One Sweet Day

by Elle Tyler

  “I kissed Tatum tonight.”

  She froze.

  “I meant to do it. I did it on purpose.”

  Her breath stopped. She could have been a statue. I had never seen a living person remain so still.

  “I’m sorry, it’s all coming out wrong. I’d like to blame those knee socks. They’ve greatly decreased the amount of blood circulating to my brain.”

  She sat up and all but got off my bed before I quickly crawled over to her and held her in my arms. “It was Logan—he’s screwing with me. Tot was asking me about you outside of the café, and I got pissed off and somehow ended up yelling at her about angels and my mom and then, when she started to cry, I hugged her, and then she saw that prick take a picture on his phone. So I kissed her to a test a theory, and he took a picture of that. I kissed her again and same result. Why would he care if I’m kissing a girl, Everly?”

  She just shook her head. “Is that supposed to be a better explanation?”

  “Your father babies him in the hospital—when have you ever witnessed that?”

  “You think …” She settled herself with a heavy breath. “You think Timothy asked him to do this?”

  I changed the question. “What would have happened if you saw a picture of me kissing Tatum?”

  “I don’t know, Callum.” She looked away, but I captured her chin and held her attention.

  “Would you believe that I’d cheat on you? That this wasn’t real between us?” Everly’s eyes didn’t want to say it, and she didn’t have to. I knew the answer. “Why would you believe that?”

  “Why wouldn’t I believe it?”

  “Because I told you that I’m in love with you.”

  She stilled again. “No you haven’t.”

  “I have so. Mi sono innamorato di te. I told you the last time I saw you. I’m in love with you.”

  Guilt plagued her eyes. “I don’t want you to be in love with me.”

  “Which one is it, Everly? You didn’t know I told you? Or you knew but don’t want to believe it’s true because your father has brainwashed you into thinking it would be impossible for you to matter to someone?”

  Her eyes burned electric as she shoved forward. “It’s not about me, Callum. I want you to have that chance at life you said you were after. This is not a chance. This is everything you hate about the word ‘just’—doom. That’s what this is for you. It’s pure doom.”

  I challenged, “Then why are you in my room looking so fuckin’ beautiful, waiting for me on my bed and asking me to kiss you?”

  “Because I have an arrow living inside my chest that shoots straight toward you—even though I know the sky is falling for us. Even though I know all we’re destined for is dust. I can’t make it change course. It leads me to you every time I’ve tried to turn away.”

  I pushed her blonde hair over her shoulders. And the rush I didn’t feel on the couch suddenly came all at once as soon as I touched her. But I was too nervous and unhinged—like my arms couldn’t straighten and my fingers couldn’t feel. She was so soft and sweetly perfumed, and I was just some short-sighted blip with a rush under my skin and flame igniting my ego.

  “I should change my clothes,” I said as I scooted off the bed. “I’ve been in the hospital all day.”

  Everly rose to her knees on the edge of the mattress. Her hands landed on my chest. “Just take them off.”

  I slid my arms behind her knees and pulled her onto my hips. “I should take a shower, too.”

  “Your vocab is insufferable,” she groaned. “Singulars in the presence of the woman you claim to be in love with are the absolute worst.”

  I turned away from the bed. “There was a ‘should’ in there, too.” I placed her on the counter once we reached the bathroom. “As in, I should take a shower by myself, but I’m not going to.”

  I turned the water on and pulled my shirt off then went back to test the temperature. “It’s warm.” I stood next to the counter and expected her to slide away once my back was turned, as she had all of the other nights we’d showered together, but she only raised her arms for me to strip her violet dress away. As soon as it hit the floor, she crossed her chest with her arms.

  I put my mouth on her shoulder as she whispered, “You can touch me, just don’t look at me. I’m all bones and no curves. This isn’t our one free day, anymore.”

  Her blonde hair threaded through my fingers as I tipped her head back so I could stare down into her eyes. “All I ever do is look at you, Everly Anne. Even when you’re not with me, all I have to do is close my eyes, dream, and there you are.”

