bible to her with a folded piece of paper tucked inside.

  Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it she calls her friends and neighbors to say, “Rejoice with me—for I have found my lost coin.” In the same way, I tell you, there was rejoicing in the presence of angels of God, over one sinner who repents.—Luke 15:8-10

  Everly Anne,

  You’re my little lost coin in the dark.

  Now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to spend you.

  Now that I�
��ve found you, I want to keep you close enough to me so I won’t ever lose you.

  —Callum Andrew

  And I added, “Merriam-Webster’s schedule was a little full, but thankfully Luke was available for guidance. He thought that’s how I should ask a beautiful girl festooned with interesting qualities to be my girlfriend. What do you think?”

  Everly rested her head on my arm. “Much better than an okay.”

  I locked our free hands. “And you’re much better than a self-appointed redhead.”

  She sighed heavily. “Now that we have that settled, I guess we should get down to business.”

  “On the train? But there’s people watching.”

  She looked up at me. “Are you making a sex joke?”

  “A bad one. Definitely.”

  “Maybe I need to make my own list.”

  “What number would you be on?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know if there are numbers high enough for you, Charming Sweeper.”

  She poked my cheek and then sat straight in her seat, handed me her backpack. “I have paper and writing utensils—the essentials for compiling a plan to rip my heart out and give it to another person.”

  I unzipped her bag. “Settle down. We’re just talking CIPA today. We’ll save heart ripping-out for a less merry day.”

  I grew quiet as I wrote her name and age. “Date of birth?”

  She gave me the Eye. “If this is going to be clinical, I’m going to be extremely difficult about my answers.”

  “It has to look and sound legit, Everly. Plus, honestly? I need to know these things. A judge will ask me questions and expect perfect answers.”

  She sighed in frustration. “Just talk to me like I’m a person and not some inanimate protoplasmic blob of flesh and bone sitting here.”

  “Congratulations, we just reached the triple digits in how utterly interesting and adorable I find you, despite how immature your overall demeanor is right now. Why are you so grumpy, anyhow?”

  “Puppies are adorable,” she scoffed.

  “And she just keeps heading in the kindergarten direction.” I looked down to the pad and then tossed it aside. “Give me your hands.”

  “They’re kind of attached to my arms.”

  “Everly Anne.” I sighed, but she wasn’t being moved from her mood. “Dearest Everly Anne, please place your palms against my palms so that I may ask you very important questions in a way that doesn’t reduce you to mere protoplasmic blobs of human flesh.”

  “Thank you.” She rested her hands in mine.

  “Tell me a story about an injured pinkie finger.”

  “Toddlers like biting their hands,” she said with a shrug. “We’ve been over this part.”

  “Yeah, but I was smitten, remember? Refresh my memory.”

  “I just bit myself and didn’t know it hurt, so I kept doing it until they had to amputate part of my pinkie. I wore those oven mitts to stop myself, but that only worked some of the time. They fell off, or I’d take them off, or the nurses would be pissed off because they got dirty or wet, and so they’d ditch them and then I got hurt. So, when I was a real problem, they put me in a cast so I didn’t end up chewing my fingers off completely. Wanna know how many times I almost bit my own lips off, too?”

  I smirked. “Wanna know how many times I’ve thought about biting your lips off?”

  “I’m in a crappy mood, so I’m betting at least twice since we got on this train.”

  “I thought about doing other things to your lips, too, but then remembered we had an inconvenient reality to consider... So...” I shrugged and wrote down notes. She didn’t say a word.

  “How do they perform ‘checks’?” I asked next. “Same as Montauk?”

  “No.” She flushed. “Not anything like Montauk.”

  I played along. “How does it differ?”

  “No one kisses me naked on their bed, for starters.” She smiled. “The nurses only make sure I haven’t hurt myself. Morning, noon. Before bed. If I go out. If I stay inside. I’m basically strip-searched at will.”

  “Do they ever ask?”

  “What do you think?” she replied.

  “That this part is very important.” My eyes narrowed. “What do they do during ‘checks’? I mean... I get it... But what happens? From beginning to end, how has it always been?”

  “I strip, they look me over. If I’m hurt, they treat whatever is messed up, and I get dressed or shower or whatever.”

  “Timothy ever performed these Checks?”

  “Just drop it, Callum.”

  “How old were you the last time he examined you?”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking, so drop it. I despise Timothy, but it’s not like that, and I’m not going to cry wolf that he’s that kind of monster.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  I stared at her until she said, “Thirteen.”

  “That’s a little old for a father to be staring at his daughter naked.”

