Sloth

by James, Ella

  FIFTEEN

  Kellan

  I step away from Cleo. I can’t think straight so close to her, so I grab a TwoCal Arethea left on the bedside table and walk around to the recliner, where I sit and take a long, disgusting swallow.

  “Why’d you come here? Really?” My voice sounds hoarse. Because my throat is so tight.

  Cleo’s sitting cross-legged on the bed now. She lifts her eyes to me, then drops them back to her lap. She plucks at the blanket. “I guess…it felt like my place,” she says. “Being here. I couldn’t stand the idea of anybody else being near you when I wasn’t.” Her eyes flash in my direction. “You’re mine. That’s what—” She shakes her head. “It felt like I should be here taking care of you. Me and no one else. I can’t explain. I…needed to in this weird way. I felt like that since we met. Like I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t even matter, though. I rolled with it. You’re stuck with me.” She smiles.

  I swallow. Fuck, I love those words. I look down at my knees. What do I tell her? How hard should I try to drive her off?

  Really hard, my conscience answers.

  I take a breath and blow it out. “You know I’m going to get sick. Sicker than this. A lot sicker.”

  She nods slowly. “I don’t want that, but if happens, I can handle it.”

  She doesn’t know. She’s only had a taste of this, a few days.

  When I look up again, I find her looking curious. “Did Whitney stay here with your brother, just like this?”

  I nod, trying not to let her see that it bothers me to talk about him. “She would hold his hands while someone pushed a catheter into his cock. She would let him vomit all over both of them. She’s a freak, Whitney. Med student now.”

  “Maybe I’m a freak, too.”

  My stomach twists so tight I feel a wave of nausea. “I don’t know why you would be,” I rasp.

  “Because I love you.”

  * * *

  Cleo

  “Cleo…” I watch his Adam’s apple move along the column of his throat. He rubs a hand over his head, then folds his fingers over his eyes like a visor.

  “It’s a burden,” he says quietly. “If you don’t feel that way, you haven’t been here long enough.”

  “God. That’s what you really think? Who made you think like that?” I want to go and wrap my arms around him, but my chest hurts so much I can’t breathe.

  I’m filled with rage. “I really want to know who made you feel like that. Was it your dad? Where is your dad?”

  He grits his teeth. “He came and left before you got here. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes it does. Who else? Was it the last time? Who was here with you last time?”

  “My college girlfriend came here once. She stayed for thirty minutes. And you know what?” He stands up. “She was shallow, nothing like you, but she wasn’t a bitch. It’s just too much. No one wants this. You’ll see.”

  I slip down off the bed and step toward him, arms out. He doesn’t lift his head. His mouth is tight and hurt. I twine my arms around his waist and lay my cheek against his chest.

  “K... You’re so wrong. You’ll see.” I nuzzle my head against his pec. “That girl was an idiot. I’m much better than her. I love you, and I want to help. It’s not too much for me. I love being with you. I would never change my mind.”

  I rub his lower back, and he shakes his head. He clutches his forehead, fingertips digging into his hair. “You gave me love...” he rasps, “and all I can give you is pain.”

  “That’s not true.” I look up into his tortured eyes. “Every moment that I’m with you, I’m happy that I am. You’re going to be okay—and in the meantime, all you have to do is talk to me and I’ll be super happy. I want to know everything there is to know about you, Kell.”

  His mouth twitches. “I don’t know why.”

  “Lie down with me…”

  I take his hand, tugging him over to the bed, and hold his IV lines while he climbs up and settles on his side. I watch him shift his left shoulder a few times, then—when I think he seems comfortable—I climb up behind him.

  “Lie on your back for a minute, so I can see you. ’Kay?”

  He shifts onto his back, his eyes wary. I trail my fingertips over his forehead, just the way I know he likes, and he stares at the ceiling.

  “Close your eyes, baby. Focus on my fingers.” I kiss his chin, and keep on tracing the planes of his face. “Is your father your only living family?”

