There have been legends of saints who developed miraculous suctioning powers. Saint Lucia stuck to the floor, and nobody could lift her to take her to the executioner. Saint Christina the Astonishing bounced to the ceiling of her church, where she stuck like a spitball. Then Saint Joseph of Cupertino, Theresa of Avila, and Thomas Aquinas reportedly meditated so intensely that no living force could move them.

Emmi’s grandmother had told her these stories as literal facts: “They tried and they tried to move Saint Thomas, but he wouldn’t budge.” Emmi had imagined a bulldozer coming up to Thomas Aquinas and breaking into pieces around him. By the time Emmi got to middle school, the nuns at school told her that it was probably more of a metaphor. 

Emmi’s miracle was also of the adhesive variety, and it was very literal. It happened when she was seventeen. 

Many saints started showing their miraculous gifts in their teens. Joan of Arc, for example, went to war at seventeen. Saint Rose of Lima and Elizabeth of Hungary both came into power at seventeen. Saint Maria Goretti was only eleven when she was martyred, being stabbed eleven times by her rapist. Agnes of Rome was martyred at fifteen when she refused to marry a pagan.

Emmi’s miracle was fusional: She wrapped her arms and legs around her music teacher, Brent Feldman, and stuck. She hadn’t meant to. It was a miracle. She simply rolled on top of him and melted into his skin. He tried to shake her off, tried to pry away her fingers, tried to convince her to let go, but she might as well have been a tumor.

“You said you wanted to be together forever,” she said. “Remember? ‘You and me forever, baby.’ That’s what you said.”

“I didn’t mean like this.”

“Maybe you should have been more specific.”

People stared and whispered. Brent had trouble getting dressed with her on his back. He tried to explain it to his wife. 

“I was depressed,” he told her. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.” 

“What?” Emmi said.

“Depression is when you find a hobby,” his wife said. “Depression is why jogging was invented.”

“It was a moment of weakness,” he said. 

“She’s seventeen,” his wife said. “She’s twenty years younger than you.”

“She’s the one who pursued me,” Brent said. “It was all consensual!”

“He’s right,” Emmi said. “I am in love with him. I am infatuated. Obsessed. That’s why he wanted a teenage girl. I made him feel like a king.”

His wife took the kids and went to her mother’s. 

Brent had trouble sitting down. His back ached. He was fired from his job at the music school. 

“We can’t prove that you broke any rules,” the head of the music school said. “It’s your word against hers. But you have to see how it looks. We have to think about our public image.”

He went to the doctor, who looked them over and examined Emmi. 

“We might be able to amputate,” the doctor said. “But it would take extensive skin grafts, and… the girl might not survive.”

“I’ll do anything,” Brent said. 

“I think I’m good,” Emmi said. “I’ll stay put.”

Brent went to church and met with a priest who specialized in exorcisms. The priest threw around holy water and chanted a bit. He painted a cross on Emmi’s forehead with oil and gave her communion. He asked her to recite some prayers, which she did without incident.

“It’s a miracle,” the priest said. “Plain and simple.”

“Not a curse?” Brent asked. 

The priest shrugged. “That’s subjective, I guess,” he said. “But it’s not Satanic.”

“But she’s a… She and I…”

“The performing of miracles does not require abstinence,” the priest said. 

“Many saints were married for their entire lives,” Emmi chimed in. “Many had children.” 

The priest smiled at her proudly.

“Is there nothing I can do as penance?” Brent said. 

The priest shrugged.

“Get used to it.”

At home, Brent fed Emmi mac and cheese over his shoulder.

“Do you like The Bachelor?” Emmi asked. “I’m going to watch the finale tonight.”

“You said you liked cinema,” Brent said. 

“You said you would love me forever,” she said.

“You said you had no time for pop culture. You quoted The Bicycle Thief in Italian.”

“I’m seventeen,” she said. 

They both cried as the rose was passed to the winner.

“Are you happy?” Brent asked Emmi. 

Emmi snorted. She had no hands, so snot ran down her face and onto his shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Don’t you want to be free?”

“Of course. But I can’t be. You’re in my saliva and my skin. You’re in my reflection. You’re in every man I see and every conversation I have. Forever. That’s what you were getting when you decided to be with a kid. Isn’t that why you wanted me? You wanted to change me. You wanted to take a blank canvas and make it into something. And then you thought you could just leave me like that and walk away. Well, surprise. Here I am. You can’t walk away that easily.”

“You came to me,” he said. “You kissed me. You initiated everything. I trusted you when you said you wanted it.”

“I thought I wanted it,” she said. “But I want a lot of things. Turns out I’m seventeen.”

“And now– what? We’re stuck like this for the rest of my life?”

He felt her smile against his cheek.

“You and me forever, baby.”