We ate lunch by the bank of the river. Everett and I didn’t talk much with each other, because I was still processing all that he’d said. And the things I was feeling as a result of them.
After cleaning up, we removed our shoes to start the trek across the water again. Everett put out trash in his backpack and put a hand out for me.
Placing my hand in his felt like more now. A gesture that seemed casual was actually heavy with meaning, for me. Each time he held my hand now, I thought about when I would have to let go. When the warmth of his hand in mine was no longer. It filled my stomach with dread.
I was so focused on my thoughts that I slipped, my left foot sliding out behind me. I was falling, face first, in to the water when I felt Everett’s arms wrap around my torso, stopping my descent two inches from my face falling onto a rock. It had happened so fast that I hadn’t had a chance to react during the fall, but the seconds after, I was frantic, my limbs shaking from shock.
“Hey,” he hushed, pulling me up to standing. He calmed my trembling by wrapping his arms around me, holding me tight to him. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.” He rocked me back and forth slowly. No sound came from my mouth, but inside my head I was screaming.
He held me tightly, pressing his lips to my hair, over and over. We stood there, in ankle-deep water, for what felt like an hour. My heart rate was slowing, and my trembling was subsiding. And he continued to hold me. That’s when I felt something throb painfully in my chest. In causing me to feel, Everett was healing me. He was showing me how to live. But the healing, the living hurt. They hurt with the knowledge that Everett was still dying.
He pulled back and put his hands on my face. “You ready to continue on?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.
My hands found his wrists and I closed my eyes, briefly. “Yes,” I whispered, opening my eyes again. I took a step, but my left ankle was weak, sore from the fall. Everett wrapped an arm around my waist. And then he handed me his shoes.
“Here,” he said before putting an arm behind my knees and lifting me up, carrying me through the water.
“I’m fine!” I protested.
“Stop wiggling,” he said, eyeing me sternly.
“I can walk,” I protested again.
“Shut up and let me carry you, Parker.”
I did just that, grateful for a reprieve from the emotions I’d felt when he was hugging me.
Everett carried me all the way to the car and set me on the passenger seat so he could better examine my ankle. “It’s a little swollen, but I don’t think you sprained it or anything.”
I huffed. “I didn’t. I’m fine.”
Everett opened up the backseat and put some ice in a plastic cup and then grabbed one of the stolen towels. He returned to me and started wiping away the water from my legs. “Everett,” I said, trying to grab the towel from his hands. “I’m fine.”
He looked up at me through the hair that had fallen over his forehead. “It’s not a big deal. I’m just drying you off. And then I’m going to have you prop this leg up on the dash and ice your ankle.”
I sat back in the seat. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It could’ve been,” he returned. His eyes met mine. “Just let me do this, okay?” There was something about the way he said it, the way he looked at me to make sure I understood. He wasn’t just doing this for my benefit, but also for his.
When he was done, he poured the ice from the cup into the towel and set it on my ankle on the dash.
“I’ll drive the rest of the trip,” he said, buckling me in and closing the door.
I watched him round the vehicle to the driver’s seat. Everyone was already in their vehicles and I was a little embarrassed to know that the entire convoy was being held up by me. Everett climbed back in and buckled up. “We’re going to go to the Dolores Mission and cemetery next,” he said, putting the vehicle in drive and following the car in front of us. He reached behind and came back with a water bottle. “Here, it’s getting hot out there.”
I took the water bottle but stared at Everett. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
He kept his eyes forward, focused on the vehicle in front of us. He shrugged. “Everyone needs a little help sometimes, Parker. Don’t be ashamed to ask for it.”
The Dolores mission was established in the late 1800s by a group of eleven families from New Mexico. Most of the mission itself had long deteriorated, but there were several ruins standing, crumbling brick buildings, and beyond that, a cemetery. My ankle was still sore, so Everett and I waited in the car while the rest of the group toured the ruins. It reminded me of the ghost town we’d visited in Arizona, so I wasn’t all that bothered to miss out on the tour.
