FIGHT FOR ME

by AJ Crowe

  “I’ll go check on her. Have a great day at work.”

  Jess rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll try. See you tonight.”

  Ivy walked down the hall to Emma’s room. The door was covered in stickers of pink butterflies, kittens, and rabbits –Emma’s favorite animals.

  She gave the door a good knock.

  “Em! Time to get up and get ready for school.”

  When there was no response, Ivy opened the door a crack and peeked in. Emma was curled up on the bed, breathing softly, still deeply asleep.

  “Hey,” Ivy said quietly as she walked into the room. “Time to wake up.” She leaned down to give Emma a gentle touch on the shoulder to wake her up.

  When the girl still didn’t open her eyes, Ivy pressed the back of her hand against her forehead. Emma’s skin was clammy and burning hot.

  Ivy began to panic almost immediately. She had no idea what to do. I should probably call Jess, she thought.

  The phone rang several times before the answering machine picked up.

  “Hey Jess, I think Emma’s really sick. Um. Just thought you should know. Let me know when you get this message. Oh yeah. What should I do? Should I give her fever medicine? Yeah. So. Call me back.”

  A few moments after Ivy hung up the phone, Emma’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Emma! You’re awake. How are you feeling, sweetie?”

  The little girl sat up slowly. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes a little glassy. “I don’t feel good, Auntie.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Ivy took a few deep breaths. “I’ll call your school and tell them you won’t be able to come in today.”

  Emma nodded. “Okay,” she said, her voice small.

  “Want me to make you some breakfast?”

  The girl shook her head. “I’m not hungry. I’m just sleepy.”

  “Okay. Go back to sleep, all right? When you’re hungry just let me know.”

  Emma curled back up under the covers.

  Ivy didn’t spend much of the next few hours doing anything for herself. She checked on Emma every half hour or so and spent the rest of the morning checking the internet for what to do when a little kid had a fever. She had never been in this situation before.

  Jess called back around eleven.

  “Just let her sleep,” she said, not sounding as worried as Ivy thought she would. “There’s some fever reducer for kids in the cupboard if she complains of feeling really sick. Otherwise, let her sleep and make sure there’s water by her bed all the time if she needs it. I’ll try to come home early if I can. I’m super glad you’re there, Ivy.”

  Around twenty minutes later Emma wandered out of her room into the living room while Ivy was making herself some lunch.

  “I’m hungry,” she said plaintively.

  “Go sit on the couch and I’ll make you something. Do you want soup?”

  Emma nodded. “Soup please.”

  Ivy heated up some chicken soup for her and gave her a little bowl after it had cooled down. She nibbled at the sandwich she had made for herself but wasn’t too worried to be very hungry.

  A few minutes after eating the chicken soup Emma looked a little queasy. Without any other warning, she threw up the entirety of her lunch on the living room floor. Then she started to cry.

  Ivy took a damp, cool washcloth and cleaned Emma up and led her back to her bed. “I’m going to call your mom, okay? Just get more rest.” The little girl sniffled and nodded. She was asleep within seconds.

  After spending almost fifteen minutes getting the puke out of the carpet satisfactorily, she called Jess again. She didn’t pick up.

  She briefly considered calling a doctor, but thought that might be going a little overboard. Then she thought of an in-between.

  She could call Lucas.

  He was trained in child care –he had to be –since he was teaching a roomful of fragile kindergarteners every day. The kindergarten school day had already ended, so he wasn’t at work.

  The phone rang only a few times.

  “Hi,” he said.

  The single word calmed her down immensely. “Hey, Lucas. Emma’s really sick. She puked in the living room and she’s been sleeping all day and Jess isn’t answering her phone and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Slow down,” he said. “Emma’s sick?” He paused. “Want me to come over?”

  “Oh my gosh, yes please.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you so much. See you.”

  * * * *

  After Lucas felt Emma’s forehead and talked to her a little, he took Ivy out of the room.

  “I’m not a doctor,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure she just has a fever, Ivy.”

  “But she threw up…”

  “So it’s the flu. She’ll be fine with rest and liquids, just like Jess said. Do you have any kid ibuprofen?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ivy found the children’s fever reducer in the cupboard and helped Emma sip some of the cherry flavored liquid before she fell asleep again.

  Ivy and Lucas sat down on the couch. Ivy had folded the bed part back into the couch that morning but had left her crumpled sheets on it. She’d been too worried to do anything other than think about Emma.

  She let out a sigh of relief.

  “Thanks for coming over,” she said, letting her head rest on his shoulder. “I’ve never had to deal with a sick kid before.”

  “I can tell.” He laughed.

  There was silence. There was the faint sound of someone walking down the hall to their apartment, and a dog barking somewhere nearby. A car drove by. Ivy felt sleepy. She could fall asleep on Lucas’s shoulder right then, and have that extra hour of sleep she was used to. She let her eyes shut.

  As soon as she felt herself drifting off, she remembered the dream she’d had that morning. Suddenly she was filled with questions about Lucas and their relationship.

  “Why did you go after me in the library that day?” She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him.

