Parallel

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  “There are worse specialties. Like oncology. You know why they nail coffins shut?”

  I prepare myself. Doctor humor tends to be on the macabre side.

  He grins. “To keep oncologists from trying to resuscitate the corpse.”

  I laugh and shake my head. “Just because there are worse specialties doesn’t mean it’s right for you. I want you to be riveted by something.”

  His smile is soft. His hand, beneath the table, finds mine and swallows it. “I’m pretty riveted by this patient I met during my neurology rotation.”

  “Is that right?” I ask, biting down on my grin. His gaze flickers to the movement of my lips. “Maybe you should ask her out.”

  “You think she’ll say yes?”

  I smile at him. “I can’t imagine there’s anyone who could say no to you.”

  There’s something guarded in his eyes…a secret he isn’t ready to share with me. “I really hope you’re right,” he replies.

  I learn that secret of his two nights later.

  It’s just after my evening class. I step outside the architecture building to find Nick sitting on a bench out front, jacket thrown over his scrubs, smiling as he waits. When he smiles at me, it’s like his whole heart is in his eyes. I sometimes wonder if it’s even possible for him to feel the way I do, this loopy, out-of-control adoration, but when I see him smiling at me like he is right now, it’s impossible to doubt it.

  He rises as I walk down the stairs. “You move like a dancer,” he says. I skitter to a halt in front of him, going on my toes to press my mouth to his.

  “I assure you I’m not,” I reply. “Two left feet.”

  He hesitates, then gives me a distracted smile. There’s something off tonight, but I can’t put my finger on it. “You could swing dance, though. Anyone can.”

  I grin up at him. “I thought I was supposed to be the wild, impetuous one, and you were supposed to be the driven resident who doesn’t know how to have fun.”

  “Until you, I kind of was,” he says softly.

  I think of the serious guy I met at the hospital that first day and how much he’s changed since then. The fact that he is good for me is something I’ve known all along. But it’s only now I realize I’m good for him too.

  He grabs one hand and places it on his shoulder, pulling me off the sidewalk and into the grass. If it weren’t late, I’d probably refuse, but the campus is mostly empty at this hour. “One, two. One, two,” he says, moving us in a slow circle. “You’re a natural.”

  I laugh. “I seem to be a little better at things when I’m with you.”

  “That’s because we’re meant to be together,” he says softly.

  In our case, it’s not a cliché. Ever since we met, we’ve had a knowledge of the other that was almost intuitive, muscle memory. And I’ve been having these weird dreams about his childhood even though I wasn’t a part of it. Dreams in which I’m his best friend, the little girl next door he shares everything with. I would assume it was wishful thinking if it weren’t for the fact that I wake knowing things I shouldn’t. I referenced his twin, their treehouse, his parents’ place by the lake—all before he ever told me about them. I have no idea how I knew.

  My voice is hushed as I meet his eye. “I think…no matter what universe we land in, we land there together.”

  He stops dancing. Before I can blink, before I can ask why, he’s lowering to one knee in front of me. There’s a small black velvet box in his hand. “I know it’s too soon,” he says. “I know this is insane. But I also know that you’re the person I was born for, and I don’t want to wait to start our lives together.”

  Inside me there’s this new thing, like the start of a sunrise. A dim warmth against the horizon, spreading, spreading until I’m flooded with light. It may be too soon, and everyone will say we’re insane, but he’s the person I’ve waited my entire life to find. To belong to. And now I will.

  * * *

  I wake early in the morning, feeling steeped in happiness, cocooned in it, until I open my eyes and see that it’s Jeff, not Nick, beside me. Nothing about Jeff has changed. He has the same sweet face he’s always had, mouth open, peaceful and deeply asleep. But there’s a part of me that doesn’t want him here. That misses Nick so much I could weep at the sight of my fiancé beside me. I inch away, struggling with my disappointment and horrified by it, all in the same breath.

  The tightness in my chest propels me from the bed and into the living room. How, how, could it have felt so real? How can I remember the feel of his palm on mine, the weight of the velvet box I took from his hand? And the shops outside Nick’s flat—I can name them. I can name the streets surrounding them—Marylebone, Harley Street—as if they are familiar when I’m not sure I’ve ever even heard of them before. How could I see London so vividly when it’s somewhere I’ve never been?

