All This Time

by Mikki Daughtry

  I smile sadly to myself, watching as she looks around, finding another and moving it over to one of the benches, setting it carefully down on the wood.

  I freeze as she turns, the glowing lamplight illuminating her face.

  Marley.

  My heart speeds into triple time, my stomach going molten as it flips over itself. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to wake myself up. To pull myself out of this cruel second dream. But when I open them, she’s still there.

  This is real.

  Before I can process what I’m doing, I’m booking it out of my room and flying down the hallway. I almost make it to the door before a nurse slides in front of me, blocking my way.

  “Where do you think you’re going this time?” she asks me, crossing her arms. “Are you determined to rebreak your leg? No more evening excursions for you.”

  I try to get past her, desperately shuffling right and left, but she’s too quick for a guy on crutches with only one working leg.

  “Goddammit…,” I say, frustrated. I need to get out into that courtyard. I have to get to her before I lose her again. She’s here. There’s no fog. No clashing of my dreams with reality.

  “Really?” the nurse says, plucking a crutch out from under my arm.

  I wobble, grabbing ahold of the wall and bracing myself, but it’s obvious I’m not getting any farther like this.

  “See you guys in a few,” a nurse in a pair of blue scrubs says to the ladies at the station, oblivious to our standoff. She walks past us. “They’ve got me in Cardiology the rest of this week.”

  I glance to the side at her, my eyes widening when I see her eyes, her long brown hair, the wrinkle in her forehead, all of it triggering a memory. Her face peering down at me as I woke up, her voice calling out into the hallway for Dr. Benefield.

  The features just like Marley’s, only older. Long brown hair, rose-petal lips, warm hazel eyes, but hers crinkle at the corners.

  I watch her go through the double doors.

  And then… I remember.

  She was the nurse who checked my vitals the night I broke out of the hospital. The nurse who wheeled me down to my first physical therapy appointment.

  I’ve been too distracted searching for Marley to pay attention to everything around me.

  “Holy shit,” I say aloud, and the nurse blocking my way glares at me.

  I give her an apologetic smile, and she grants me the crutch back, steering me to my room. I hurry to the window. I get there just in time to see the woman in blue scrubs call out to Marley, leading her away and out of the courtyard. It’s her mother. It’s got to be.

  My mind is exploding.

  I stagger to the bed, sinking down on it. “Holy. Shit.” She’s real. Marley is real.

  I grab my phone off my nightstand, quickly starting a text to Sam, but the words won’t come out right no matter what I try to say. So instead I scroll through my recent calls and press Kimberly’s number.

  I rip the phone away from my ear and quickly disconnect after the first ring.

  No. Not yet. I have to be 100 percent sure this time.

  Cardiology. The nurse said she’d been in Cardiology this week. And if she’s in Cardiology this week, maybe that means Marley will be too.

  I flop back on my bed and stare up at the ceiling, a smile breaking out on my lips.

  36

  The next evening, I check my hair quickly in the bathroom mirror as I wash my hands. I see that one stubborn, unruly strand of hair, but I don’t even try to smooth it down. Marley never seemed to mind it.

  My face is still gaunt, though, from the accident and the weeks lying in a coma. Will she recognize me? A pasty complexion is probably the least of my worries on that front.

  Grabbing my crutches, I brace myself, flicking the light out and heading into the hallway. I peer at the empty nurses’ desk before working my way down the hall, hiding behind doors and around corners as I move toward the sign that says CARDIOLOGY in big black letters.

  Pushing inside, I quietly look around for her.

  Doctors, nurses, orderlies, all of them distracted by the clipboards in their hands and the monitoring of their patients. No Marley, though. I try one waiting room and then another, stepping through the second door to find the seats are all empty. She’s nowhere to be found.

  The only thing there is a book lying open, facedown on one of the green chairs. I walk over and pick it up, studying the intricate, flowery cover before flipping through a few pages.

