“That’s comforting,” he muttered.
“Just breathe, pumpkin,” I said.
His device was newer than the ones I encountered at camp, sleeker. Humming while I inserted a new cartridge, I then watched the fluid move through the thin tubing that connected to his infusion site. The quarter-sized disc, I learned during last summer’s mandatory health trainings, delivered insulin through a fine cannula that was placed under the skin. Another small disc, a wireless sensor, constantly measured tiny amounts of blood glucose and pinged readings back to the device.
The diabetic camper in my bunk had to rotate her sites around her abdomen every few days. She said it didn’t hurt to insert them; if anything, it was less painful than frequent injections and the continuous glucose monitoring meant she didn’t have to prick her fingers as much. I knew from the camp nurse that they could also be positioned on the thigh or upper arm, but the angry grimace on the underwear model’s face told me he wasn’t interested in questions about his regimen.
“What is that song?”
“Hmm? Oh, that. It’s ‘Anna Sun.’ By Walk The Moon,” I said. I snagged some tissues from my bag and mopped the sweat from his forehead and throat. “What else do you need?”
He shook his head, his hand flattened against his chest as he closed his eyes. “Just get off my leg and be quiet.”
Shuffling to the side, I bit my lip and stared at his belt. It was navy with embroidered white whales, and it wasn’t long before “Yellow Submarine” was buzzing through my head.
Here’s the problem: I didn’t knowhowto be quiet. Asking me for silence was like putting a giant cookie on the countertop, telling me not to eat it, and then leaving me alone with it.
I ate the goddamn cookie every time and I just couldn’t help it.
Everything about me was noise and fidget and rhythm, and I couldn’t function without.
So I tapped the chords on my wrist and stared at him. He was too pretty to be trapped in an elevator. I, on the other hand, attracted this brand of nonsense. This was par for my course, and wasn’t it always the poor, lonely grad students in these situations? Never men who looked like they should be sending hounds off for a fox hunt—did people still do that sort of thing?—or debating the appropriate amount of time to age a cabernet.
“You didn’t have to stop,” he said. “With the song. Just talk less. For a few minutes.”
With my iPhone in hand, I toggled to the right playlist and gave us each an earbud. He accepted it without question, and I figured averting a diabetic coma warranted this form of kinship.
For four and a half blissful minutes, I wasn’t worried about elevator disasters. “More? Feeling better? Need anything else?” I asked. He nodded, his eyes still shut. “You want more, you’re feeling better, and you need something, or—”
“It’s fine,” he snapped. “I’m fine. Play something else.”
I shifted off my knees and settled beside him. We sat there, shoulder to shoulder, listening to LCD Soundsystem, Weezer, Taylor Swift, The Who, AFI, Van Morrison, Seven Mary Three, OneRepublic, The Smiths, Lupe Fiasco, and a handful of new bands for almost two hours.
So much for getting us out in a jiff.
The air was thick enough to chew, and I was way too close to experiencing one of my worst nightmares: smelling like a two-day-old Italian sub sandwich while in the company of other humans. As far as worst nightmares went, this wasn’t on par with death by killer bees or finding a severed finger in a tub of hummus, but it was a real concern.
The underwear model wasn’t faring much better in this heat. However, it was working out beautifully for me since he had ditched the gingham shirt, leaving him in just a gray tank and khakis. That, a ring on his thumb, a spendy-looking watch, two medical alert bracelets, a copper cuff, freckles, and the dark outline of tattoos on his shoulders.
Those freckles were just too fucking sweet. I wanted to touch everything and ask a dozen questions.
When the Neil Young song ended, I turned down the volume and said, “I’m Tiel, by the way.”
He kept his eyes closed but the corners of his mouth tipped up. “Teal? Like the color?”
I got the ‘isn’t that a color?’ routine a lot. Trust me, I gave my parents plenty of shit for that choice, and spent several adolescent years calling myself Renee. My mother could still produce homemade birthday cards I signed with my adopted name. I found it odd she bothered to keep them. In her book, I ranked just above the people who routinely let their dog poop in her front yard.
It wasn’t until I was out of the house and fully myself that I stopped wanting to be a Hannah or Rachel or Emma. Or Renee.
My older sister, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of her name. She loved explaining that Agapi was the Greek word for divine love—at least that was her preferred translation. She liked it so much she tattooed her name on her own ass.
It was easy for her to embrace every ounce of her Greekness; she was my mother’s clone. She had the wavy mocha hair, the perfect olive skin, the dark eyes, and the tall, slender figure.
In every way imaginable, I was Agapi’s opposite. I was such an odd blend of both gene pools that I resembled neither of my parents. At first glance, I looked like the kid they adopted. Aside from inheriting my father’s thick black hair and a slightly lighter shade of my mother’s skin, my features were distinctly mine. Sometimes I wondered whether I’d feel differently about my family, my religions, my cultures if I’d ever felt like I belonged in any of them. To this day, I wasn’t sure where I belonged, but at least now I knew who I was.
“No, not the color. T-I-E-L.”
My name came with no cute translation.
