Bright Side (24 page)

(Kate)

I’m going through ibuprofen on a regular basis these days. I’m almost down to the bottom of the bottle so I stop at the grocery across the street from Grounds on my way home from the flower shop.

When I see him, he’s so pale and hunched over that I barely recognize him. I pause mid-step, at war with myself. I haven’t seen Keller since Saturday night, and this chance encounter is not how I planned to see him next. I’m not a strategist when it comes to interaction. Usually I just wing it, but I wanted to give him more than a few days to cool off. For two seconds, the selfish, preservationist side of me shouts, “Turn around and make a break for it before he sees you!” But my compassionate side stifles her with a calm counter, “But he looks like death.” Followed by a demand: “Help him.”

Compassion always trumps self-preservation.

“Keller? Hey, you need some help?”

If I startled him, it doesn’t show. Turning his head in my direction takes more effort than it should. His eyes are bloodshot and circled in a disturbing shade of eggplant. His hair is damp at the roots and plastered to his head. He looks like he hasn’t seen a shower in weeks,
but I know it’s only been a few days at most. He’s sick.

He looks at me blankly. I don’t know if speaking would require too much energy, or if he doesn’t want to.

I touch his forehead with the back of my hand. He leans into it. It’s hot and damp with sweat. Fevers have always scared me. When Gracie got them I couldn’t sleep. I’d sit up in bed next to her. She always wanted me to hold her hand.

I try to mask my fear and whisper, “Keller, why aren’t you in bed? You’re burning up.”

He’s beyond exhausted. I’m wondering how he found the strength to walk across the street.

I scan the shelves in front of him. “What do you need, sweetie?”

He shrugs. He’s delirious with fever.

I offer my hand and he wraps his arm around my shoulder instead. He feels heavy, helpless. I lead him to a bench at the end of the aisle next to the pharmacist’s window where I sit him down to lean against the wall. I consult with the pharmacist and grab what he recommends along with my ibuprofen and two cans of chicken noodle soup, one can of
tomato soup, and a jug of orange juice.

After I pay, I return for Keller and we struggle across the street to his apartment. He’s unresponsive at the door so I search his pockets for a key.

He hits his mattress with a disturbing heaviness. After getting medicine in him, the next step is getting him cooled off. I give myself ten seconds to contemplate my options. In the end I go with what always worked with Grace. He’s so out of it that modesty is the last thing I’m worried about, so I don’t hesitate stripping him down to his boxers.

Sickness like this makes me anxious. The kind of anxious you wish you could just walk away from but you can’t.
You can’t
. Not because you’d feel guilty, but because sometimes people just
need
you.

His bed is a twin, but I manage to squeeze on the mattress next to him. There’s no headboard so I sit back up against the wall. I hold his hand because it makes
me
feel better and stroke the wet hair back off his forehead. And I hum quietly to myself. It’s a nervous habit and it keeps me awake. As his skin cools, I relax. Before I know it, I’ve drifted off.

I awake and it takes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. The clock on Keller’s dresser reads 12:17am. My neck aches. I fell asleep sitting up. His head is now resting on my thighs and an arm is draped across my legs, effectively trapping me where I sit. I hold my breath and make a plea to the man upstairs,
Please let his fever be gone
, as I gently check his forehead with the lightest touch. His skin is dry and cool. I blow out the air and look at the ceiling.
Thanks, big guy
.

My bladder is screaming. My belly is growling. My body is killing me.

I weigh this against the relief that Keller’s fever broke. Keller’s sleeping peacefully. Keller’s here with me.

I do what I have to do. I rest my head back against the wall and let the physical closeness fill me. Touch is so underrated. The basic human need for contact. Growing up I got daily doses of hugs, hand holding, and forehead kisses from Gracie, Gus, and Audrey. I miss it. So right now I’m going to greedily take advantage of every moment here with Keller. Though I fight it, sleeps comes for me. Insomnia has been replaced by persistent exhaustion.

A cough startles me awake and instinct takes over before my senses do. “Gracie?” It’s funny how worry and concern get the best of sleep every time. I slept with one eye open on Grace for nineteen years. When someone depends on you to chase away bad dreams, or help them to the bathroom in the middle of the night, or hold them so they can sleep, there’s a level of alertness that unconsciousness never chases away. 

“Katie?” His voice is raspy and confused.

I hold onto the Grace moment a second longer and then I let it go with a sigh and offer apology, “Sorry Keller. Yeah, it’s me, Kate.”

He rolls off my lap onto his pillow and looks up at me through the darkness. “What are you doing here?”

“I ran into you at the grocery store last night. You were looking for medicine. I’m sure you don’t remember. You were pretty out of it. I walked you home. Duncan wasn’t here and I was afraid to leave you alone. I hope that’s okay.” I glance at the clock. It’s 3:53am.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says sadly.

“Actually, I kinda did.” I smile. “Didn’t I ever tell you I’m allergic to guilt? I could’ve walked away but then I would’ve broken out in hives.” He doesn’t laugh, so I move onto the next important question. “You hungry Keller? I bought some chicken noodle soup. I can make it if you want?”

“I’m sorry, Katie,” it’s a whisper. He’s not talking about his fever.

I don’t make a production out of forgiveness. Some people do. As if forgiveness is some grand, noble gesture that goes hand in hand with condescension. I hate that. Good or bad, I forgive easily and keep it simple, because that’s how my heart likes it. I brush the hair off Keller’s forehead and kiss it. “I know.” I slide my legs off the bed and stretch to my feet. “I’m going to make soup.”

After a long overdue stop in the bathroom, I pop three ibuprofen and start two pots of soup. Keller joins me after putting on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. He tries to help but I insist he sit down in his recliner.