  It’s a love story, two people hell-bent on ending up together. And it starts with “Once upon a time…”

  I go to put it down, but something about the cover is familiar. Images from the night of the accident pop into my head. The fluorescent lights flashing as I’m wheeled down the hallway, my eyes flicking down to see a doctor carrying a child, tears streaming down the little boy’s face. An elderly woman dragging a green oxygen tank behind her. A girl with long brown hair reading a book. This book.

  I look over to the door, and that’s when I come face-to-face with those same hazel eyes from that night. The ones I’ve been dreaming of for weeks.

  But this time they’re real.

  It’s her.

  Marley.

  “It’s you,” I say, taking her in and moving toward her as quick as my crutches will let me. “I didn’t make you up.”

  Something about her looks different. She’s paler. Thinner. Dark circles ring her eyes, dulling the usually vibrant color to almost brown. Her shoulders are hunched, bent forward, like she’s shielding something she doesn’t want anyone to see.

  And on top of all that, she’s dressed head to toe in all dark colors, from the charcoal gray of her hoodie to her scuffed black shoes.

  There’s not a single trace of yellow. What’s happened?

  “Marley,” I say, reaching out. “It’s me. Kyle.”

  When I move toward her, though, she hurries from the room, disappearing around the corner. I adjust my crutches under my arms to follow her, but when I get out to the hall, I can’t tell which way she went. She’s gone.

  I freeze when I see her mom at the end of the hall, and I know I have to call it and get back to my room, so I crutch out of Cardiology and back through my wing of the hospital. When I get there, I collapse onto my bed and let out a long exhale.

  I saw her. She saw me. She’s real… but she ran. My stomach sinks for the thousandth time. That can’t be a good thing. To have a girl literally run away from you.

  Now that I can place her from before my coma, does that mean my brain just created a whole persona for her?

  Do I even know her?

  Does she know me?

  * * *

  Exactly twenty-four hours later, I limp back to the same Cardiology waiting room, hoping she’ll be there again. I round the corner to see her sitting in one of the green leather chairs.

  It’s still as shocking as it was two days ago. To see her after I gave her up. To see her looking so different.

  Her long hair hangs around her face, and she’s focused on a book open in her lap. In the chair next to her sits a book bag, unzipped.

  She must feel my presence because her head snaps up, and when she sees me, she flinches. I take a small step toward her, but she shakes her head, jumping up and darting into the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind her.

  “Marley!” I call to her. “You know me.”

  But then I hesitate. “Don’t you?”

  Slowly, I approach the bathroom door, knocking lightly and resting my forehead against the wood.

  “I don’t want to scare you. I’m sorry if I did. I just need to know if you’re the Marley I think you are, or if I just saw your face and then made up everything else about you.” Actually hearing myself say it sounds even crazier than I expected.

  I stop talking and hold my breath, hoping that doesn’t sound stalkerish. When she doesn’t say anything, I continue. “Just please can you tell me if you know me? Tell me if you’re… you.”
r />   I wait for an answer, but minutes pass and it doesn’t come.

  I think of the girl at the house. The wrong Marley and how scared she looked. I’m doing it again. I’m an idiot for thinking she actually knows me and that I actually know her. I mean, I was asleep the whole time.

  Why is it I never considered that if she was real, she wouldn’t love me?

  “I’m sorry. I—shit.” I take a step away from the door, shaking my head. “I’m sorry. I’m leaving now.”

  I curse at myself. When the hell am I going to learn? In my rush to get out of there, the bottom of my left crutch tangles on something, and as I struggle to right myself, there’s a loud thud behind me. I look down to see the strap of her book bag wrapped around the crutch, her bag lying open on the floor.

  Great. Now she’ll think I was going through her stuff.

  I grab for it, picking up a few loose pencils that have tumbled out onto the floor.

  But as I slip them back inside, I see the corner of a bright-yellow notebook.

