"Logan. The student you . . . grabbed."

"You saw that?"

"It was more interesting than what I was being asked," she replied.

"He was trying to push my buttons. I believe it will be his only success in this class."

She gave me another smile, but it faded too quickly. "He's going to become the type of doctor who prescribes pills for every little whimper."

"Probably," I agreed.

"You only have five minutes with me, you know," she said. "You've wasted half that time by not asking me questions for the differential."

"Depends on your viewpoint, Everly. I watched you all morning and this is the most I've seen your mouth move. Maybe I have made excellent use of my time."

Everly rolled the candy into her cheek. "Not by Timothy's standards."

"Timothy isn't my patient."

I looked away from her to open my ginger candy, and when I looked back up, she leaned in close. "If I faked a seizure to get out of being questioned by your classmates would you play along?"

"I doubt Dr. Brighton and his wall of accolades would believe you."

She whispered, "Don't doubt me before you even know me."

I looked down to my candy and rolled it between my fingers. "Don't hit your head when you fall out of your seat."

Not two seconds later, Everly had Dr. Brighton and every other person in the classroom circled around her as she pretended to faint (not seize) and slid from her seat to the floor. I hurried to her aid in hope of buying a little of her trust, and then lied through my teeth as Timothy tried to push me aside, telling him she just got overheated because of all the clothing, but that only caused him to insist she was rushed to the E. R.

I waited outside of her room until he existed. "Go home," he ordered.

"May I see her?"

"I'll add the time you didn't get to tomorrow's class."

"I don't care about that. I only want to see her. I won't ask her anything about how she feels."

His stare turned cold. "Then what's the point?" Timothy turned and I watched as he stalked away, clearing the hallway like an angry bull.

Everly sat in her bed watching television with a tray of food when I entered. She smiled too brightly at me for what took place.

"Don't look so happy. You just got me on Dr. Brighton's bad side."

"He only has a bad side." She pushed her tray toward me. "Want some chocolate cake? I hear it's delicious."

"Then your hearing must be impaired. Hospital food is atrocious."

She looked at me still full of smile. "I know."

I took a seat near her bed. "So was all this drama worth getting out of being questioned? You have an I.V. shoved in your arm. That couldn't be worse than Logan boring you to death."

"He's not boring, he's crude. And yeah it was worth the drama. There's someone here I needed to visit and my fa . . . Timothy never would have let me come here unless there was a medical reason. Plus I got to learn something today, too."

"How to freak out a hundred med students?" I joked.

Everly relaxed into her pillows and stared curiously. "You're willing to lie for me."

"My motives were not exactly pure. I wanted to earn some brownie points with you so you'll be nicer to me and not give me the run around. If I fail third year and that infant Logan passes I will never live it down."

"So you want to be my favorite," she decided.

"I want to graduate med school so I can move out of my parent's house and begin my life. Whatever happens in the process is just cherries on top."

She pointed at me. "How dare you use life-dooming words in my presence."

"I have only doomed cherries." I nodded to her hair. "You're a peach."

Everly shoved her tray until it was angled in my direction. "I detest eating as much as you despise the word just. Help me get rid of this cake and I'll help you pass third year."

"Fine," I sighed, "I'll eat this gross-ass cake so you don't have to, but no more run around in class, deal?"

She replied, "I'm fairly certain they don't use real asses in it . . . although one can never be too sure when dealing with ladies wearing hair nets."

"Everly," I warned, smiling despite myself.

She turned a little shy. "You eat my food, and I'll answer your questions."

"Swear?" I challenged.

"With both pinkies."

I took the plate of cake off her tray and ate slowly as she stared at the television. I watched her expressions as she was distracted by the show, glancing around the room every now and then to avoid getting caught.

When I found her patient board I tried not to read it, but my eyes couldn't help but to rest on her name.

Everly Anne Brighton As I glanced to her I was already caught. "Your last name is Brighton?"

Everly stared intently at me. "You'll find that very few things in life happen by coincidence."

The following day I found a small stack of books on my desk. On top of the pile was an edition of Peter Pan worn and withered away before Everly's time. A piece of paper tucked itself inside the cover. James Barrie's words were bolded at the top.

Just always be waiting for me.

And underneath she wrote: Not every "just" leads to doom. What if the doom is already pending and you're just caught in the middle. The truth, Callum, is that the word "just" only loses all its goodness when you stop looking at it as such. Justice, fair, evenhanded, unbiased, good, moral. This is the Family of Just. But like any family that starts out wholesome, there is room for a shift. All it takes is one person to stop believing in the foundation. Then that family is only the outskirts of what remains, until no one addresses it as a whole any longer, because they don't remember it as a whole, just the broken bits that fell away. Just the crumbles of what was once so sturdy.

Just.

You can make anything whole again.

Just.

You just have to nurse it back to health.

I Was Once Part of this World Chatter greeted me as I opened the door to room 221. Everyone was talking to someone except for Everly who sat quietly all alone at her desk in front of the class.

Everyone shut up when Timothy entered the room. He wrote notes on the dry-erase board behind Everly and then called on Logan who had his hand raised.

"Are we allowed to do tests? Like blood work and stuff like that?"

Timothy replied, "Can you do them in five minutes?" And the rest of the class found this mockery humorous.

But I only stared at her quietness.

"Could we split up the time over a few days?" Logan tried again.

"If you'd like to waste it, sure." Timothy didn't wait for him to try another approach. "Now, today you will be split into the groups you see on the board. Everyone on your group must agree on the diagnosis, and formulate a treatment by semester's end. You will be graded half for the diagnosis, and half based on your patient log. You will elect one person from your group to speak with the patient from here on out. You'll have ten minutes after today since it's collective. Spend them well."