  The kiss I gave her was smaller than a thimble and just below her bottom lip, yet my whole body quaked in response.

  I carried her into the shower and washed her hair, as I had so many other nights, but every time I put my hands on her, I had to rein myself in and bury the need to take a step forward that I could never take back. My eyes wandered further than they had any other night, too. They followed as warm water ran down her hair, across her breasts and ribs. I thumbed dawdling soap bubbles on her hips as I watched and burned, yearning for her skin against mine.

  When she pulled away from the stream, our eyes met. I kissed the water on her face, and she wrapped her arms up high, around my shoulders as she tipped on her toes. We stood there like that—wrapped in each other—ignoring every star that might someday fall.

  ***

  She spooned against me as we waited for time to run out. My robe kept her warm, and my body behaved itself despite the longing I felt. She played her fingers across my forearm as she rested her head in the crook of my elbow. It was the only thing that told me she was still awake.

  “Why did you get rid of the peach?” I asked.

  “I didn’t get rid of the peach. I got rid of the blonde, and now I’ve brought it back.”

  I played along. “Why did you get rid of the blonde?”

  “I got tired of hearing how much I looked like my mother. I’ve never seen a single picture of her, and it felt weird to look like someone I’d never met, let alone seen.”

  “Your pop doesn’t have any pictures of your mom? He’s never shown you? He’s such an asshole, topolina.”

  Everly fell quiet. I hated her quietness. Gently, I pulled my arm from under her so I could find an album in my closet. She rolled to my chest as I sat on the bed. I flipped to the fourth page and showed her my favorite picture.

  “That’s from when she was doing Annie Get Your Gun. It was the largest production she had ever been in.”

  Everly’s eyes danced as she looked at the picture of Julep dressed on stage. The lights. The costumes.

  Her finger scrolled along the pictures in the album. “Is that…?” She sat forward to examine a picture. “That’s the café uptown.”

  “It used to be a little theater house—strictly small production. Mostly actors and actresses who couldn’t get work.” I laughed. “My mom used to make all these recipes she’d learned from my Nona, and they loved her. My father used to beg her to just open a restaurant and quit acting—she’d make more money that way—but she just couldn’t give up her dream, and he loved her enough to never make her. But then one day the city decided they wanted to demolish the theater house to build an apartment building. It crushed my mom, like her dreams were literally being turned to dust, so my dad pulled some strings with the mayor, and he got to buy the theater house on one condition.”

  “Let me guess,” Everly said. “The mayor loved your mom’s cooking, too?”

  “Not exactly.” I watched her for a moment, a bit unsure of how she’d react. “He wanted my dad to give his wife morphine.”

  “Morphine for what?”

  “To end her suffering.”

  Everly’s brows arched. “Andrew killed someone?”

  “He let her die peacefully. She didn’t want to be in agony any longer. It was a bit more controversial than it is now, so it was nearly impossible to find a doctor willing to do it. In a way, you could argu
e that my father was one of them.”

  “But you just said…”

  “He gave him the morphine and told him how to administer it into her IV, but he didn’t actually do it.”

  “Holy buckets.”

  I laughed a bit. “Yeah.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Because my mom wanted to die the same way.”

  “Did he...?”

  I shook my head. “No, of course not. But she knew what he did. I heard them one night arguing in their bedroom—it was toward the end, when they’d stopped chemo because it was pointless. I think... I think that’s why he’s so angry with himself. He couldn’t offer her peace, because he was too afraid of her dying. To him, she suffered because he wasn’t brave enough. Or ruthless enough.”

  Her face soured. “Like my father.”

  I flipped to another page. “Sorry, I was trying to tell you a secret, not make you unhappy.”

  She scooted closer and put her head back on my chest. “What do you think he should’ve done? In both cases.”

  “I think everyone has a right to decide how they live and how they die.”

