I step toward the door. "I'm not being strong-armed by a ninety- pound girl."

Everly jumped off the bed and didn't permit me passage without having to touch her and that was the last thing I was going to do.

"Don't you have it right there?" Her finger corkscrewed into my chest. "Doesn't that feeling live just right there?" She stared up at me, and more than anything I wanted to look away, push away, get away, but the invisible cord wouldn't allow me to move.

"What?" I snapped. "What am I supposed to have, Everly?"

"The cancer. The helplessness you felt. The wish. Hasn't all that scorn made a home right there?"

"Right now? Definitely."

"Only your ego is bruised. Get over it. I'm trying to save this guy's life."

I pushed her hand away. "Even if I didn't mind your little game, I don't see how I could help."

"I need someone to make a case for me. Argue that I'm capable of making decisions for myself." She folded her arms across her chest. "I'm under a conservatorship. I know when I die my father won't want any part of me to go to someone. He's too selfish. He'll want them all for himself. So . . . so I need a doctor to plead my case to a judge. I don't want to be some science experiment. And Truscott doesn't want to die."

I laughed in disbelief. "I'd still be a resident at best, Everly Anne. You think a judge will listen to me over your father?"

"Yes," she said, "because your father has witnessed Timothy abusing his power." She looked up at me after a moment. "Your dad's the one who gave me the oven mitts so Timothy wouldn't make the nurses tie me to the bed at night."

I exhaled. "If it was keeping you safe a judge won't care. It's part of protocol."

She argued, "Your father didn't think so."

"He didn't care enough to stay and make sure it didn't happen anymore either, Everly. He's not . . . if you're betting all your chips on him then you're already beat. He's not like he used to be, and he won't care about this." I twisted the handle. "And neither do I."

She side-stepped me. "Well I do. In fact I care enough to make sure you fail and never get to become a hollow doctor who doesn't care about saving someone's life at the expense of your ego."

I looked at Truscott. "I'm sorry but I can't help." And then tried to ignore Everly as she followed me into the hallway. We ended up in the elevator. She stood and stared until the doors closed. "My father has a drinking problem," I told her. "He hardly remembers where our house is most days."

"Sounds more like a geography problem."

I nodded. "Funny."

She grew quiet for a moment. "He was the kindest man I ever knew."

"Yeah."

"But I'm not betting all my chips on him. I'm betting them on you." Everly flattened her back to the wall of the elevator. Her eyes watched the numbers fall. "Do you ever read the Bible?"

"No. I left fairytales in my childhood."

"Hope is an anchor of the soul," she said. "I read that in the Bible. Maybe for some people it means as long as you're hopeful you have a soul. For me it means getting to the heart of what makes someone tick. I've taken God's words and used them for my own selfish gain. But, it's also to help someone. Does that make me a bad person?"

I looked away from her and fixed my eyes on the numbers. It felt safer. "You didn't find my hopefulness, so don't sweat it, Everly."

"Not yours," she corrected, "Timothy's. His hopefulness rests in there being a solution to my condition, even though his logic knows that it's impossible. But it's there, and it's his only weakness, so I have to use it against him."

Everly turned to me then. "He's already threatened by you because of your father's history with me. If you turned in a strong differential it would only shake him greater. I can give you all the answers I just need you to do the footwork."

We reached the floor I originally pressed, but I punched for it to go back up.

"Everly, do you honestly believe Timothy wouldn't know you were spoon-feeding me information?"

"Doesn't matter. Actually, it might even make him more fearful, because then he'd know I have someone fighting in my corner. And what could he do? It's not like he's going to stop the differential now. He'd have to ask the whole class to start over half way through the semester with a new patient. Even if he faked my death that wouldn't work," she laughed.

"Twenty others will also know the answer, you understand that right? I have to share my notes."

Everly stepped closer to me. I could smell her hair and skin so floral and bright against the musk of the sterile elevator. "Maybe you should have a problem sharing your super-in-depth-note-taking-skills with the rest of the class. Maybe this should be what you address first thing after we get back from the Fourth of July break this weekend."

I shook my head at her. "You want me to finish my differential in one weekend?"

"God built the entire world in seven days. This is only words on a piece of paper." Her cheek dimpled as she smiled. "I won't even use 'just'."

"This seems like a shitload of trouble to suffer through to help a boy you like."