Parallel

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  “Where are we?” I ask, my voice raspy with sleep. We’re surrounded by the cement walls of a parking garage, deep underground and lit only by flickering fluorescent light. It provides no clues.

  “The hospital. You fell at the inn, remember? Hurt your head?”

  Argh. It comes back to me in a rush. Planning the reception, the sense of déjà vu, the sight of that white cottage in the distance. And then the time I spent with Nick—the time I thought I spent with Nick—during which Jeff didn’t seem to exist. It was so real. It still feels real. It would be enough to make me believe in reincarnation, except it was all happening now, or close to it. I remember his iWatch on the nightstand. I was thinking about Uber. It was recent. And the very last thing I want is to be poked and prodded by some doctor while skirting around the fact that part of me still thinks it happened.

  “I think we can skip it,” I tell him. I’m sure to Jeff this whole thing seems monumental, but my childhood was littered with bizarre little episodes none of us could explain, and this seems likely to fall in the same category, if a thousand times more extreme. “I’m fine now and I don’t feel like sitting in a waiting room for hours just to have some doctor tell me he thinks I’m okay.”

  His jaw swings open. “You seem to be gravely underestimating the seriousness of this. You had no idea who I was.” His voice is strung tight—concern or hurt feelings, I can’t tell. “I already called your office and told them you won’t be in.”

  I lean my head back against the seat and allow my eyes to shut for a moment. “A few hours of sleep would do me more good than any doctor right now.”

  His door opens. “You didn’t even recognize your own mother. We’re getting it checked out.”

  I’m too tired for this, but also too tired to argue. I follow Jeff into the hospital, petulant as a teenager. It seems like an even worse idea once we’re inside. While Georgetown the city is a haven of the wealthy and privileged, Georgetown hospital is not. I walk in expecting private school kids with lacrosse injuries or socialites with adverse reactions to Botox but find chaos instead: police restraining a screaming woman just inside the doors, a guy with an abdominal wound dripping blood off to the right.

  Jeff shields me through all of it, placing his broad shoulders between me and the blood and the screaming woman, with no concern for himself. If my father is somewhere watching us right now, he’s smiling. He was so certain Jeff would always keep me safe, and he was right.

  Eventually, my name is called, and we are led back to a room with cinderblock walls and a poster that asks me to describe where my pain rests on a scale between the smiley-face emoji and the crying one. A resident appears moments later to complete an exam of my reflexes, orientation, and medical history. No, this has never happened before. No, I don’t use drugs. Yes, I drink socially, but not much. And then the attending comes in and does it all over again.

  I’m not in the mood to go through it all twice. And it’s exhausting, telling half-truths, keeping so many things to myself. “I just fell,” I tell her. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  Jeff frowns at me. “She didn’t recognize me or her mother when she woke. She had no idea where we were and was asking for someone named Nick.” There is a hint, just a hint, of outrage when he says the name. He’s jealous, I realize at last. That’s why this bothers him. He probably thinks Nick is some ex of mine I’ve never mentioned, and I could attempt to reassure him on that point, but the truth is almost worse. If he could picture what I do—Nick looming over me with that look, the one that even now makes me want certain things more than I’ve ever wanted them before—I doubt he’d be relieved. Especially since it all seemed to be happening recently, during the time I’ve been with Jeff.

  “So, you had a little memory loss and recovered quickly?” the doctor asks.

  I try to smile, the way a perfectly normal person who isn’t fantasizing about a stranger might. “Yeah, it took a minute and then I was fine. Just a headache, and that’s gone now too. I skipped breakfast and wasn’t feeling great anyway.”

  “We’ll get an MRI just to be sure,” she says.

  My shoulders tense. She’s probably checking for concussions and it will come to nothing…but I don’t love the idea of anyone looking too closely at what’s in my head. “I’d really rather not. Honestly, I don’t think it was a big deal.”

  “It’s best to be on the safe side,” she counters. “Are you sore anywhere?”

  I shrug. “Not really.”

  “Let me check your lymph nodes.” She moves in front of me and places her hands just beneath my jaw. Her palm hits the base of my neck and I wince. “Sorry,” she says. “I pressed on your, uh—” She trails off.

  “My what?”

  Her smile is so awkward it’s physically painful. “You’ve got a, um, bruise…on your neck.” I struggle to understand why, exactly, she’s being so weird—until I realize that by bruise she actually means hickey.

  “What?” I scoff. “No.”

  “Look in the mirror,” she says, with another awkward smile. I glance at my reflection and there, glaring back at me, is a small purplish-red mark. My pulse rises as Jeff steps forward to take a closer look. His face falls. Whatever is there, we both know he’s not responsible for it. He’s never given me a hickey in my life, and he’s been out of town for most of the past week.

  I put these things together and a quiet kind of fear creeps in, spreads icy fingers inside my chest.

  Because all that comes to mind is the memory of Nick’s mouth on my neck.

  * * *

  When my exam is complete, a nurse directs us upstairs, to neurology. Jeff’s silence on the way is unnerving. He hasn’t said a word since he saw the bruise. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” I say. “You know it’s not a hickey.”