  Yes, I’ve known things before, things I should not know. But this is different. I’m seeing the life I might have had, if my father hadn’t gotten sick and my mother hadn’t fallen apart after he died. Because that was all part of the plan—get my architecture degree, move to London for graduate school. This knowledge…it feels like something I’m supposed to know. If feels important, like a life-altering conversation held while drunk, recalled only in small flashes the next day.

  I grab my wedding binder, the nearest thing I can find. I skip past all the details about shoes and dresses and invitations, until I get to the blank pages in the back, and then I start to sketch. When I’m done, the interior of our flat—mine and Nick’s—sits in front of me. The tiny box of a kitchen, half the wall taken up by a radiator that would wake us with its clunk clunk clunk each morning. The bedroom, so small we had to edge around our bed to get in and out, and the garden terrace you could only reach by climbing on top of the radiator and out the bedroom windows. I stare at the drawing, feeling unsettled. It’s far too specific to be something I just dreamed up.

  The tightness in my chest has gone nowhere. I miss it, that imaginary flat. I miss the icy floors on winter mornings and Nick’s broad hand pulling me through the window on a summer night so we could sit on the terrace. I miss the smell of chlorine on his skin and the way he’d look at me when someone made a comment—his eyes light and amused while his mouth didn’t give an inch—because he knew what I was thinking when no one else did. I miss being understood.

  And I don’t want to miss anything. A week ago I was happy with my life, and now, now, it’s as if I’ve given something up…something I want more than the life I actually have.

  * * *

  My boss is waiting in reception to pounce on me when I walk through the office doors a few hours later. Dee is bone thin, unnaturally tall, and prone to wearing a fur stole whenever the temperature drops below 70, which never fails to make me think of Cruella de Vil. The comparison is, sadly, all too apt.

  “Where’s the layout?” she demands, tapping her nails on the Lucite console beside her.

  “Good morning, Dee,” I reply. “I’m feeling so much better, thanks.”

  Not that I expected her to ask how I was after yesterday’s hospital visit. In six years at this magazine, she has never even managed to say good morning. For her to inquire about my health would require stronger mood stabilizers than modern medicine has discovered.

  Her nose crinkles. “The layout, Quinn,” she says between her teeth. “Where is it?”

  “I made the changes from home last night. I just need to print it out.”

  “And where’s the Resort Wear preview?”

  I sigh deeply. Lots of the people I graduated with love what they do and salivate at the idea of beginning a project. But graphic design was never my first choice, and I’m reminded of that every time Dee assigns me something new. “It’s not due until next week.”

  Her mouth tightens. “Just because I give you a due date doesn’t mean you have to wait until the due date.”

  “Hmmm,” I reply, walking past. As in, hmmm, how interesting you think so
. I’ve learned over time that the best way to handle Dee is mostly by pretending she hasn’t spoken at all. I should have expected it, really. Do anything so egregious as take a vacation or a day of sick leave, and Dee will always come after you with sharpened fangs when you return.

  Trevor, Dee’s lovely but beleaguered assistant, and my closest friend here, appears at my desk moments after I’ve opened up my Mac.

  “Hmmm,” repeats Trevor, imitating my airy tone before he gives me a wide smile. “You already aggravate her enough by being so cute, you know, without also failing to kiss her ass.”

  “She’ll fire me eventually.”

  “Never,” he says decisively, perching on the edge of the file cabinet. “You know what she wants before she knows what she wants. What I don’t understand is why you stay.”

  “I stay because she pays me more than any other graphic artist I know.” The move to D.C. has been hard on us—Jeff’s quit two jobs since we arrived six years ago and was let go from two others—and it’s made my tenure at Washington Insider last far longer than I’d have liked. For the foreseeable future, I need to know I can pay our bills by myself, because there’s no reason to think I won’t be doing so again.

  Trevor generally manages to keep his opinions about my personal life to himself, but I see the response he’s holding in flash across his face—you wouldn’t have to stay here if Jeff could keep a job—before he blinks it away and grins at me. “Anyway, aren’t you going to ask me about my date?”

