Page 218 of Everything Under the Sun

My blush deepened. I dropped my eyes to keep from seeing his, and went back to work.

A moment later: “This is the last of the tape. And the baby wipes. How much penicillin is left?”

Atticus opened the bottle—days ago we’d opened all three and poured the pills into one so there would be less to carry—and he shuffled the pills into the palm of his hand.

As he counted, I noticed right away there were fewer left than there should have been.

“Atticus, there were ninety pills when I found them.” I poked at them in the palm of his hand, and looked up at him suspiciously. “What happened to the rest of them?”

Atticus sighed. “I’ve been taking them.”

“Why?”

He sighed once more. “Just a precaution.”

I examined the puffy, reddened wound again. Then I reached out and touched the inside of my wrist to his forehead, and then both cheeks.

“You’re running fever,” I said with a hint of accusation. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You know why, Thais.”

Resigned, I looked back down at the wound, and went back to mending it, taping down a baby wipe over the top. I was disappointed with Atticus for not telling me, but I couldn’t very well argue his reason—yes, it would have worried me, and it would have been the only thing I could think about, and although there wasn’t anything more I could do than what I had been doing, I still would have carried that extra worry on my back the whole way.

“The penicillin will fight the infection,” I stated, refusing to believe otherwise.

(“It will,” I agreed, refusing to believe otherwise.)

Both of us, I knew deep down, were starting to believe otherwise.

~~~

THAIS & (ATTICUS)

It had been so long since we ate last, that our cheeks were sinking inward, and I could fit my pinky and thumb around my forearm, and there were dark circles under Atticus’ eyes, and neither of us could walk for more than ten minutes without having to stop and catch our breath. And to make matters worse, extreme hunger also brought with it irritability and anger, and so Atticus and I fought about ridiculous things.

And to make matters even worse, hunger made concentration difficult, so Atticus and I fought about ridiculous things we couldn’t even remember.

“I never told the family at the farm I wanted to stay,” I claimed. “I just…said it’d be nice to.”

“That’s basically the same thing,” Atticus shot back. “And you did tell them you were going to stay. I heard you.” (Didn’t I?)

I shook my head vigorously.

“I never said that.”—Or did I?—“But you wanted to stay on the porch with that girl,” I deflected.

“Huh?” Atticus’ eyebrows hardened.

“The dark-haired one,” I accused; I could remember none of the family’s names. “You went out there to talk to her; pretended you were talking to the old man.”

Atticus’ head reared back. “Thais, I was out there talking to him before she came outside.”

“That’s not what I remember.”

“Then your memory is shit,” he said.

(I shook my head and looked at the wooden fence post behind her. Or, maybe my memory is shit…)

“Maybe it is,” I said, looking at the empty field of grass and stars behind him, “but part of me feels like you wanted her.”

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