  He didn’t answer at first. “Because I was interested in you.”

  “Why are you interested in me? Why do you like me?” She realized she had wondered that every day of the few weeks they had been together. She seemed like the opposite of the types of girls he was used to in the city. Why would he choose her?

  He cocked his head and seemed to think about her question for a long moment. “You’re something I’ve never had before,” he said quietly.

  Ivy had thought that was why he wouldn’t like her, but apparently it was why he did.

  He put a hand on her cheek, gently, and held her face in his hands and he kissed her forehead and let his lips brush down her nose to her lips. He kissed her sweetly, a kiss that softened her with its sweetness. She wrapped an arm around him and kissed him back with all her heart.

  She was something he had never had before, and that was a good thing.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You know, I’m leaving in a few days.”

  Lucas rolled over in bed and looked Ivy in the eyes. “Back to the city? Oh yeah,” he said.

  She held his hand loosely in hers under the blankets. She ached sweetly between her legs. They had just slept together for the second time, and it had been just as intense. Ivy couldn’t imagine enjoying any type of sexual encounter with anyone normal now that she knew what it was like to sleep with Lucas. His lovemaking was like a fantasy.

  “I could only get a month off of work,” she continued, watching Lucas’s expression carefully. It didn’t change. He looked… unconcerned. He leaned over her to the bedside table and took a cigarette from the pack there.

  He began to smoke, not asking her if she minded. The smoke stung her eyes. However pretty it looked clouding between his lips and filling the air above them, it still pissed her off a little.

  Suddenly, she realized that however different things felt with Lucas, he was just like all her other boyfriends. The relationship would last a mo
nth or two at the most and then they would drift apart, one of them not quite as into the other.

  This time around, it was definitely him who seemed completely indifferent.

  Ivy sat up, got out of bed and started to collect her clothes from the floor.

  Lucas pushed himself to a sitting position, the sheets loosely covering him from the hips down. Seeing the panther across his chest made Ivy feel even worse. It seemed to symbolize the fact that Lucas wasn’t willing to let her completely in.

  “Are you going home?”

  “Yeah. I should start… packing, anyway.” She pulled on her jeans and t shirt.

  “I thought you said you had a few days.”

  Ivy shrugged. “I should spend these few days with my niece and sister. I came here to do that anyway.”

  She kneeled down to Kimbo’s level. He was sleeping on a little dog bed in the corner of the room. She scratched his ears. “Bye, Kimbo.”

  Then she straightened, gave a surprised Lucas a little wave, and left.

  * * * *

  She walked Emma to school and picked her up without saying a word to Lucas for the next two days. At first he tried to engage her in conversation, but when she was unresponsive, he stopped trying.

  Though Ivy masked her feelings under the label that she was upset with Lucas for seemingly not caring that she was leaving, she knew that really she was just afraid that their relationship was doomed to end.

  She was supposed to leave that night. She had planned to start driving that Friday night so she would be back in the office on Monday morning.

  Jess got home from work and didn’t even say hello before coming and giving Ivy a big hug. “Thank you so much for all this,” she said.

  Ivy hugged her back. “Of course. I hope I helped out a little.”

  Jess pulled away, cool and composed again. “You really did. I got a few huge projects done at work and now my boss is fine with me working fewer hours. Also, since I got so much overtime in I think I can afford some sporadic childcare for Emma if I need it. Things are really looking up.” She smiled.

  Though she didn’t explain further, Ivy knew that by “thing are really looking up” Jess meant that somehow, she and her daughter were moving past Nikolai’s unexpected death.

  Ivy let out a breath. Things would be just fine in Paisley if she left. Her sister and Emma would be fine. Lucas would continue being alone, but he’d be fine too.

  She swallowed. She had expected him to call, text, or even just come over before she left. She couldn’t go back to the city and leave things like this with him. She checked her phone for the fifth time in the past few minutes. Nothing –nothing except a reminder that she should be packing up her car.

  “I’m going to put my stuff in the car, and then we’ll have to say our goodbyes.”

  Jess nodded. “I’ll go get Emma.”

  Ivy lugged her suitcase and put it in the back of the car that she hadn’t needed to touch since she drove here. Paisley was so tiny she had walked everywhere or Lucas had driven her.

  Lucas… Ivy checked her phone again. Nothing.

  As soon as she walked back into the hallway of Jess’s apartment, Emma ran up to her and gave her a big hug. She looked up at Ivy, teary eyed. “You’re really leaving?” she asked, despondent.

  “Yes, but I’ll see you really soon, okay?” Ivy picked up Emma and gave her a big squeeze.

  “Okay,” Emma said dejectedly. “Are you going right now?”

  “Yes, Em. I want to get home on Sunday so I can go to work on Monday.” Though the logic probably went over Emma’s head, the little girl retreated to her mother in the doorway of their home.

  And Ivy’s, for the past month.

  She felt herself tearing up. “Bye guys. I promise to come visit you soon. It won’t be ten months again, I promise.”

  Jess smiled. “Okay, sis. Remember to call when you’re home so we know you got there safe.”