  “If I asked you to give me a lethal dose of morphine, you’d do it?”

  “If you were suffering,” I admitted.

  Everly turned her head to look at me. “Honestly?”

  “It’s not up to me how you die. And I’d rather let you go than keep you here in pain.” I grimaced. “You know what I mean.”

  “My condition is limited to physical pain. I’ve never experienced that, so I can’t say if it compares to the pain felt emotionally, but I can tell you that my spirit is suffering something great, Callum Andrew.”

  “Are you asking me to kill you?”

  “I’m asking you to make it stop.”

  My eyes closed. “I’m trying so hard, Everly Anne.”

  I felt her kiss my shoulder. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was only taking back my words from that night at the diner.”

  I set the album aside and sunk into the pillows with her in my arms. “So you’re granting me full access to you, wherever, whenever I choose?”

  She nodded as she cuffed her fingers around my wrists. “I’m yours, remember?”

  I admired her face for a moment, and maybe it was cruel, but so was the clock. I cocked a grin, inches from her lips. “Good to know.”

  She shoved me as we sat up and then stole the picture of Julep in the play. “This is mine. You can’t have it back.”

  “Mother-stealer.”

  “I’m not psychic, but I’m pretty sure that’s why you showed it to me in the first place, Callum Andrew.”

  I dotted a kiss on her forehead, and we dressed with our backs turned... as if we had anything to hide.

  THANKSGIVING

  PART FOUR

  EVERYTHING RESTED

  ON HOPE

  22.

  #342—SHE HAS A GREAT sense of humor.

  “We here for the grub. Heard y’all got some.” I pretended to spit on the ground. Tatum stared at Everly and me... Well..., mostly at our appearance. Everly rivaled Ellie May, while I gave Joe Dirt a run for his money. It took every ounce of discipline not to lose my shit and blow the gag.

  “Heards gon’be quite the party,” Everly chimed in as she tugged on her braids. “Callum Andrew here done promised me y’all gonna go mudd’n after we eat. Then we gon’ go down yonder to the crick and swap spit under the moonlight.”

  “Damn, baby,” I added, “That right there sound like the makings of a great country love song. You should write that there down.”

  Tatum grabbed my flannel shirt. “You are such an asshole.” She laughed before fully getting the last word out.

  “What?” I continued, as I gave a lick to the big, fake Bubba teeth Everly and I had found in a costume shop. The front two were missing, and the rest were tobacco-stained and wayward. “I thought you might like yous a preview of what me and Everly gons look like when we git hitched and move to joe-juh.”

  Tatum put on a good show and tried hard not to laugh, but when Everly smiled and showed her fake teeth—that were even more hideous than mine—Tatum stood no chance.

  “That was pretty fuckin’ good... I gotta say.” She closed the door behind us, and we removed the teeth. There wasn’t much we could do about the rest of our appearance, but Everly unbuttoned her flannel and let it hang lose around a white T-shirt. I pulled the ties from her pigtails and raked my fingers through her hair. Soft blonde waves fell around her shoulders.

  “So damn pretty,” I told her. “Too damn kissable.”

  “And yet...” She sighed.

  She helped me unbutton my shirt, but what I wore underneath wasn’t much better. She laughed as she pulled the mullet wig from my head.

  Tatum waved us inside. “You know your way around. Nick should be here soon.”

  “Thanks for inviting me into my house, Tatum Tot.”

  She looked at Everly. “He hasn’t given you a dumb nickname yet, has he?”

  “No, but he has a slight fixation on calling me by my first and middle name.”

  I smiled. “I most certainly do not, Everly Anne.”

  Tatum rolled her eyes. “At least your name is pretty.” She shrugged. “And not a lunchroom classic.”

  Everly smiled awkwardly. “It means wild boar of the woods or something equally cringe-worthy.”