  “It was my fault. I wouldn’t let them look at me because I had my period, and I was embarrassed, and he thought I was hurt and not telling someone. It’s the tactic I use to wiggle what I want from him. When he realized what was happening, he left the room, and he’s never looked at me again. He’s twisted, but he’s not that twisted.”

  I sighed as I sunk in my seat. “I’m sorry. Also, I might be experiencing a minor panic attack.”

  Everly rubbed my chest. “He would never hurt me, you know. I mean... he is hurting me, but he doesn’t mean to hurt me.”

  “No offense, topolina, but with that statement you sound like a textbook example of every victim who has had an abuser.”

  “Think it’ll hold up in court?”

  I put the paper on the seat beside me and let her lean her head on my chest. We rode the train in silence for a few stops, but then Sunday stepped aboard. It wasn’t so much a person as it was an assembly. Everly smiled at each person cloaked in black, greeted them by name, and they did the same to her, except her name on this train was only Peach. As soon as the train started to move again, Everly rested in her seat with her hand in mine and closed her eyes.

  “This is my favorite way of attending church,” she told me.

  And then the black robes started rehearsing “Amazing Grace” for the choir they were bound toward.

  I WASN’T ALLOWED

  TO KISS HER PROPERLY

  20.

  IT WAS SOME KIND OF MIRACLE Brighton never caught her sneaking out of their house. She’d show up around ten and stay until eleven. A few nights, she was braver: stayed until 11:45, and I drove her home, parking a few blocks away from her house. We were taking a chance, a big risk, but if either of us cared, you wouldn’t have known.

  The reason for this risk always leaned on our helping her with the order to help Truscott, but that was hard to prove on the nights we sat and talked about inconsequential things or didn’t talk much at all. Sometimes she’d sit on my bed with her head down and I’d just rub her shoulders, unsure of what bothered her, but willing to help fend it off. Other nights, Everly would ask me to wash her hair in the shower. I’d turn the water on for her, and she’d climb in before me. Her back would be turned when I entered, and we’d silently spend our time like that. I’d wash her hair then her back and arms. I’d kiss her wet, bare shoulder, and she’d let me. But she never touched me.

  She never asked for more or why I wanted her to be my girlfriend, even though I wasn’t allowed to properly kiss her and otherwise. And my spirit was all right with this. It was content with these moments we kept as secrets. Sex was an easy thing to shrug off, compared to the goodbye I knew was inevitable. So my heart was in a panic, riddled with the fear that these moments would someday soon draw to a close. But I didn’t want her to see the future I’d have without her. I played my role as if tomorrow would never bring an ending. There would never be sadness over our lives intertwining.

  Her legs draped over mine as we sat on the couch one night.
She let them be seen—bruises, scars, and all. She didn’t pull away as I played my fingers up and down her calf. Her head rested on one of twenty pillows Marta had on the couch. She listened to me tell her about my day, because we were having a night of inconsequential talk—at least it started that way.

  “Best night working in the ER so far? Logan is helping two medics usher in a guy on gurney. It’s packed to the gills in the ER—every bed is taken, and because Logan never actually gets his hands dirty, he has no idea what to do with the overflow. I walk up and I’m just so damn aggravated by his inadequacy, I take one look at the guy on the gurney and then glance back at the medics and snap, ‘Just put the OFD against the wall and get out of here!’

  “They get it, but Logan is such a damn rookie, he’s looking around like a lost child, shouting, ‘What the hell is an OFD?’ And no one is replying to him, so he keeps shouting, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS AN OFD?’ This little old nurse Agatha—I swear she’s like a hundred years old—walks by as he’s shouting, slaps him on the shoulder, and waves to the gurney, going, ‘Obviously Fuckin’ Dead!’”

  I couldn’t control my laughter until Everly suddenly sat up and inhaled sharply, as if she had to catch her breath.

  “You all right?” I rubbed her back, and she took another hard breath before she nodded. “Topolina?”

  “Don’t have enough oxygen in my blood.”

  “What’s going on?”

  She leaned her head on my shoulder, and I settled my arms around her waist, the closest we had been since Montauk. She felt cold. I rubbed her arms to gain friction and felt how frail she was under my hands. She had become alarmingly thin, withered to the bone. She balled up in my lap as if she could feel my warmth, even though I knew that was impossible.

  “Everly Anne... Talk to me, please.”

  “Same old stuff, Callum. I’m dying.”

  “CIPA doesn’t cause your blood to be under-oxygenated.”

  She sighed as if she had finally caught her breath. “I’m anemic from not eating properly. You see, fate has determined that I’m going to die one way or another. If CIPA won’t kill me directly, then my brain has decided mental defect will do just fine.”