Page 9 of Love Conquers All

“Elton John.”

The boy cackled and then immediately started to cough again. Sylvie liked the sensation of making him laugh. She liked feeling like it didn’t matter who they were, where they’d come from, or the fact that they were both incredibly sick. They took pleasure in silliness.

“Should I sing for you?” the boy asked.

“Please don’t.” She giggled.

But then, the boy began to sing—a song that had spent most of the past three years on the radio station, a song by Sheryl Crow that Sylvie hadn’t thought any boy would ever like. She joined him, and they lay there together, singing and coughing until they forgot the words and burst into another round of giggles.

When was the last time Sylvie laughed with someone? Even Caitlin hadn’t been particularly cheerful during the last few weeks of their friendship, probably because she’d been planning her way out.

Suddenly, Sylvie realized who the boy was. “You’re Graham Ellis.”

“What? Who is this Graham Ellis you speak of?” But his tone told her she was right.

Sylvie remembered Graham: curly-haired and slightly awkward but always eager to laugh. He was in two of her classes and always got good grades, but never as good as hers. They’d only spoken to one another a handful of times. Sylvie had always thought he didn’t know who she was.

It was funny that she hadn’t recognized his voice at first. But she sensed that it had changed slightly since the last time she’d heard it. It was deeper. He was in the midst of puberty, too, after all.

“Are you leaving school today?” she asked.

“I’m sure my mom will come get me soon,” Graham said. There was relief in his voice. “Do you think we have the same thing?”

“Maybe,” Sylvie said. She remembered the shards of the vase on the floor. She remembered the ragged anger in her father’s voice.

Did Graham’s mother ever throw things? Did she ever yell?

“My dad can’t come get me,” she said. “But I feel awful. Like worse than I ever have.”

There was a lot of drama in her tone. She hoped Graham didn’t think she was overly dramatic, overly silly.

“Is he busy with work?” Graham asked. “My dad is always working.”

“Yes.” It was easier to say this, and it was even partially true.

“What’s it like to own an inn?” Graham asked.

“It’s weird. My life is mostly made up of people we’ll never see again.”

Graham said, “That sounds interesting. Like you could pretend to be someone new every week.”

Sylvie rolled to her side and gazed at the sheet that separated them. She wondered what he looked like over there—if his nosewas tinged red with sickness or if he looked greenish like she did. She wondered what it would be like to hold hands with him, then banished the thought. She didn’t know how to talk to boys! She didn’t know how to be a girlfriend!

Suddenly, the door to the nurse’s office opened and brought him a sunshiny lady with bushy blond hair. “Oh, Graham,” the woman said, shaking her head before she disappeared behind the sheet.

It was Graham’s mother.

“You should have told me you didn’t feel well!” she said.

“I did,” Graham said.

“You made it seem like you were faking it,” Graham’s mother teased.

“You just didn’t believe me,” Graham said.

But there was a lightness to this mini-argument, a silliness that meant that the two of them would go back to Graham’s place, eat pancakes, and watch movies until Graham felt well again. Sylvie’s stomach ached with jealousy.

But then, a miracle happened.

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