“Are you in pain?” Mary Fay asks. “Can I get you anything? Your medicine? A glass of water?”
Mary Fay grabs a blanket from the armchair and heads toward me.
“I guess I could use a glass of water?” I shrug as she covers me gently with the blanket.
“I thought you didn’t need any help,” Thomas says.
When I look over at him, he raises his annoyingly thick eyebrows a centimeter higher.
He is such an asshole.
“That’s true,” I say, now feeling like I have an illegal blanket covering me.
There is no way to miss Thomas’s eye roll, unless you’re Mary Fay or my mother. “Why don’t I get you a glass of water,” he says, turning toward the hallway and our bedrooms.
“Kitchen’s to the left,” I call out weakly, fiddling with the blanket to avoid looking directly at Mary Fay’s concerned face.
My mother walks into the living room rolling her suitcase behind her just as Thomas walks in and hands me my glass of water. “Eve doesn’t have to be waited on,” she tells him.
Thomas smirks. I ignore him and take a sip of water.
Mary Fay puts on her coat.
“You don’t have to take me to the airport,” my mother says. “I’ll get a Lyft.”
“Nonsense,” Mary Fay says, waving my mother’s suggestion aside. “How often do you head out to speak at your first big conference?” And then she gestures over at me. “Unless you don’t want Eve alone.”
“No, no, Eve is fine alone.”
I nod in agreement.
“It’s just that you’ve already come all the way out here.”
But now I don’t know what to do with my head when my mother mentions Mary Fay’s sacrifice in taking care of me.
“It’ll only take forty minutes. Thomas, do you mind hanging out until I get back?”
“No!” Both Thomas and I say it at the same time.
“Great,” Mary Fay says, not knowing how else to respond to our little chorus.
My mother reminds me to brush my hair and teeth as per Nancy’s instructions, making me feel like I’m four years old—and even younger when she kisses her hand and plants it on my forehead to say goodbye. The whole thing is made worse by Thomas standing ten feet away.
They head toward the door when my mother stops. “I almost forgot.” She expertly picks up my telescope and whisks it down the hall to my room. She’s back before I can get too uncomfortable trying not to make eye contact with Mary Fay or Thomas. “Good luck with school, honey,” she says.
My heart flutters. “Wait!” I shout.
Startled, my mother stops short in the doorway.
I don’t look up, yet I can completely feel Mary Fay and Thomas staring at me. Oh my god, I’m a fucking diva now. But she’s about to drive away, and, well, I know Minnesota isn’t disappearing. But what if it is? I took the Roxy—I’ve been taking it. And I don’t know the rules.
“Uh,” I say, out of breath. “Thanks, Mom.” Tears sting the corners of my eyes, sprung out of shame or fear, I’m not sure which. I totally blame Thomas-fucking-Aquinas.
“Oh, honey,” she says. “You’re welcome.”
I lie back on the couch, exhausted from the exchange, and after an awkward second, Mary Fay grabs her car keys and ushers my mother out ahead of her, calling back a “see you soon” and shutting the door behind them.
Did I think saying something would keep her here? No. I didn’t. I took the Roxy. Just like I took the hand.
I knew she’d go.
Who You Want Me to Be
IT’S NOW JUST ME AND THOMAS AQUINAS.
“Um,” I say. “I should go to bed.”
I pull off Mary Fay’s blanket.
Thomas moves uneasily, as if to help me from the couch.
“I got it,” I tell him.
I don’t feel so snarky anymore. I guess he doesn’t either.
He takes his time choosing a seat so as not to watch me logroll off the couch, finally settling into the gold armchair. I’m immediately reminded of Lidia in that very same chair. And I’m dizzy from the strangeness of it. That he is here. That she is not.
“You don’t have to stay,” I blurt. “I’m fine.”
“It’s no problema,” he jokes.
Seeing me cringe, he adds, “Truthfully, I really have nowhere else to be.”
We look at each other with that sentence hanging between us, and so instead of just saying good night, I say, “And you’re already in the chair.”
He smiles, settling with extreme exaggeration into the seat. “I am. Already in the chair.”
“Okay, good night then.” The words stick a little coming out because it feels too weird to be saying this to him.
“Good night,” he says. “I’ll be right here, in the chair, if you need me.”
I nod super-awkwardly, and then get the hell out of there before anything else ridiculous can leave my mouth.
My room is warm, although I shut the door anyway. I even turn out the light, like he might be able to see me through the door. Shuffling over to my bed, I sit down on the edge of my mattress, not knowing exactly how to be with my mother gone and Thomas Aquinas sitting in my living room. Even the walls around me, heavy with my life, seem unfamiliar.
I rustle in my drawer, take out a half, and swallow—I am playing my telescope’s game now. I made the pact.
Listening to my heartbeat, I sit, frozen, waiting, waiting, waiting. I can’t bring myself to move from the edge of my mattress. To admit to living.
