Ten Below Zero(76)

“Your brain tumor is gone,” I said, feeling happiness at that truth. “You’ll start chemo soon, but you seem to be bouncing back better than expected-”

“I already know all of this,” he interrupted. His bluntness hadn’t changed. “I am more interested in what I don’t know. Or, rather, what I don’t remember.”

I nodded. It would be a long road with him, especially if his memory never returned. We’d have to start from scratch. If his memory was permanently gone, he’d never remember how much he changed me, how far we’d come. I wouldn’t let myself mourn for that just yet. I’d let it be enough that I knew, that I remembered. I would not fall apart in front of him.

“I’m told I brought this with me to the hospital,” he said, reaching his IV-free hand under the sheets and pulling out a small book. His journal. I sucked in a breath. It was gray, the color worn and the material tattered, but I could see as he opened it and flipped through the pages, it was covered in writing. In drawings. My heart beat sped up as he turned the pages. He closed it and picked it up, tossing it to me.

I caught it clumsily, nearly dropping it. I heard him laugh from the bed and looked at him with a sharp look before remembering where I was, where we were. “Sorry,” I said, pushing out a breath.

“Don’t be.”

I turned the journal over in my hands. ‘PARKER’ it said, in bold letters on the cover. My hand moved to trace the letters, and my eyes closed as I imagined him writing each letter. The way his wrist moved with each stroke. Knowing that I was the only thing on his mind in that moment. It was a profound moment for me. The knowing. I was touching a piece of the Everett that remembered me.

“You must be Parker.” His words were like a power-packed punch to the heart. “Your name is written on my notebook.” My eyes opened, not without difficulty, and I finally met his eyes. The ice blue irises shined back at me. Eyes that belonged to another person, maybe even another soul. I looked down at the journal in my hands and kept running my fingers over my name. Maybe he had leaked a bit of his soul into these pages. “It’s also written on my chest.”

I nodded.

“They say that’s bad luck,” he continued.

I shrugged. “I had a part of you tattooed on me too.” His eyes lit up with that.

I suddenly doubted myself. Could I do this? Could I start anew with this Everett? There was such calm between us at this moment, a calm that had never been present in our interactions before. I’d always been a ball of coiled fear, ready to run at a moment’s notice. Should I run now?

“Don’t.” His voice was soft, but his words were firm.

I let out a heavy breath, releasing some of pressure on my heart. I looked into his eyes again. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t run.” He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to compel me to stay with the force of his gaze.

I choked back a sob. He’d said those words to me so many times. Before I could say anything, he spoke again.

“You’re not wearing the right shoes anyway.”

The sound that came from my mouth was half sob, half laugh. My heart simultaneously ached and swelled. Could my Everett, my dark, funny, intense Everett, still exist without the memory of when we met? I had one true test. I lifted my eyes to his again. He was staring at me, but I didn’t itch under his gaze this time. I ached for it, I relished it.

I leaned forward. “It’s rude to stare.”

One side of his lips lifted up in a smile. I sent up silent prayer to hear the words I hoped to hear.

God listened. Everett was still my Everett.

“I never claimed to be anything else.”





Ten Months Later


It was probably a dumb idea. I knew that. But it was worth trying. Or, that’s what I told myself when I landed in Denver and waited in baggage claim for him after a red eye flight from California.

I looked around, looked at the people mulling around, waiting for baggage and hugging their loved ones. I ached a little bit. I ached all the time. I missed the Everett that lived in my memories. The Everett that lived now was in so many ways the same Everett. He still said rude things just to make me laugh. But he was confused a lot. I tried not to push him. I stuck around through his first round of chemo before heading home to California. Everett stayed in Texas, with his sister. She took him to his chemo appointments and to the gym as often as possible. The surgery had weakened him, but he was practically back to normal. His memory of me was still absent, and that stung a little bit. Especially when he remembered his life before me.

He’d called me from Texas a few weeks after the surgery and asked me if I knew Charlotte. His memory had left off being with her. I tried not to make gagging sounds in the phone, so all I said was, “Trust me, you don’t like Charlotte.”

Everett, to his benefit, was committed to me. In the only way he really could be. He called or texted me daily. He asked me questions and I did my best to answer him. He read the notebook where he’d written things done, so he knew a lot of things about me that the Everett pre-surgery had known. He’d made comments on the picture he drew of me on the first page, the one of my profile, my head back, my lips slightly open. I’d laughed when he made the comments, saying how ‘hot’ it was. Once in a while, I flew out to Texas to visit him, but there was still emotional distance between us.