"You all right?" I rubbed her back and she took another hard breath before she nodded. "Topolina?"

"Don't have enough oxygen in my blood."

"What's going on?"

She leaned her head on my shoulder and I settled my arms around her waist, the closest we had been since Montauk. She felt cold. I rubbed her arms to gain friction and felt how frail she was under my hands. She had become alarmingly thin, withered to the bone. Everly balled up in my lap as if she could feel my warmth, even though I knew that was impossible.

"Everly Anne . . . talk to me, please."

"Same old stuff Callum. I'm dying."

"CIPA doesn't cause your blood to be under-oxygenated."

She sighed as if she had finally caught her breath. "I'm anemic from not eating properly. You see, fate has determined that I'm going to die one way or another. If CIPA won't kill me directly, then my brain has decided mental defect will do just fine."

I held her tighter. "You're not defective."

She argued, "Twenty years-worth of defectiveness would disagree."

"Nineteen," I corrected sarcastically.

"No, I'm twenty."

I pulled back to see her face. "Since when?"

She was quiet, and then, "Don't worry, you gave me a present."

"When?" I pressed.

"The day I took you to church. When you asked me to be your girlfriend."

My mind swam. "Why didn't you tell me? Wait-that's why you were grumpy? Hell, Ev, I had no idea. And I would have gotten you something better than me, that's for damn sure," I laughed, but she remained serious.

"Birthdays are not celebrations in my life," she explained. "I remember very clearly hearing Timothy tell Andrew, "If she reaches three, she won't see twenty-one." Because anyone on record with CIPA usually didn't live to see age three, and if they did, they were dead by twenty-one." She looked at me, her face so close to mine as she sat in my lap. "So here I am, gasping for breath in your arms, one year before I'm destined to die. Aren't you glad I'm your girl, Callum Andrew?"

I stared at her as deeply as I dug for courage inside of myself. I couldn't tell her I wasn't afraid because that was too big of a lie. I followed where my heart lead, and that was to what I knew I was capable of doing-letting go. I had been here before. I watched Julep's life fall away each day like dying rose petals, one-by-one until all the beauty withered into memories. I was capable of this. Afraid? Yes. But still capable. So I did what I knew best. I distracted her with a story.

"My mother's parents were immigrants when they first came to America. She learned to speak English watching Bugs Bunny cartoons, so I'd always make fun of her and ask, "What's up, Doc?" But it translated funny. She'd always get confused and think I was calling for my Pop. So she stopped talking to me in English as payback and I got to feel how confused she was. But then I learned a few Italian words, liked it, so she taught me." I stroked my fingertips light as a feather across her cheeks. "Do you want to hear some?"

Everly kept her eyes on me, deep and engaged. "I'd love to hear you."

And I confided softly, caressing her cheek, "Sei l'unico Paradiso in cui credo, l'unico che abbia mai sentito. Mi sono innamorato di te Everly Anne."

A part of me hoped she had never learned Italian. Another part of me wished I had told her in English. She watched me as if waiting for translation, but I just leaned my mouth to her shoulder and kissed over her sweater, then boldly to the curve of her neck and behind her ear, as if I could press the words into her skin and have them sink inside of her so she'd know it was true.

"Kiss me," she whispered.

"I am."

"On my lips," she expanded. "You've never kiss me anymore."

I smiled against her neck. "You forbid me, remember?"

"I thought you weren't going to be strong-armed by a ninety-pound girl?"

"So it's like a dare? I don't think I'd like to kiss you based on a dare. Feels too empty . . . and that's not what I envision when I think about kissing you, Everly Anne."

Her chin rested on my shoulder as she turned silent for a moment. But then I was given another secret as she unveiled, "I want it to be you." Everly curled her fingers into the nape of my shirt. "All of it to be you."

My mind stuck on the "all." My fingers strummed her ribs as I thought about all of the possibilities. But her words only rested on my chest. They felt like they had a home there. I didn't feel an urge or rush. I didn't want to leap and worry about all the repercussions later. No matter how little time existed between her life and mine as a whole, fast and effortlessly wasn't an option-and those were the only options as we sat on that couch.

"There's a problem with that, Everly."

She closed her eyes. "I know."

"I mean it's twenty minutes 'til you have to be home." She opened her eyes and I kissed her cheek. "And that's not nearly long enough . . . for anything."

"You do understand what a simple kiss is, right, Future Graduate of Cornell?"