“After this tour is over, I thought we’d head down to Texas. We’ll have to stop somewhere overnight, but I want to visit Texas next.”
“What’s in Texas?”
“Lots of stuff. And some people I should probably see.”
I scrunched up my brow. “Who?”
He ran his hands over the steering wheel. “My family.” He was uncomfortable.
As much as I didn’t relish the thought of meeting his family, I knew it was something he’d need to do before this trip was over. So I just said, “Okay.”
The trip ended at a ranch, but Everett and I stayed in the car again, as my ankle had swelled up even further, rendering me unable to do much exploring. When we returned to the trailhead, it was already late in the afternoon. Everett immediately took to the road, heading south.
When we pulled over that night, we had made it to Amarillo, Texas, which was a few hours from our final destination in Texas.
As we walked through the lobby of our hotel for the night, Everett grabbed my hand again. Something had changed for us in Colorado. Everett reached for my hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, but more surprisingly, I reached for his too. After checking in, we passed the bar to the bank of elevators. I looked at Everett after looking at the bar.
“I prefer being clear-headed with you,” he said, answering the question I hadn’t spoken. “Even if it means a little more pain.” He looked down at me and gave me his little half smile. “I don’t want to forget.”
I squeezed his hand, gently, understanding that though the pain he referred to was due to the cancer in his head, I was feeling the same pain, but in my chest.
“Is your ankle better?” he asked, pressing the button for our floor. He didn’t let go of my hand.
“Yes. Thank you, for what you did.” It was uncomfortable for me to say what he did. How he’d helped me.
“I’d do it again,” he said. And I knew he meant it. Not because Everett refused to lie, but because of how he said it. The way he looked at me. I couldn’t explain where things had changed for us, where we had decided that holding hands and meaningful looks were now our “thing.” But nothing felt more right than my hand in his, and his eyes on me.
We walked down the hall to our hotel room, stealing glances at each other. His hand shook a little when he put the key card in the door. It was subtle, but I noticed. And I knew, based on our conversation in the canyon, the trembling was caused by his cancer.
His cancer was always in the back of my mind, reminding me of my goal in going on this trip with Everett. It was the reminder that my time with Everett had an expiration date. That though we could live forever in a memory, we were all but mere mortals.
“What are you thinking about, Parker?”
I looked up, breathless, and saw he’d opened the door to the hotel room and was waiting, his hand in mine, for me to join him. “Mortality,” I said, tasting the word and the bitter aftertaste it left on my tongue.
His face softened. His smile left as quickly as it had come. “Come,” he said, tugging my hand into the hotel room. He closed the door and we stood there, facing each other in the short hallway to the main bedroom area, the bathroom to my left.
“You’re sad,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
I stared at the floor, my eyes tracing the patterns in the hotel carpet. “I don’t want to be.”
“At least that’s honest.”
I raised my head. “I don’t want to feel, Everett.”
“And I want you to,” he said, grabbing my shoulders. “Even if it hurts, I want you to feel. And even more, I want you to tell me how you’re feeling.”
“Sad,” I said, my voice flat.
“Why, though?”
“Because thinking about death is sad.”
“And why are you thinking about death?”
“Because I’m staring it in the face, Everett!”
He grabbed my hand and placed it on his chest. “You’re not. Feel that. I’m not dead. I’m alive. And so are you.” He grabbed my other hand and placed it on my chest. “That muscle is keeping you alive, scientifically speaking. But you’re not living, Parker. Your life was paused when you were attacked. You stopped living your life. You have no drive, no purpose, and no reason for breathing. What value is there in your life, Parker? Honestly?”
My lungs were tight, straining against my ribcage.
“I think,” he said before swallowing. “No one has ever valued you before. How can you see the value in life if no one saw the value in you? I’m sad for you, Parker. And I’m sad for all the blind people who couldn’t see you.”