  “All I know,” he says without inflection, “is that I didn’t give it to you.”

  I groan quietly under my breath. Despite the dream about Nick, there’s no way it’s actually a hickey. And I can’t believe he’d even question it. “You’ve been with me all day long. And last night too. If I really had a bruise on my neck the entire time, don’t you think you’d have noticed it by now? I probably just hit a rock or something when I fell today.”

  The doors open and his hand goes to the small of my back as we step out. Even as upset as he is, he still wants to take care of me, guide me, shield me.

  I guess this is what my father saw in him, long before I did. I was only 20 when I came back home after my father’s diagnosis, and to my mind, Jeff was already an adult—out of college, back in Rocton working as an assistant football coach. Toward the end of his life, my father’s hints turned into pleas. Jeff will keep you safe, he would whisper, squeezing my hand, the morphine making his words nearly unintelligible. Marry him and you’ll always be safe. I nodded only to comfort him, not really meaning it. But the way Jeff took care of me and my mom after my father passed made an impression on me, and once he really set his mind to winning me over, it was impossible not to fall in love with him. So I guess my dad was right all along.

  “We’re looking for imaging,” Jeff says to a nurse passing by.

  She doesn’t even look up from her phone. “Sixth floor.”

  We glance at each other and return to the elevator, facing forward. His hand remains on my back. I think there’s probably nothing I could do to him, really, that he wouldn’t forgive—not that I’ve actually done anything that requires forgiveness. And that loyalty of his is one of many things I love. My friends come to me with story after story of men behaving badly, and it just confirms what I already know: I got one of the good ones.

  He shifts beside me. “Look, put yourself in my shoes. You wake up asking for another guy. You don’t even recognize me. And it turns out you’ve got this hickey on your neck I didn’t give you…”

  “You know better,” I reply. “Whatever the explanation is, you should know me well enough to realize I would never cheat, and if you don’t, then you shouldn’
t be marrying me.”

  The elevator doors open. When we get on, I push the button for the first floor.

  “What about the MRI?” he asks.

  “I’m totally fine and I’m tired,” I tell him. “I just want to go home.”

  He turns and wraps his arms around me. “I’m sorry. You’re right. You’ve never given me one reason to doubt you.”

  I allow my head to rest against his chest. “I just don’t get where it even came from.”

  “Sometimes…” he begins, and the gust of his exhale ruffles my hair. “You’re the smartest, most beautiful girl who ever came out of our town. And sometimes I wonder how I got this lucky, like it’s just a matter of time before you figure out you could do so much better than me.”

  I ache for him. His issues with work may have taken an even greater toll than I realized. “That’s crazy,” I whisper.

  “Can we just forget this happened?”

  I nod and give him one last squeeze as the elevator doors open. I’d love to forget it happened too. I’m just not sure I can when the proof it did is staring back at me every time I look in the mirror.

  3

  NICK

  Meg’s alarm wakes me, and my first feeling is regret. I was having the dream again—a girl standing on a boat, seen from a distance. Lithe, golden-skinned. Her husky laugh echoing off the water, sun-streaked curls blowing in the breeze.

  Meg’s alarm continues shrieking. “Hon,” I groan. “Alarm.”

  She mumbles something, reaching for her phone to hit snooze.

  In the ensuing silence, suspended somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, I think of the dream and feel a pang in the center of my rib cage. It’s the same one every time, and I never remember much of it. Mostly, it’s just the sight of her standing there, nothing but smooth skin and a tiny red bikini I long to remove, and the way she makes me feel—as if my heart is exploding in my chest.

  Meg’s alarm goes off again and I give up on sleep, padding quietly to the closet for my gym bag. I was at the hospital until after midnight and it feels like I just shut my eyes five minutes ago, but birds are chirping so I figure it’ll be dawn soon enough. I don’t mind waking up early during the summer anyway. At least with all the students gone I won’t have to fight for a lane at the pool.

  “Why are you up?” Meg asks, yawning again as she moves toward the stuff she keeps on the left side of my closet. “I thought you went in late on Tuesdays.”

  “It might have something to do with the fact that you hit the snooze button three times,” I reply. I’m crankier than normal. That dream about the girl on the boat always leaves me feeling dissatisfied with my life, and guilty at the same time. I have an amazing girlfriend. I shouldn’t be dreaming about someone else. “It’s fine. I’ll get in an extra-long workout.”

  She winces as she pulls a clean pair of scrubs off the rack. “Then this is probably a bad time to ask, but do you mind if I crash here for a little while? I want to end my lease but I haven’t found another place yet. I promise I’ll never hit the snooze button again.”

  I drop goggles in my bag and look in a drawer for my second pair to stall for time. I know the question should be a no-brainer, but I’m comfortable with what Meg and I have. I don’t know if I’m ready for more, and moving in here temporarily seems like the kind of situation that turns permanent before you know it. “I like your place.”

  “It’s just too far from the hospital. I’m here almost every night anyway. What’s going to change?”

  I sigh, frustrated more with myself than the situation. She’s absolutely right, and there’s really no reason for me to object. I like having her here. The fact that we share a profession makes things easy with us in a way it hasn’t been with other women I’ve dated. I just really need to stop waking up thinking about someone else. “Yeah, okay.”