  Tatum took her hand and pulled her through the house. I followed behind them until we reached the living room, where food adorned every available table. It was an odd mix of guests, my family fused with Nick’s and Tatum’s. My pop wasn’t anywhere in sight, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. I turned to Everly and told her I wanted to go find him. I’d planned on doing it alone, but she slid her hand in mine. I couldn’t blame her: I wouldn’t want to be left alone in a house full of strangers, either.

  I wasn’t too thrilled about the possibility of him being drunk in his room—I didn’t want her to see that. Tatum noted my discomfort and offered to go find Noelle, so Everly could change her clothes into something less Ellie May.

  As I suspected, he was passed out in his room, shoes on, fully dressed. I tucked a blanket around him and left him to sleep. It was the only place he was ever at peace.

  Noelle caught me at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Is there a reason why the little homeless girl from my café is trying on my clothes right now?” she demanded.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Tatum has her in my room, trying on clothes.”

  “Who? Everly? You know she’s not homeless. You met her on Fourth of July weekend, remember?”

  “I remember you being incredibly embarrassed about how you knew Everly that night at dinner, and then I put two and two together and remembered she was the same girl who comes into my café and takes suspended orders. Your red face at dinner and lack of a good story suddenly made perfect sense. You’re dating a homeless girl. Congrats.”

  “You must be drunk.” I laughed. “Everly is my girlfriend. I assure you she is not homeless—not even close to it. Her father is one of the most respected doctors in the country.”

  “Then tell me why she needs suspended coffees!”

  “I have no clue,” I lied. I had plenty of clues. “Maybe she’s getting them for someone else who needs them and can’t come into the café. Ever think about that?”

  “No, because she sits at a table, drinking her little cup of coffee with ice in it, and never has company. Not until she met you, anyhow. Tell me, how does being swindled feel?”

  I laughed. “Everly’s not swindling me. You should take a breath. You’re going to have a stroke over a free cup of coffee, Noelle.”

  “I’m glad you think it’s funny,” she chided. “People pay for those coffees under the assumption they are doing a good deed. Your stupid girlfriend is abusing a charitable effort and stealing from people who truly need help!”

  “I’m sure she has a really good reason,” I said, shrugging. �
�If you’re that pissed off about it, tell me how many she has taken, and I’ll pay you back for them. What do I owe you, Noelle?” I reached for my wallet. “Ten, twenty bucks, tops?”

  “She’s been taking them for almost three years!”

  “Okay, so more like a grand. You want a check now, or do I need to hit up an ATM before I go back to work tonight?”

  She folded her arms, all business-like. “I want your girlfriend out of my room and to stop stealing coffee. She does it again, I’m going to serve her with a trespassing warrant.”

  “Chill the fuck out, Noelle. It’s just coffee.”

  “People in need would argue otherwise. But what the hell would you know about that.”

  “I’m sorry, but are you about to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast in our warm, luxurious home or are you due at a soup kitchen to help these poor folks in need of a hot meal tonight?” I balked. “You think Everly is the only person who has ever taken from that jar and wasn’t really in need? Wake up. The real world is full of suckers and suckees. If you’re gonna cry about every time you wound up the sucker, you have a lot of tears ahead of you.”

  “Or maybe you’re the sucker and have no clue who your girlfriend really is.”

  “I think I know her perfectly well. Now excuse me, but there’s a mountain of baked ziti I must introduce myself to.”

  I ate my food huddled on the end of the couch where two girls to my right held a conversation about being military wives and the difficulties of such a role. I listened in between bites and wondered if Tatum had the same thoughts, if she felt the same loneliness these women confessed.

  Halfway through my plate, I spotted her with Everly as they sliced through the crowded room. Everly paused a few feet in front of me. I shook my head as I looked her over. It was more skin than I was used to seeing her show in public. The dress was gray and shiny with some Paris-inspired print at the bottom. No sleeves. The hem hit right at her knee. It hung a little loose off her shoulders, because Noelle was taller and more filled out than Everly, but she still outshined every bulb on the Christmas tree.