  I glance back at the closed door, before carefully picking it up. On the front, handwritten in familiar neat calligraphy, is her name: Marley Phelps.

  “You do have a last name,” I murmur. Take that, Sam.

  Before I can think better of it, I flip to a random page, my eyes widening when I see what’s written on it.

  It’s the story of the two of us at Halloween, all of it exactly the same as it happened. Or how I dreamed it, I guess. My zombie football player costume, me tossing the entire bowl of candy to the kids, her hands reaching up to unclip her shell.

  I keep searching, seeing tiny glimpses as I skim, memories I had. The Winter Festival, getting Georgia, eating hot dogs by the pond.

  All of it right here.

  I’m shaking. If this was all in my head, how does she know?

  My eyes land on a single word. “Storyteller.” I think about our conversation that day at the park. When she told me the best part about telling stories.

  The audience. Without an audience, a storyteller is just talking to the air, but when someone’s listening…

  Someone was listening. I was listening.

  Quickly, I close the notebook and put it away, but as I do, a feather falls out of the back and drifts slowly onto the floor.

  A duck feather.

  I hold it up to the light, smiling. It’s her. I do know her.

  And she knows me. At least some part of her does, even though we’ve never actually met.

  Gently, I place the feather on top of the notebook and reach into my pocket to pull out a cherry blossom petal I plucked off a flower in the courtyard today. I slide it over the feather, hoping she sees it.

  Hoping it means something to her, too.

  37

  I wait impatiently outside the double doors of the hospital, scanning the parking lot for Kimberly. I check my watch for the millionth time, groaning, hoping she won’t be too late. Now is so not the moment for us to be operating on Kim Standard Time.

  It’s almost 7:10. She’s going to miss it.

  Finally, under the parking lot lights, I see her blond head bobbing its way around the parked cars.

  I frantically wave her over, looking like a madman.

  She jogs the rest of the way, her face half-puzzled, half-amused. “What? What’s the big secret?”

  I grab her hand, pulling her around the corner and behind one of the huge stone pillars outside the hospital entrance.

  “Kyle—”

  I put a finger over my mouth and nod toward the door. She peeks around the pillar. I stare over her shoulder, holding my breath. Less than a minute later, Marley and her mom, Nurse Catherine, come out of the lobby, walking in the direction of the parking lot.

  “What—”

  “Shh.”

  Catherine turns, motioning to Marley, who is lagging a few steps behind her. “Marley? Hurry up, baby.”

  Kim’s eyes widen, and she grabs ahold of my arm, squeezing it in a vise grip. “Oh my God,” she whispers, excited. Now she’s the one practically flailing.

  I grin at her like I just won the lottery.

  “How long have you known?” Kimberly asks the second we get back to my room.

  “Three days. I wanted to be sure. And…” I grab my iPad and turn it around to face her. “All the things I was telling you guys about her are true. Look.”

  “Back up—slow down—hold on—stop,” she says as she tries to regain any sense of chill.

  “The accident I told you about? It was real. I didn’t pay attention to this one because it was halfway across the country, but here it is.” I hold up the Post-it that reads 1,911 miles away and hand her the iPad with the newspaper article about Laura’s death. Once I found out Marley’s last name, all of the pieces fell into place. I did some more googling and was even able to find a photo of Laura and Marley smiling, one wearing pink, the other wearing yellow.

  Kim skims the article, her smile wide until she gets to the very end. Then her face grows serious. Quietly, she shuts the iPad off and puts it down on my bed. She’s thinking hard about something. Finally she says, “Why are you telling me? Why not Sam?”

  “Because you were right,” I say, giving her a small smile. “About everything.”

  I get up and limp over to my closet. I dig around in the bag from my mom until my fingers wrap around a dented blue jewelry box.

  I sit down on the bed next to her and hold it out to her. She opens it, and her eyes widen when she sees the charm bracelet inside, a tiny Berkeley charm I ordered last week on Etsy taking the place of the UCLA one.