Finally, I move. Take another half. Why not. It’s over now. Whatever it is. And I sit staring out into all the universes swirling on my dark walls, my stomach swirling with them. Finally, it comes—the first sense of well-being since Mary Fay and her suitcase clattered through the front door.
Inhaling deeply, I roll onto my bed and pull my sheet and blanket up over the top of me and lie like I’m in a movie, flat on my back with my head squarely in the middle of the pillow and my arms folded over the top of the blanket. My eyes won’t close.
Because.
Thomas Aquinas is sitting by himself in my living room.
Although now I think about how Thomas Aquinas is always sitting by himself. In fact, I try to picture him hanging out with someone, anyone. Between class. Walking down the hallway. At lunch. Or even on the street. I can’t. He is always by himself. Even now, even on a weekend. Out there. In my living room.
As if he can feel me thinking about him, he clears his throat down the hall and it sends a weird bolt of electricity through me. I nervously glance over at my telescope. My eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark and I can barely make it out. It’s quiet… empty.
Turning my face back to the ceiling, I listen—wanting to hear him out there. I can feel him thinking about me. It’s… nice. I like him thinking about me. I lie in my film-sleeping pose, my hands resting across my chest on my brace, and stare into nothing. Nice. I think.
Nice.
Nice.
Nice. Beats my heart.
Yet I can’t remember now
what is nice.
The Roxy pumping
into my fingertips
my knees,
across the top of my head.
Minnesota.
The pact.
It’s not like the pact means anything. Minnesota is not disappearing. I’ve been checking its wiki page almost every day between episodes of whatever I’m bingeing, along with searching its news and weather. Nothing has changed. My mother is heading out to a state where nothing has changed.
I close my eyes and sigh, long and loud.
“You are not real.”
“I’m as real as you make me.”
His voice tickles
the back of my neck and
my lips curl into a
very large smile.
I hate him.
So much that I love him.
And oh my god,
I’ve missed him.
“Eve.”
He sounds closer than he ever has before. I keep my eyes closed, afraid he won’t continue talking if I open them, and I pull the covers tight.
“Then you’re not real.”
He laughs, and I can
feel it across
every inch of my skin.
“Words are sounds,” he says. “The sound is the meaning, not the words. And I understand yours.”
But then I hear her voice,
Fuck the hand.
And I know he’s right.
Words are just sounds.
“Who are you?”
Fuck the sadness for pushing its way through the Roxy. Fuck the Roxy for not working hard enough. I should have chewed.
“I already told you,” he says.
“The devil?”
“Do you really think there is one god, and his nemesis is a dude with a pitchfork?” he asks.
I think about god…
and the many nights I
prayed for him to fix me.
“And did you get what you wanted, Eve? Did Lidia?”
He’s never said her name before. I slowly open my eyes. And there, sitting in my desk chair, is Thomas Aquinas.
I clutch at my covers, pulling them up to my eyes.
“What are you doing in here?”
But then he smiles, and I know.
“You’re not Thomas Aquinas.”
I can feel my heart thudding against my brace.
“Who are you?” I ask. “Why are you here?”
“I thought we agreed on the human form,” he says.
He makes a move to stand.
“No!”
I don’t want him to move. I don’t want him near me. I don’t want this happening.
He leans back in the chair and folds his arms across his chest.
“Okay, Eve.”
The sound of his voice calms me. It always does.
“Really… who are you?”
“I am who you want me to be. It’s who I’ve always been.”
Now I’m pissed.
“I don’t want you to be anything. I don’t wa-want you to be here.” I stutter, because I know it isn’t true. I do want him here. I more than want him here. And he knows it.
I slip down into my bed, trying not to think the words I need you. Though I feel them. Everywhere. And I quickly close my eyes to hide it. My need.
For him.
For something that
doesn’t exist.
Raspy sobs
scratch in my ears, and
my body
jerks at my staples.
“Eve?”
He is near.
I can feel the warm
weight of him
like my brace
wrapping around me.
“Drink,” he says. He moves the glass to my mouth. Holding the straw against my lips. His fingers, rough.
I drink.
He takes the glass and sets it on the table, but he doesn’t move away.
“I didn’t,” I tell him, wiping the mess from my face on my pillow.
“What, Eve? What didn’t you?”
“Get what I wanted. I didn’t get what I wanted. I don’t even know what it was.”
My eyes have adjusted to the dark because I can see him clearly. His gold-rimmed glasses. His dark hair falling on his shoulders. He’s unshaven, as usual. As usual? And he smells like a clean T-shirt straight from the dryer. All of a sudden, I’m dying to press my face into his chest, to suck in the scent of that shirt. The yellow one. The Minnesota one.
Car tires crunch gravel, and he turns toward the sound, but my eyes stay on the T-shirt.
“You’re wearing his shirt.”
The Real One
You were hatless.