  “I want to talk to Auntie Ivy on the phone!” Emma said excitedly. She seemed to be cured of her melancholy instantly.

  “You can definitely do that,” Ivy said, smiling. She would really, really miss them. “Love you.”

  As she started the car, she tried to stop thinking about how long it might be before she saw Jess and Emma again. As she left Paisley, her thoughts traveled from Jess and Emma to Lucas.

  She might never see him again.

  She drove down the highway with a cold, clenched heart. She didn’t want to leave Paisley. Every second that she drove farther away she felt worse.

  When she became too tired to drive, she pulled off the highway into a tiny roadside town a lot like Paisley. Same two street downtown, same single park, same low, well-maintained elementary school.

  Lucas. She checked her phone after pulling into a hotel parking lot. Nothing.

  The man behind the office counter had the same shaggy black hair as Lucas, and a tattoo on one arm that was not completely covered by his shirt. Though that was where the resemblances ended –the man was easily ten years older than Lucas and forty pounds heavier –it prompted Ivy to check her phone once again.

  Nothing. Just the time in big white numbers.

  She should really be in bed.

  “Cheapest room you have, please. It’s just me. One night.”

  The guy nodded and handed her a key after she paid.

  The room was tiny. The hotel was decidedly not a five star establishment. A skinny lady with a hoarse voice had asked her for a light while she walked to her first floor room. The room smelled both stale and like some intense cleaning solution.

  Other than that, it was really a fine place to stay one night. Ivy’s wallet thanked her, if nothing else.

  She was brushing her teeth, feeling alone and empty, when her phone rang. The caller ID clearly said “Lucas.” She rinsed out her mouth in record time. She picked up the phone before it had time to go voicemail.

  “Hello?” she answered, a little out of breath.

  “Hi.” His voice sounded good over the phone. Just as deep and smooth as in person. He could be a voice actor or one of those guys who made audio books.

  “Lucas,” she said, not quite sure where she was going but knowing that she had a lot to say. “Why didn’t you say goodbye?”

  He was silent for a moment. “Ivy—”

  “You’re not telling me something,” Ivy said. She was sitting on the foot of her hotel bed in her pajamas. “I know it. You tell me little tidbits about your past but you don’t want to tell me everything. Why? What could be so bad that you can’t tell me?”

  Silence.

  “You’re different than anyone I’ve ever had before. And I don’t know if that’s a good thing. There’s something about you that just… just… grips me but… but I’m not ready to give that up. I…” She trailed off. She couldn’t put what she wanted to say next into words.

  “Ivy,” he said again. She could see his face in front of hers; feel his soft warm lips against her forehead as he said her name. She felt herself begin to tear up. She hadn’t expected this huge rush of emotion when they finally talked again.

  “I know,” she said, cutting him off one more time. “I know, we only met each other like a month ago and I shouldn’t be this attached already but… I really fucking like you. And I need to know if you feel the same.”

  “Are you nearby?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I’m hours away.”

  “Okay,” he said. She heard a bit of static on the line. He had taken a deep breath. “Ivy –let me finish –I… I feel more strongly for you than anyone I have in the past. I’ve never been in a relationship like this. I can be myself with you. I think… I think I could tell you anything.”

  “Lucas…”

  “No, I’m not done. I need you here, Ivy. You’re all I have in Paisley.”

  This time it was Ivy’s turn to stay silent for a few moments.

  “Ivy?”

  “I’m all you have?” She said the words quietl
y. On one hand, it made her feel sad for Lucas, who had left his life for a quiet, lonely one in Paisley for some unknown reason. On the other hand… she was all he had. It was the most incredibly romantic thing anyone had ever said to her.

  “Everything,” he said.

  Ivy wanted very badly to see his face as he said these things.

  “So,” she said. “How are we going to do this?”

  “Do this?”

  “Be together. We have jobs. Responsibilities.”

  “I have a car.”

  “It’s a three day drive to the city, Lucas.” Ivy thought for a moment. She took a deep breath through her nose and closed her eyes while she tried to think of a solution. She thought about the surprising amount of work she had been able to get done just with her laptop. She could view versions of the magazine on her laptop, edit them, and send emails to her colleagues. There was a possibility she could work from her laptop for another month or two… “I have an idea.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m coming back to Paisley.” She didn’t even want to wait for a go ahead from the editor in chief. She would tell her that she needed to stay with her sister until the anniversary of Nikolai’s death, which was about a month away. It would work. It had to. She wasn’t ready to go back to her life before.

  Wake up, go to work, spend some time with friends, go to sleep, repeat. It was an average life but not nearly as fulfilling as the past few weeks had been with Lucas.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I’m going to drive back in the morning.”

  “Thank you,” he said again, his voice almost breaking.

  Ivy wondered what it was between them that made it so hard to be apart. She almost wanted to call it love.

  No. Love meant trusting each other wholeheartedly. As long as Lucas kept part of himself from her, she couldn’t love him.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m Ms. Robins. I’m here to help you with reading.”

  The little kindergarteners looked up at her with complete trust and obedience. Feeling a little less nervous, Ivy wrote the word “THE” on the board in large letters.