  She wraps her arms around my waist. “You could at least try to sound enthusiastic,” she scolds.

  I drop a quick kiss to the top of her head and grab my bag. “You know I’m just cranky until I swim.”

  “Fine, go swim,” she replies, pulling me back for a real kiss, content once more. “But I expect enthusiasm when I talk to you later.”

  I force a smile, hoping I’ll be able to drum some up by then.

  * * *

  At the pool, I swim hard, longer than normal, building up from a 4x25 to 4x200 before I work my way down. I take long strokes, feeling the water rush past as my arms slice through. What I love about swimming is how scientific it is. Muscle and position and timing, all simple to adjust when it goes off course.

  I only wish the rest of my life was as simple, that I knew which parts required adjustment. I’ve done exactly what I was supposed to, dammit—college, med school, residency—but something is still missing, and it’s this constant itch just beneath the surface of my skin, wondering what it is.

  My mother claims what’s missing from my life is a family, but I suspect that has more to do with her desire for grandchildren than anything else. You and Meg are both 30, she says. Her biological clock is ticking even if yours is not. But every time I even consider it, the dream about the girl in the boat returns to needle me, to leave me dissatisfied with what I have and suddenly uncertain I’m doing the right thing.

  It makes no sense, really. I can’t name a specific quality about the girl. I can’t really see her face. I don’t know what she likes, how she will laugh, if she’s rude to waiters or hates dogs. All I know is how I feel—as if I’d swim the ocean to save her, walk into battle on her behalf without a second thought. That when I stand on that dock in my dream, I want to give myself to her until there is nothing left of me.

  And I don’t feel that way about Meg. I’ve never felt that way about anyone.

  * * *

  My morning is full. It’s afternoon before I get in to see Darcy, the patient who kept me here so late last night. Things looked pretty grim fourteen hours ago, but when I walk into her room she’s laughing over a cartoon so hard she’s got to hold onto her stomach. Her exhausted mother is sound asleep in the chair beside her. Seven year olds bounce back a lot faster than adults.

  “Teen Titans?” I ask. “Or Teen Drama Island?”

  “Teen Titans,” she replies.

  I walk over and watch for a few seconds. “And your favorite is the goth one.”

  Darcy tilts her head. “What does goth mean?”

  I take the seat beside her and point at the screen. “You know how Raven never smiles and is always wearing all black and looking unhappy? That’s goth.”

  “I want to be goth when I grow up too,” she says.

  When she grows up. My chest aches, but she’s watching my reaction so I force myself to smile as I rise. “Don’t tell your mother I gave you that idea.”

  I go to the nurses’ station next to make sure there’s nothing pressing to be dealt with. The waiting room is packed, which means I’ll be here this evening too. Not a great day to get by on four hours of sleep.

  I turn away, but as I do my eyes catch on a couple standing by the elevator. There’s something so familiar about the woman, even from behind—about the set of her shoulders, in the way she gathers her long brown hair into a ponytail before letting it fall. I feel a pull toward her I can’t explain, and the fact that she’s clearly with the guy beside her matters not at all.

  “Mr. Jensen’s family has called for you twice,” says Bev, one of the nurses, thrusting a piece of paper into my hand. “The nursing home wants you to up his meds.”

  I look back at the elevator but the woman is gone. For a moment I just look blankly at the space where she stood, feeling as if I’ve lost something.

  “You okay, Dr. Reilly?” Bev asks.

  I wince. I’m acting like a nutjob today. “Sleep deprivation,” I tell her.

  Yes, that’s probably all it is.

  4

  QUINN

  I dream that night about so many things, some big and some small. Nick’s flat in Marylebone, w
hich became our flat in Marylebone. Grocery shopping. Trying to make the perfect gin fizz. Sitting with Nick at some pub on a night in late autumn, getting pleasantly smashed, happy in a way I’ve never been before and didn’t even know existed until the day we met.

  “Show me,” he says, nodding at my laptop bag. In the three months we’ve been together, there’s not been a single project I’ve completed for my graduate program that he hasn’t demanded to see.

  “It’s just a basic building design. There’s no way you actually want to see it,” I argue.

  “Of course I do,” he says, sliding his drink toward me. I take a sip and flinch. I’ll never get used to the taste of whiskey. “And then I want you to start throwing out terms like spaciality and cantilevers.”

  My mouth tips upward despite my every effort to look stern. “You’re making fun of me.”

  “I’m not,” he says, placing his palm on my cheek. “I love watching you talk about architecture. Your whole face lights up. And it amazes me that you can do all this.”

  I laugh. “You can save human lives, but you’re impressed I can draw a building?”

  “But I don’t create things,” he says. “And I love that you’re so fascinated by it.”

  “You’ll be just as fascinated next year.” During this, the first year of his residency, he’s all over the place—like the neurology rotation that led to our first meeting. Next year is when he’ll get to focus on cardiology, his chosen specialty.

  He takes a sip of his drink. “I hope so. I thought with my dad’s heart problem, it would feel more meaningful, but right now I’m not sure.”

  “Are you worried it’ll be depressing?”