And the way your eyes
searched the crowd
made you look smaller,
younger.
We stood by the benches
in front of the theater
across from the food court.
We didn’t speak.
Who knows what you were
thinking. I only know
I wasn’t. The echoing hum of the mall
falling on my ears like
steady rain.
Scared shitless
they’d show.
Scared shitless
they wouldn’t.
They showed.
Although it was obvious
by the distant look in Nick’s eyes
he was here to endure this
for a friend. I was to be
endured.
Had I hoped
it would be different?
Hell, yes, I had.
I had hoped.
And although he couldn’t see my brace
under the large sweater I borrowed from you,
no amount of body positivity could transform
my limp,
my lean,
the hump on my back,
into something
he had hoped to find.
I was crooked as hell.
This mattered, and
although I might imagine a different world,
I didn’t live in one.
Jayden—wearing your hat and his grin—
didn’t notice the cloud of disappointment
swirling around him. Neither did you.
And as the four of us dangled
at the edge of the food court
clicking and clacking against
one another like wind chimes in a light breeze,
I couldn’t stop noticing your sleeve,
your very long sleeve,
and how you twisted that sleeve behind your back.
Nervous.
You were nervous.
Then Jayden reached up,
plucked the hat from his head
and returned it to yours—his hands
lingering near your ears
longer than they needed to.
You held your breath—and
a thought landed in my head
like a little bird
out of nowhere.
A light, fluttery thought.
Maybe it will work out.
A Shower
“EVE!”
I smell bacon.
My stomach rolls. I have absolutely no appetite—actually, I have less than no appetite. Food looks horrible. It smells horrible. The thought of it is horrible. I’ve been living on dry toast and half glasses of milk for over a month now. My mother didn’t give it a second thought. Mary Fay does.
My hand reaches for my orange bottle. Food or Roxy. There isn’t room in there for both.
“Eve!”
Oh my god. Eating or dealing with Mary Fay? I take a half. And then sink back onto my pillow.
I’m drifting off to somewhere else… my favorite place, his place, when—
“Your eggs are getting cold!”
“Coming!” I shout, feeling the sound vibrate down my spine, although not nearly the way it once did.
Throwing off my covers, I logroll to a sitting position like the tree trunk I am, but then stop, self-conscious when I remember him. Licking my lips, I run my fingers through my hair, as though he might be able to see me right now.
“Eve!” The woman is relentless. “Time to eat. Then it’s shower time. Remember the bargain? You get a few more days out of school and I get to breathe inside this apartment without your suffocating stink. It’s time to pay the piper.”
Fuck the piper. And fuck school. I’d do anything not to go back there. Tightening my brace around the ache in my stomach, I head for the kitchen, giving Mary Fay my best version of a smile.
“Good morning,” she says, helping me into the chair in front of a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon with a side of rye toast.
Rye is my favorite. I wish that helped me right now.
I shovel a forkful of eggs into my mouth, hiding my gag just as my stomach growls. The human body is superstrange.
> “Hungry?” she asks, leaning back against the kitchen counter, watching.
I shrug, letting the eggs slide down my throat just because I need my throat to breathe. “Have you heard from my mother?”
My question has the desired effect: Mary Fay forgets about food.
“She’ll text us soon, Eve. Like I told you, conferences are funny places. They suck you into them, like some sort of black hole.”
I inhale slowly through my nose, trying to settle my stomach. A black hole. I’ve wished my mother into a black hole. Yet I don’t stop taking the Roxy. Because? Because I’m in pain. Because I had a major surgery. Because my doctor prescribed it. Because who knows why.
“Eve?”
I don’t answer.
“She loves you, honey.”
“I know,” I growl. I do know. I do. Although it may be right this second that I’m actually realizing it.
“But… she left.”
Mary Fay sighs, hugging the dish towel to her bright pink button-up shirt that looks pretty against her dark skin. “I think that sometimes… your mom gets scared of the responsibility.”
“She’s afraid of me?”
“She’s not afraid of you, Eve. She’s afraid of making a mistake.”
“A mistake? Like, as in a single one? Because she makes a million of them. You’d think she’d be used to it.”
Mary Fay laughs, turning her attention toward wiping down the counters. “I’m here, Eve. And I’m not going anywhere. Now eat your breakfast.”
I quickly use the moment to break my bread into pieces and stick it inside my napkin along with an entire strip of bacon. When she turns back, she smiles. I’ve always liked her smile. It’s crooked, like me, with one side of her lips showing more teeth than the other. She’s buying my show.
“Wonderful. Finish that up and then it’s into the shower,” she says, returning to the dishes. “We’re also going for an outing to the grocery store.”
“What?”
She turns from the sink. “You know what Nancy said.”
According to my pain-in-the-ass physical therapist, I wasn’t getting out enough. It’s something she’s been saying for a while—and something Mary Fay heard for the first time yesterday yet takes seriously.
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