Chapter 20 #2
“Well, I haven’t decided,” he said. “But I’ve thought about it a fair amount.” His leg brushed against mine. “I’d like to be an accountant.”
“An accountant,” I echoed, trying not to snort. “Really?”
“Yes, really. Is there something wrong with that?”
“Of course not,” I told him. “But you’re just so good with kids. Isn’t that a sign of a good teacher?”
“Eh, I would roll my eyes too much.”
“Connor, when have you ever rolled your eyes in front of Teddy and Finn?”
“All the time, on the inside.”
Now I really snorted, not believing him whatsoever; I moved so that I was treading water again. Connor did the same, his smile bemusedly amused.
“Math is my favorite subject,” he continued. “I like numbers, and the world will always be in need of CPAs.”
“Good point,” I conceded. “Where are you going to live?”
“East Coast,” he said automatically. “Maybe not in Pennsylvania, but still relatively near…”
“Your family,” I guessed, then gave him a look. “Do you think it’ll be hard at Notre Dame? Being so far away from them?”
“I’ll get used to it.” Connor shrugged, but there was nothing nonchalant about it.
Something twinged in my chest, suspecting that it was hard being away from his family now. I thought of how he’d waited in the mess hall line to call his family at Camp Skytop, and how often he talked about them and Mads in the here and now.
Might he still be a homebody?
And was there anything wrong with being a homebody?
He cleared his throat. “You really don’t know what you want to be when you grow up?”
“No,” I said, feeling heat at the back of my neck even while swimming. “I really don’t.”
And I also couldn’t say how Connor responded, because my mind had started whirring. I’d wanted to be a jewelry designer once, but only because I loved Annie’s collection. She’d let me try on everything.
I loved books, but I didn’t necessarily want to be a writer or librarian.
And my dad and the Elkins nurses told me I had an excellent bedside manner, but I could never get into medical or nursing school. Biology was the bane of my existence.
“I took a look at Northwestern’s psychology department,” I remembered Erica saying after I’d gotten my acceptance letter. “The courses look fascinating!”
“Cool,” I said, but I hadn’t engaged with her. In fact, I’d been hurt. What did she mean by that? I’d heard from friends that psychology was the major for people who weren’t particularly interested in or good at anything.
And her words from lunch with her friends last month were a whisper in my ear: She seems to have lost all her drive and sense of direction…
“But I could see myself living a lot of places,” I told Connor, and by that, I meant I had no idea where I wanted to live. I tried to shift the subject. “Meredith said she and Wit were kind of nomads?”
“Yeah.” Connor nodded. “They would book an Airbnb for a few months, then pack up and move somewhere completely different.” He lightly splashed me. “Speaking of Meredith, you still game to go to the Farm for dinner on Friday?”
“Definitely,” I said, then I suggested we swim back to shore for lunch. My stomach rumbled. Before getting in line for the Chappy Ferry, we’d stopped in Edgartown for BLTs, potato chips, and fizzy drinks. Muffins too.
“This is insane,” Connor said after finishing half his sandwich. “So good, right?”
“The best,” I agreed, even though I wasn’t paying my BLT nearly enough attention. I’d only taken two bites.
I was too busy wrestling with the idea that dinner with Meredith and Wit, who were important to Connor, felt serious. Like more than a casual dinner date.
And if I hadn’t been busy worrying, I not only would have raved about how delicious the BLTs were, but I also would’ve immediately picked up on the hives blooming on Connor’s neck.
* * *
Neither of us noticed until he started touching his lips. Slowly, and sort of in awe, as if he’d only just discovered he had a mouth. “Connor…” I said after a beat. “Are you okay?”
By way of response, he smacked his lips once.
They were puffy.
“I need my EpiPen,” he said, now itching the hives on his skin. He sounded calm enough, but there was a hitch in his voice. “God, this hasn’t happened—”
He didn’t finish his thought; instead, he sprung up from his towel and bolted up the beach. Heart spiking, I grabbed my tote bag and followed.
“But you didn’t eat anything!” I called after him, not caring how silly I looked. “Last time I checked, a BLT doesn’t have tree nuts or shellfish.” I paused. “Or horse DNA.”
Connor didn’t answer, and I pumped my arms harder to keep up with him. I considered myself a runner, but this guy could run. We sprinted past children building sandcastles and a father-daughter game of Frisbee. I nearly plowed into a couple of bookworms reading in beach loungers.
My bare feet burned when I hit the parking lot’s pavement.
Shit, shit, shit, I thought, heat scorching my feet, but I plowed onward.
Connor had beaten me to the Jeep, but his hands were fumbling with his key fob.
(He’d tucked it under the wheel well when we’d arrived, trusting our fellow islanders.) “Give them to me,” I blurted, and upon snatching the keys, pressed the unlock button as hard as I could and yanked open the driver’s side door. “Where is it?”
Connor wheezed. “…Center…console.”
