“Bathroom,” I whisper, not wanting to explain my awkward encounter in the middle of the night.
“Hm,” he hums, scooting closer, his nose brushing my neck.
I hold still, my heart suddenly doubling its beats at the unfamiliar gesture.
“You smell like cow,” he lets me know, yet he doesn’t move away.
Micah, June 27th
The next morning starts with a new lesson for me: apparently, I’m allergic to cats.
“How did you not know this about yourself?” Linden asks as he administers drops to my swollen eyes. Linden’s mom—whom I’m supposed to callKelly—found them in the back of the bathroom cabinets. One of her sons-in-law, the accountant, of course, suffers from hay fever, so she keeps them around.
“Or is this why you stayed away from the kittens? You know you could have said so!”
“No, I just never had a cat,” I tell him, swatting his hands away as he tries to press a wet cloth to my face. “It’s okay, I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe you should go see a doctor,” Linden suggests. Across the breakfast table, his dad snorts. I don’t know when this man slept because by the time we rolled out of bed, he was already back in the barn.
“It’s not funny, Dad. He could have an allergic reaction!”
“He’s already having an allergic reaction,” Linden’s sister—Aspen or Hazel or Margaret, I can’t keep them apart through my swollen eyes—points out.
“You know what I mean!” Linden snaps at her.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’ll be fine.” I blindly reach for his hand, satisfied when I feel his bony wrist under my touch. It’s so delicate that my fingers wrap around it easily.
“I’ll just have to get used to it.”
“You can’t get used to an allergy.” Linden sighs, but he also squeezes my hand before taking a chair to my right.
“Sure you can!” I argue before he has the chance to bring up a doctor again. “As a kid, I used to be allergic to eggs, but my dad still gave them to me in small amounts. And then I outgrew it!”
Around me, the conversation dies down. I squirm in my chair when I can feel all eyes settle on me.
“Your father gave you eggs knowing you were allergic to them?”
I suck in a deep breath at Aspen’s words—it must be Aspen because I can make out the toddler she’s holding in her arms. Phrased like this, it sounds like my father tried to kill me.
“In small doses. He read about desensitization therapy online. And hey, it worked! I’m still alive, and I can eat eggs now,” I explain, trying to salvage the mood.
“Allergic to cats, allergic to eggs, I don’t know if this one will survive his visit,” Brandon grumbles from the other side of the table, and my cheeks flush.
“I’ll be fine,” I insist quickly. I came here to help, not to add another worry onto their shoulders.
“I’m sure you’ll be, honey,” Kelly reassures me as she leans forward to put a cup in front of me. The warmth spreads from my cheeks to my ears and down my neck. I lean forward to wrap my hands around the hot porcelain.
“Thank you,” I mumble as I inhale the rich scent of fresh coffee.
“Desensitization works through immunotherapy, not by cuddling the cause of your allergic reaction,” Linden explains.He leans over to add a splash of milk to my cup, his fingers brushing mine while he holds it in place. The contact is brief, yet I wonder if his family noticed.
“And since I doubt you’ll outgrow anything else by this age and height,” he continues, and I huff when I can all but hear the cheeky smile in his voice, “this little menace needs to keep some distance!”
An unhappy meow rings out from under the table as Linden grabs the orange cat and carries it out of the kitchen, followed by his family's laughter. I carefully raise the cup to my lips, smiling when it has just the right amount of milk for my taste.
“I think we should name him Owen,” I tell Linden as we march out to the cherry orchard, each carrying a big basket filled with sandwiches and cut fruit. Linden spent the whole morning explaining the ins and outs of farm life to me—from the milking machine to the egg hunt in the chicken coop, while I pressed a wet washcloth to my puffy eyes. They’re currently hidden behind a pair of shades, feeling significantly less itchy.
“Why? Because he’s clingy and toxic?” Linden groans and gives the cat a dirty look. He’s made it his mission to keep him away from me, which only seems to make the nameless furball more intent on following us around.