I tried backing up. Space. I needed space. I couldn’t breathe. Everett stopped me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me to him.
“I see you,” he said. I shook my head back and forth, disbelieving. “I see you, Parker. You’re broken. Not all broken things can be fixed. And that’s okay, don’t you know that? It was your brokenness that drew me to you, because I saw in you the same things I saw in me. It was our brokenness that connected us. So I can’t wish away those broken pieces in me, because without them I wouldn’t have seen you.”
I couldn’t stop shaking my head. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to draw people to me with my broken pieces. I wanted to be left alone among all those pieces, sitting in the middle of them so if people dared to come close, they’d cut themselves on all the pieces to get to me.
“Be broken, Parker.” He grabbed my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “For f*ck’s sake. Be broken and be okay with it. Be okay that I know.” His words, though rough with their meaning, were delivered gently. He kissed me then, pushing his lips hard against mine.
I tried to resist. Giving in would mean what he said was true. But kissing Everett was paramount.
He pushed me against the wall, looking down on me and breathing heavily. “Parker,” he whispered against my lips before diving back in again. My hands found his hair and pulled hard. His words had hurt me. And the hurt made me feel out of control, violent. So I took, took whatever I could.
Everett lifted me up so my legs were around his waist and our lips were perfectly aligned on each other. He caught my hands as they slid down his chest and held them in his one hand, raising them to the spot just above my head.
My mind wanted to record this moment. To save it for another time. This is what I would remember: his hands on my wrists, keeping them from exploring. The way his lips pulled on mine, as if he wanted to pull away but couldn’t. It reminded me of the pull of gravity. They way gravity held us to the earth to keep us from flying away. I so desperately wanted to be his gravity, to hold him on this earth and keep him from leaving me. Despite my confusion with everything else, I knew I wanted Everett to stay with me. I wanted a different future. And so I did what Everett pushed me to do, to try always. I took control of my life, of this moment, and I kissed him back with everything I felt. Confusion, longing, fear.
Everett set me down only long enough to remove the clothing from the lower halves of our bodies. I was shaking with need, fingers itching to touch him again. When I heard the familiar sound of foil ripping, I quivered. A second later, he’d picked me up again, encouraging me to wrap my legs around his waist once again. And then he stopped moving and put his hands on my face, pushing the hair away. “Parker.” It was one word, but he timed it with the first thrust and my head fell back, rapping on the wall behind me.
“Ah!” I yelled out. He thrust again and again. He kissed my entire face with each thrust, moving down the column of my neck. His hands were on my thighs wrapped around his waist. He reached to the undersides of my thighs and dug his fingers in, lifting them up until the tops of my thighs were touching my shirt, completely pinning me to the wall with my knees at my chest. And then he thrust harder, faster.
“Let it go, Parker,” he said, leaning in with his lips on my neck. He nipped my neck softly, but it was just enough to drive me over the edge. I heard his grunts as he followed closing behind my climax, and then we both slid down the wall to the floor.
Everett had laid on his back, one hand over his eyes. His chest was rising and falling rapidly from exertion.
I was still leaning against the wall, my tank top slipping over my shoulder. I stared at Everett in a daze. My eyes found his tattoo again.
“This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us,” I whispered.
Everett removed his arm from his eyes and looked at me with just one eye open. “That wasn’t sweet,” he said hoarsely. “That was passion.” He sighed and sat up slowly, one hand on his head.
“Are you okay?”
He shook his head and stood up, holding on to the doorway to the bathroom as if he was dizzy. It hurt, to see him weakened. And I knew, by the look on his face, he didn’t want to be seen that way.”
“Fine,” he said. He reached his hands down to me and I took them, standing up with him. “Let’s shower and go to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“Sit, I’ll start the water and grab our toiletries.” I led him to the toilet and put the lid down, helping him sit.
He looked up at me, his eyes a little lost. And the crack, the one that had started earlier that morning at his indifference towards me, broke a little more. I didn’t think there was anything left to break.