  “Kyle, I—”

  “Kim, you’re still my best friend,” I say. “And now I need your help, because… you know me better than anyone. Even Sam.”

  Her lips quiver and she puts it on, then throws her arms around me, the bracelet jingling noisily. Laughing, I hug her back, adding, “And because you know how crazy I get when it comes to love. I need you to keep my feet on the ground.”

  She snorts, nodding. “Boy, do I.”

  We pull apart, and she wipes the stray tears that have fallen from her eyes, giving me a determined nod. “Okay, then. What’s the plan?”

  * * *

  I head into the gift shop the next evening after Mom leaves to grab a snack, stopping short when I see Marley with her back to me, staring at the wall of candy bars. Her hands are shoved into the pockets of her black hoodie as she decides, like she isn’t going to just get a Kit Kat.

  I hesitate, looking from her to the premade bouquets in the window, and an idea pops into my head.

  I pull a few different flowers out, pausing when I see a yellow duck stuffed animal sitting on a shelf next to the greeting cards. It’s just like the one Marley won at the Winter Festival, sans Santa outfit. The one from her story.

  I grab it and follow her up to the cashier, a Kit Kat clutched in her hand. I smile. I do know her.

  Gently, I lay a daisy on the counter in front of her. Her back stiffens as she looks down at it.

  “A daisy. I hope you remember what it means,” I say. She doesn’t turn around to look at me. She doesn’t say anything. But her gaze stays fixed on the white petals.

  “Your words, Marley, gave me a new life,” I say as I lay down a thin cherry blossom branch on the counter. I follow it up with a hydrangea, just like she gave to me.

  “Words that you wrote for me. Told me. Words that I’m grateful for.”

  She still doesn’t turn around, so I keep trying, placing a single peony on top of the small pile forming. “I would feel so fortunate if you said them again, Marley. Now. While I’m awake. Please?”

  Then I lay down the yellow rose, the final flower. Her favorite flower. “Please talk to me. Like you did before.”

  She looks away, her brown hair covering her face, a barrier between us. So, because I have nothing else to lose at this point, I try one more thing.

  I softly place the stuffed duck on top of the pile, my last chance, the buzzer beater.


  “Pretty sure it likes popcorn.”

  I hold my breath as she reaches out to pick up the duck, a chord struck. She studies it while I wait, hoping she’ll say something.

  But she puts the duck down, grabs her candy bar, and leaves without a word. I watch her go, the glass doors sliding shut behind her. Damn it.

  “You know, you’re supposed to just get one of the premade arrangements. Not mix and match,” the unamused clerk says from behind the counter.

  I grab a bag of chips, putting two dollars down on the counter. I want to tell him it’s because they mean different things, but instead I just mumble an apology, knowing the only person who would give a shit about that just walked out the door.

  * * *

  “You can’t control everything,” Kim says to me the next morning over FaceTime. She’s packing up her room, getting ready for Berkeley, the charm bracelet on her wrist. She eyes me knowingly through the screen. “It’s different for her than it is for you, Kyle. A lot different.”

  I sigh. I know she’s right. It was different for Marley. She was telling a story to a guy in a coma. A story she never expected me to hear.

  But would she have made it up for me, made up a whole life for the both of us, if she didn’t wish in some way it could be real?

  “You can’t convince her she lived something she didn’t. She’s clearly dealing with shit. You know what that’s like.”

  “So, what do I even do?” I don’t know where to go from here.

  Kim shrugs. “You have to learn how to talk to this Marley.”

  I flop back hard against my pillows.

  How do I do that when this Marley doesn’t talk at all?

  38

  Crutching around in the courtyard a little after noon a few days later, I find Marley in the outdoor café. Kim spent the better part of the morning snooping around the hospital, trying to get more information. On a break to get an iced coffee, she spotted Marley and tipped me off to her location.