  “No.” He shifts his jaw. I feel his chest sink with a slow exhale. “I have a brother. Barrett. He’s a Ranger, special forces. Just retired,” he adds after a moment.

  “You’re not very close to your father, am I right? I remember that from R.’s letters. And at your house, I remember you said some things about your dad. Some conflict between the two of you.”

  His eyes open, blazing. “Lyon had a heart attack because the chemo was too harsh. He wanted to withdraw from the trial we did, but my dad pushed him to stay in. That’s how he is. He wants me to be alive, I guess, but none of the details matter.”

  God. None of the details… Quality of life. How hard he has to fight for it.

  “I’m so sorry.” I wrap my arm over his chest and snuggle close to his side, my fingers still smoothing over his head. He shuts his eyes, but I can feel the tension in his body.

  “The details do matter,” I say softly.

  I think about the burn of his forehead on my chest when he’s fevered and I’ve got him pulled close to me. The way his hands crushed mine during the bone marrow biopsy.

  “You’ve had so many hard details. Ones I can’t even imagine.” I press my face against his bicep, feathering my lips over his smooth skin. “I’m so glad you came back here. You’re so fucking brave. Because I get it, why you wouldn’t want to. I’m not sure if I could have.”

  My throat tightens when I think of Kellan coming here alone that day. How hurt he was, physically. How hard it must have been, coming to this place of nightmares. Tears fill my eyes as I meld myself around him.

  I feel him shift a little. Feel him breathing. I want to see his face, but I don’t lift my head from where it’s pressed against his shoulder.

  “When I first came to New York,” his low voice rumbles, “I wasn’t staying in the hospital. I was living out of this hotel, The Carlyle, and after hours I would go to bars, and drink and smoke. And fuck. I had a— I had been with someone, sort of.”

  “The girl you mentioned?” I ask softly.

  “Yeah,” he murmurs. His arm, around my back now, shifts a little as he strokes along my spine. “It was just an off-and-on thing. Back at school. But I was here and started...needing sex. I had a central line like this—” his right hand hovers above his chest— “so I would tie them up and…take them from behind. Some of them knew me. From TV, you know? They would do whatever I wanted.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek and try to picture this—my Kellan with some New York girl. I feel a well of sadness where I had expected jealousy. “Had you ever tied anyone up before? Or was that the first time?”

  His hand spreads out over my back, pressing me closer to him. The silence cradles us.

  “It was the first time,” he says finally.

  I hug his chest tighter, taking care not to press myself too hard against his sore ribs.

  “That must have been so hard,” I whisper.

  His forehead furrows.

  “Clearly you were in denial, right? You were getting treatment and out partying?”

  “It was definitely hard,” he says dryly.

  I tuck my leg over his and wait for him to speak. His fingers play along my spine, but he stays quiet. Waiting, I think. For my questions.

  “Where was your brother during that time?” I ask.

  “He was inpatient. He had a bad reaction to the chemo from day one. It made his heart fuck up.”

  I think on that. I try to picture Kellan Drake, star quarterback, at a bar, smoking and drinking and picki
ng up women. Then going back to…what? Chemo pills? Covert hospital appointments? Did he wear a ball cap? Shades? Poor K. And worried about his twin the whole time.

  I think of Kellan holding the counter in his kitchen, chewing a Xanax because he missed his brother so much. I meet his gaze. It seems to shove at me.

  “I could have stayed with Ly.” He grits his teeth. “I didn’t. He was by himself. Whit had no idea. After the night on the yacht—after we found out he had AML—he broke things off with Whitney and he left the team. People found out he left the team and left town too, but no one knew what happened. Some fuckhead made a crack about him, how he wasn’t good enough to hold his spot on the team, and I kicked his ass outside a bar one night. So when I got my diagnosis, my coach used me as an example.” Kellan’s teeth come down atop his lower lip. “It was different with me than with Ly. The whole thing became more of a secret.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wanted football for a career. We thought I would do the treatment, then come back. Be fine. If no one knew, I’d still get scouted just the same. Now, they would find out—they look at your medical records—but I’d still be in the running. I could still move forward.”