I barely heard him over the blood pulsing in my ears, but thankfully I managed to unlatch the console. I didn’t have to dig around long before locating the EpiPen, but I had no idea how to use it. “Here!” I screeched at the same time Connor grabbed it from me.
And then in one swift movement, he pulled off some type of safety cap and stabbed himself in the thigh. I heard a faint click, and after three hard heartbeats, Connor slumped against the car and closed his eyes. He was pale and dripping with sweat but seemingly okay.
I let out all the air in my lungs.
“We have to call 911,” he said once our pulses calmed. “I need an ambulance.”
“Why?” I asked, confused. No one in my family had any allergies. “Didn’t the EpiPen do its job?”
“I think so.” Connor blinked open his eyes, and god, they were so blue.
Staring into them made me feel like the world was tilting over, even though my feet were firmly on flat ground.
“But the ER is protocol, in case the EpiPen is only temporarily effective.” He glanced over at the humming Chappy Ferry and sighed.
“It’s going to take the EMTs forever to get over here. ”
We made the executive decision to leave the Jeep and our stuff so we could quickly hop back over to Edgartown.
I forked over our pedestrian passenger fee, and Connor used my phone to call 911 from the barge.
The wind whipped through the air, but I heard him explain and give the dispatcher our location.
We’re about five seconds from getting off the Chappy Ferry.
I took Connor’s hand and squeezed it once he hung up the phone. “How do you feel?”
“Prematurely mortified,” he said, lips no longer so puffy. “You are about to witness the most embarrassing moment of my life.”
“Oh, come on!” I laughed a little. “That can’t be true! Didn’t you embarrass yourself in high school?”
My mind flashed to me sophomore year, tripping down the library steps in a pair of ridiculous high-heeled boots.
“No, I did not,” Connor said lightly, then he dropped his voice. “But there might’ve been something in middle school.” He paused. “Involving a water park’s wave pool.”
I battled back a laugh.
By the time we disembarked, a red Edgartown Fire Department ambulance was somehow maneuvering its way past the ferry line. Connor casually waved, as if the ambulance were his Uber.
He keeps his cool, I thought, impressed. I was internally freaking out again. Had the EpiPen done enough?
“Allergic reaction, right?” one of the paramedics asked after putting the ambulance in park. Her partner went around to the back and opened its double doors. “Shellfish?”
“Or tree nuts,” Connor said. “I’m not sure. I was eating a BLT.”
“Hmm.” The paramedic motioned for him to follow her to the mobile examination room. “Sounds like a cross-contaminant situation…”
My phone chimed in my bag, and knowing Connor was now in safe hands, I scooped it out to see Finlay House onscreen. I felt my stomach drop as I stared. What happened? Why was Elkins calling me? If something was wrong, they always called my dad.
Had he not picked up?
I wanted to ignore the call, to focus on Connor, but everything in me screamed that I couldn’t. What if something was actually wrong and they needed to contact us?
I glanced over at the ambulance—the open door blocked me from seeing anything, but I heard the paramedics laughing at whatever joke Connor had probably just cracked.
I tapped to accept the call. “Hello?”
“Olivia, hi!” Tara chirped. “You busy?”
The sunshine in the nurse’s voice was artificial but still brought me some relief. “No,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Your grandmother would like to talk to you,” she said. “Hold on a moment.”
My heart leaped, delighted. Annie wanted to talk to me, Olivia.
One, two, three seconds passed, but when I finally heard a voice at the end of the line, it wasn’t Annie’s. “Just a minute!” Tara told me, and then, off to the side, “Annette, this is your granddaughter. You asked to speak to her, remember?”
“No, I asked to see her,” I faintly heard Annie reply, her voice icy. “That’s entirely different.”
“Annie, hi!” I exclaimed before I considered that I might be blowing out Tara’s eardrum. “I’m right here!”
Tara must’ve convinced her to take the phone, but my grandmother’s response was less than enthusiastic—a heavy sigh. “You’re not,” she told me. “You are not here, Chris. You never are.”
The corners of my eyes stung. Why was this disease being so hard on my dad? Maybe he couldn’t show up all the time, but he still showed up as much as he could. I swallowed hard. “We’ll be home soon, Annie.” I pretended nothing was wrong. “And I have so many pictures—”
I dropped off when I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Connor.
A little color had returned to his face, and he gave me a smile before stealing my phone and pressing it against his ear.
“Hello, Annette,” he said gently. My pulse pounded.
“How are you this afternoon?” Pause. “I’m Connor McCallister, Olivia’s old camp friend. ”
Excuse me? I thought. Old camp friend?
It wasn’t until Connor winked that I realized he was teasing me, trying to slip under my white-hot skin. It started to burn as he walked back toward the ambulance, making sweet small talk with my sick grandmother, knowing he’d also given me something to think about.
If I didn’t want to call Connor my “old camp friend,” what did I want to call him?