I grabbed the toiletries and returned to the bathroom, seeing him look wearier. Minute by minute, he was fading. So I turned on the water and waited for it to get hot enough, and then I helped him into the shower with me.
The water seemed to rouse him a bit and we took turns shampooing each other’s hair. I loaded a loofa up with his body wash and started first on his back. “Will you tell me about your tattoos?” I asked, rubbing the loofa over each of his muscles. My hand traced the tree with its twisted branches that wrapped around his lower torso.
“The tree was something I got shortly after I was in remission. The roots are straight, because that’s how we all start out in life. All babies are innocent. Your roots are straight. And then once you first loose some of that innocence, when you emerge through the earth, you are changed. For a tree, nature changes how it forms as it grows. Are there things in the way, does it have to grow around obstacles? Does weather strip it of its leaves in the winter? Do outside factors, like birds and squirrels, destroy the bark? Humans are very similar. Once we lose our innocence, there’s no way to predict the future, how your branches will grow. You have to go with the flow until you’re cut down.”
It hurt to swallow the lump in my throat. “Turn around,” I said, standing under the spray. He turned so I was facing his chest. “These?” I asked, running the loofa and then my fingers over the four swallows on the other side of his ribs.
“The people who matter the most to me. My mom, dad, sister, and nephew. I want them to be free.” My eyes burned. He didn’t have to say what he wanted them to be free of. I already knew.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I continued. I ran the loofa up over his chest, up his bicep to the three straight lines that wrapped his right bicep. I didn’t trust my voice so I looked up at him, trying to communicate my thoughts through my eyes.
“Those are how many times I’ve been told I have cancer. This line,” he said, pointing to the line at the bottom of the stack, “was added a couple weeks ago.”
“Three times.”
“I had cancer twice in my teenage years. The first time, it was caught early and required little treatment. The second time,” he said, touching the middle line, “was when my family fell apart.” He let his hand drop and looked at me. “Three strikes,” he said.
I was glad I was standing directly under the spray, because I didn’t want him to witness the tear that slid quickly from my eye, mixing with the water from the showerhead. I couldn’t explain it. It was more than sadness I felt. Something deeper, more poignant.
“If you want to wear all black, I won’t mind. We can strike it from the rules.”
Everett looked down at me. “Where did that come from?”
I shrugged. “You’re the man in black. If you want to wear black, I want you to.” My leg bounced nervously.
“The man in black?” he asked. “Like Johnny Cash?”
My leg stopped its movements. “Who’s that?”
Everett shook his head. “You really have a lot of life to catch up on, sweetheart.” Before I had time to process the ache I felt at that endearment, Everett tapped the quote on his chest. “Take this for example. It’s from a song.”
“‘This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us’ is from a song?”
He nodded. “It’s by Queen. Who is probably another band you haven’t been acquainted with, so before you open your mouth, I’ll just tell you they are a rock band that formed in the 70’s. This line,” he said, running his fingers over the soapy skin of his tattoo, "is from a song called ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’.”
“Sounds like a really uplifting song,” I replied drily.
Everett laughed, took the loofa from me and rinsed it, before trading places with me in the shower. After pouring some body wash onto the loofa, he started rubbing it on my chest.
“This still smells like your body wash,” I said, understanding now why he always had the scent of cool water.
“Because it is. I want to smell this on your skin.” He rubbed the loofa down the front of my body before having me turn around. After running the loofa over my back, I felt his hands replace it and his fingers pushed into my shoulder and down my back, massaging the muscles there. My head fell back.
“That feels good,” I felt the words vibrate from my throat.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Only a little, but it also feels good.”
“There’s pleasure in a little pain then.”
I opened my eyes and straightened my head. “I guess so.”
“There is, Parker.” He wrapped his arms around my front and rubbed the body wash over me again. “You just have to be brave enough to endure it.”