“Who’s Gracie?” He’s referring to my half-asleep comment when I woke.

“My sister.”

His eyes are sleepy but his lips smile sweetly. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

I nod while I stir the soup that’s just beginning to boil.

“Older or younger?”

“Older.” I pour the soup into two bowls and carry them to the coffee table in front of Keller.

“Is she in San Diego?”

Normally I dodge any questions about my life back home. It’s mine, and it’s personal, and it’s special. Did I mention it’s
mine
? But for some reason I feel like talking about Grace right now. “It was Grace’s twenty-first birthday yesterday. She was my hero. I always looked up to her. She was the most pure-hearted person I’ve ever known.” He’s sitting deep in the recliner and even though he looks like he’s been through hell and back, his face looks peaceful. He’s listening to me intently, like there’s nothing more important in the world than this conversation. It makes me want to continue, to share Grace with someone who never knew her. “Have you ever met someone who’s content and happy to her core? And when you’re around her it’s … contagious? Like you want to be a better person just so you feel worthy of being in that person’s life?”

He smiles and nods and I know he understands what I’m trying to say. He has a Grace in his life.

I nod once and smile through the feeling that my insides are breaking into a million pieces, each one of them reflecting my grief. “That was Grace.”

He’s looking at me now like he fears the worst but is afraid to ask, so I spare him and answer the unasked question. “She died this past May from complications of pneumonia and a blood infection. I took her to the ER three times that week before they would admit her. She couldn’t breathe. Her skin looked gray. I threw such a fit when they tried to send us home with a prescription for cough medicine during the final visit that they threatened to call security and have me escorted out. In the end they admitted her.” I take a deep breath before I continue. “Her lungs were filled with fluid. She picked up some kind of blood infection the first night she was there. Two days later she was gone.” I shut my eyes to dam the impending tears. My throat is swelling and I’m trying to remind myself that I don’t cry. I feel my lip quivering. The only time I’ve ever cried was the night Grace died.

I don’t open my eyes when Keller pulls me up by my hands to stand. I don’t open my eyes when Keller holds me tightly against his chest. I don’t open my eyes as my tears soak into his T-shirt. I don’t open my eyes as he softly murmurs, “I’m sorry, Katie,” and rubs my lower back with his open palm.

When I feel the weight of the last few months lift a little, I open my eyes. My fingers release the material at the back of his shirt I have balled up in my fists and take a step back, wiping at my eyes with the backs of my hands. I heave out a deep, crippling breath, and look up at him. “I’m sorry. You didn’t have to do that.”

The corner of his mouth turns up, but there’s no joy in it. “Actually, I kinda did.”

I think back to our conversation earlier. “You allergic to guilt, too?”

He doesn’t blink. “No. It kills me to see you feeling sad. It’s fundamentally wrong that the universe would allow it. You and sadness … they should never be paired together.” He pulls me into another hug. “You said that you don’t like to talk about it. Is that why you never mentioned her before?”

My hands find his shirt again. I have to hold on before the world tilts and I fall right off the side into oblivion. I suck in a breath and shudder. “It hurts.” I wait. “She was my world. Do you know what it’s like to be blessed with someone so special, to love them so much it hurts, and then have them taken from you forever?”

He rests his chin on the top of my head and squeezes me tighter. “I do.”              

I sniff. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to complain … but it sucks, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” he agrees.

“You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but who was it?”

“My girlfriend. Fiancée, actually. It happened close to four years ago. Her name was Lily.” He exhales, but he sounds more relieved than sad to say it out loud.

“You don’t talk about her. Does anyone here know?” I keep my cheek pressed against his chest. I don’t want to make him nervous or uncomfortable by looking at him. Eye contact can shut down honesty quicker than anything else.

“Dunc and Rome. I keep my life at Grant and my life in Chicago very separate.” He shrugs. “And like you said, it hurts. Though not as much as it used to. It’s not that I don’t miss her … but that I’ve learned that the living need to be loved, too. And loving someone else doesn’t diminish the love I had for her. I’d never felt loved before her. My parents are very ... ” he pauses, “driven. Very goal-oriented. They didn’t give me love … they just … gave me expectations. They expected good behavior, and good manners, and good grades, and expected compliance with every demand, and expected me to go to law school or medical school because my mother is a lawyer and my father is a surgeon. My entire life was expectations and I met every one of them … until I met Lily.” He takes a deep breath.  “She loved me … with no expectations. That was
so
freeing. When I lost her, I lost that freedom. The expectations returned, but with a whole new set of rules.”

Now I have to look at him, because this is about more than losing someone you love. This is about losing yourself. “Keller, this is your life. You’re the one in the driver’s seat, dude.”

He half-laughs. “Oh no, I’m not driving. I’m the passenger. That’s okay though. Stella’s quite the driver.”

I smile at the grin emerging on his face. “Stella?” My heart should be breaking because I feel like I’m falling for Keller, but knowing I can’t have him (especially after hearing about what happened with Lily) and knowing that there’s a woman out there who makes him this happy.
That
makes me happy. To know there’s someone who loves Keller and whom he loves back. All the flirting between us, and whatever happened the night of the concert, was all a misunderstanding or misinterpretation on my part.
We
are friends.
Stella
is his fairy tale.

He tilts his head and stares at me like he’s trying to decide if he should say something or not. “What are you doing this weekend?”

I shrug. “Probably studying, why?”

“Would you be opposed to studying in Chicago? I want you to meet Stella.” He’s wearing his crooked smile that I couldn’t resist if I tried.

Thinking back to our trip to Milwaukee and all the prompting I had to do to get him to go with me, I tease, “Are you always this impulsive?”

His grin stretches wide and he shakes his head emphatically. “Never. You’re a terrible influence.”