  It didn’t happen that way. I don’t know the whole story—the story of the first bone marrow transplant, or why the cancer came back this year—but Kellan’s chemo consent forms say that this is his seventh cycle. I nuzzle closer to him.

  “Anyway, that didn’t happen, did it?” he says. “I was fucking bitter after he died. I was here for a while, inpatient. I had left the hospital the day he died. Just took off, onto the subway and shit.”

  “Wow.” That’s a big no-no for a bone marrow transplant patient. We can’t even leave this room. Something as minor as a cold could be serious for Kellan right now. Until he gets my marrow and his immune system re-starts.

  “I got sick,” he says. From going out on his excursion, he means. He goes on, “Not just from skipping out that day. Before then, too. Ly and I switched places after transplant, see. His took, and he was better fast. Angel marrow,” he murmurs, nuzzling my head with his chin. “Mine wasn’t such a good match, my donor. There was only one 10/10 match for us. Twins, right? And Ly was worse, so he got you.”

  I look up at him, bug-eyed. “What?”

  “My donor was a German woman,” he explains. “An 8/10 match. Still good, but not you.” His hand comes into my hair. I shake it off.

  “You’re telling me I could have helped you last time?”

  His lips twist up on one side, in a tired smile. “You mad now?”

  “Hell yes. Why didn’t—”

  His eyes shut. He interrupts, “It wouldn’t work. We needed marrow at so close to the same time. The more the better, for each patient. Willard didn’t think you’d have enough. And 8/10 isn’t bad. Sometimes it’s fine.”

  “But it wasn’t,” I fume.

  He strokes my cheek with his thumb. “Yeah. I needed you.”

  “You don’t look pissed off!”

  “I’m not.”

  “So zen.” I look at his face: pale and tired, like usual right now. So fucking hot, my guy. Why is he here?

  Before I get a chance to get all philosophical, he rubs his foot against my leg and goes on. “Right about then is when I asked for your info. I was here, just me. Pissed off. And I was going to write you and say ‘Guess what, it didn’t matter, he died anyway,’ but I don’t know…” He shrugs. “I guess I couldn’t.”

  I smile softly. “No. Of course you couldn’t.”

  His eyes flare a little. “I wrote you more letters.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He rubs his eyes, looks into mine. “I wrote to you all the time from my family’s cabin. After I got discharged last time, I was so fucked up. My head was fucked. I was up there by myself, until they brought me Truman. I started telling you things, talking to you like you were all I had. I didn’t send that shit. But you’re how I ended up in Georgia. Figured at least one good person was there. Barrett’s stationed there, Ft. Benning, but he’s never stateside.”

  “Wow.” My eyes sting as I prop my head in my hand and look up at him. “I didn’t know that. I would never guess. Can I…sometime can I see the letters? The ones you didn’t send me?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got them.”

  “Here?”

  He nods. “Manning sent them. I asked him to.”

  That really…makes me feel good. And more secure. As if he really does care for me.

  I smile—almost grin. He liked me. Kellan liked me, way back when.

  “I’m really glad,” I say. “What are the odds, you know? It’s almost unbelievable that we met at school. That we were both dealing. I’m sorry,” I correct, smirking. “You were supplying and playing Robin Hood, and I was dealing like the bad bitch I am. It’s like one of those cheesy local news stories.”

  He nods. “You being a dealer and at Chattahoochee College—that’s some crazy shit. A hell of a coincidence.”

  “Because it’s not…”

  SIXTEEN

  Cleo

  “What makes the desert beautiful,” said the Little Prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well…”

  – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

  September 25, 2014

  Today is Kellan’s last day of chemo. Yesterday after we talked, we had our best night here so far. Arethea gave us a chess board, and Kellan was a shark, acting like he felt shitty and then checkmating my sad self in no time flat.

  We played three times before bed, and every time, he kicked my ass. And then the lights went out, and we had such a good time. So much better than I ever would have thought would be possible in a hospital.

  It wasn’t just what we did—although that was pretty damn good too—it was the time after. Kellan stretched out on his back and pulled me to his chest, and wrapped his arms and leg around me and played with my hair. And as we fell asleep, he made the ASL sign for “I love you” with his hand...and followed it with the sign for “I’m sorry.”

  “Kellan—no. You’re not sorry. No sorry. I reject your ‘sorry.’”

  He sighed, but I got him to agree. We fell asleep with him more in my arms than me in his. Dr. Willard lowered the dose of steroids he got through the IV overnight, so he slept peacefully and woke up before mid-morning, for once.

  He woke me up with a cinnamon roll he ordered for me from a nearby bakery. Unlike the oblivious days at his house, I noticed when he didn’t have any breakfast besides a few sips of the TwoCal.

  All morning, he talked to me and touched me and looked at the quotes I wrote inside another batch of origami sparrows. When the PT person came and made him do a shoulder workout, he didn’t complain. When Dr. Willard came in with a bowl of rice and awful gravy, Kellan downed most of it—and then lounged on the bed with a can of Dr. Pepper.

  We watched the first episode of Orphan Black sitting side by side, shoulder-to-shoulder, and then Kellan fell asleep leaning against me.

  Nice, right?

  But not nice. Because about this time, the room phone rings. The transplant unit’s mail person tells me I have a package.

  Gotta get it fast. It’s marijuana tincture from Manning.

  I slip my Ugg mocs on, strap on a face mask, shimmy my hands into gloves, and walk to the opposite end of the BMT ward. I get my package, and on my way back to the room, I notice a homey little sitting area, where I decide to stop off and call my mom.

  She knows nothing about my situation. Just that I came to New York about a week ago. Now that Kellan and I have talked more, I’m feeling braver, so I drop into a leather wing-backed chair and dial her number.

  And, surprisingly, I get her.

  More surprisingly, instead of telling her a half truth, I tell her the whole damn story. It takes almost an hour and a half, and just as I get up to go—eager to see Kellan again—the phone rings. It’s Cindy from Be The Match, telling me what I already know: my recipient is at Sloan-Kettering
Memorial.

  I guess some of the stress is definitely starting to ease up now that Kellan’s talking to me some, because I chat with Cindy for a few minutes, telling her how he and I met each other. She says she wants to interview us both for Be The Match’s e-newsletter.

  “You have quite a story.”

  I agree.

  I hustle down the hall, worried about how long I was away, but telling myself I should obviously chill out. The first few days were bad, yes—apparently Kellan had a strong dose of radiation before I arrived, and that made his bone pain much worse—but everything is so much better now.

  So of course, as I open the door to our room, I can hear the awful sound of retching. I race to the blue-tiled bathroom and find Kellan curled up on his side between the shower and the toilet, unable to even lift his head as spasms wrack him.

  “Kell... oh shit.” I drop down and touch his sweaty back.

  “Cleo!”

  “Oh. Shhh, baby…” As his shoulders clench and harsh gags echo off the walls, I try to clasp his forehead so his face is off the floor. He pulls away.

  “No, don’t.” I gather him against my knees me as he trembles and groans. “Oh baby—” God, I need to get a towel—a “It’s okay…” He manages to stop the heaving, breathing hard and hoarsely. “Can you get up? Let’s get you to the bed.”

  I try to help him off the floor and have to page Arethea because he’s so heavy, so unsteady. The two of us get him up and moving toward the door, but after just one small step, he stops to curl over the sink.

  The retching is relentless. There’s nothing in his stomach now but bile, which burns his throat. Arethea starts another anti-nausea drug and gives more Zofran too, and brings wet rags and stickers we put on his wrists.

  But nothing really helps. I find myself holding poor, exhausted Kellan by the shoulders, bracing his head against the bed rail as he gets sick so many times, he actually starts to drop off to sleep between dry-heaves.