  I groan. Trevor always shows me his dates’ Grindr profiles before he goes out—in part, because he’s excited, but mostly so I can avenge his death if something awful happens. Last night’s date—the guy with five different photos of his greased-up chest, the one whose profile read simply I’m here to fuck—actually looked slightly less creepy than most.

  “I’m scared to ask, but how was your date?”

  He closes his eyes, the smile on his face absolutely indecent. “You know when you’re messing around with someone and you want him so much you think you’ll die if you don’t get it?”

  I assume the question is rhetorical, but when I don’t answer, he elbows me. “Come on. Jeff’s boring, but he’s still hot. At some point in your relationship, he’s had you ready to beg.”

  I stiffen. “Not everyone is like that, Trevor. And Jeff isn’t boring. You just prefer guys who oil their chests over guys who call when they’re supposed to call and show up when they’ve promised they will.”

  He pets my hair as he leaves, like it’s a fur coat or a cuddly pet. “Pretty, pretty Quinn. You break my heart sometimes.”

  It’s nothing Trevor hasn’t said before, but given that I’ve been fantasizing about an absolute stranger for the better part of twenty-four hours, it’s sort of poorly timed.

  After he leaves, I send the most recent layout to print and call my mother, who’s already left three messages so far this morning. Because she tends to handle uncertainty poorly, I told her yesterday’s blackout was the result of a pre-wedding diet. Only now do I realize this means I’ll spend the next seven weeks being interrogated about my food intake.

  “You had breakfast, right?” she asks.

  “Yes.” A nice big breakfast. Of coffee, but it had creamer, so I assume that counts.

  “What are you having for lunch?”

  I laugh. “Mom, it’s not even nine a.m. I’m not thinking about lunch.”

  “But you’re not going to forget to eat, right?”

  “I promise I won’t.”

  “Why on earth would you be on a diet anyway?” she demands. “You don’t have a pound to lose. Just please stop doing whatever it is.”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  She hesitates. “When you woke yesterday, you asked for someone named Nick. Do you remember?”

  Crap. I was really hoping she wouldn’t bring it up. “Yeah.”

  “That was the name you used to mention when you were little. Those nightmares you had. I guess it was just a coincidence?” There’s a hint of pleading to her voice—she desperately wants it to be a coincidence—but my God I wish there was one person I could discuss this with. To say I miss someone I’ve never met. I grieve for him. My mother, however, will never be that person. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “It was…shocking…hearing you ask for him,” she says quietly. “Just like it was when you were small. You seemed so certain it was true.”

  I hesitate. I remember little about the year I spent in therapy, aside from the strain on my mother’s face each time she brought me in. I was her miracle baby, the child she never thought they’d have, and I was flawed. I wanted to become normal for her, but at the end of most sessions my mother seemed a little more hopeless than the time before. “Did the psychologist ever tell you why it was happening?” I ask cautiously.

  “She just said you had a very active imagination. But it finally stopped. And the other stuff…” There is a long, awkward pause. We really don’t discuss the other stuff. “Well, after what happened with the Petersons, you seemed to grow out of it, mostly.” Her words end on a whisper. Perhaps she thinks saying it quietly means she’s admitted to less. “Anyway, the nightmares stopped, and that’s what matters.”

  I wish I shared her certainty that this is over. But when I think of Nick—of his laugh and the way he looked at me, as if he knew me in a way no one else ever has—a sort of panic thrums in my chest. I didn’t want the nightmares. But I don’t want this either. In some ways, it scares me even more.

  * * *

  That night, Trevor and I head out for drinks, swinging by my friend Caroline’s office to grab her on the way. Though Caroline was my friend first, she and Trevor have been attached at the hip since I started throwing her work for the magazine.

  “Quinn,” she says, shaking her perfect, jet-black bob as I walk in, “what are you wearing?”

  I sigh. I never take her comments too personally—as a stylist, she has a far higher bar for clothing choices than most people—but occasionally, I wish she’d just let it go.

  “Instead of telling me how I’ve chosen wrong, just go ahead and dress me.”

  She squeals and claps her hands. “I love when you let me dress you,” she sings. She grins at Trevor. “It’s like having a grown-up doll to play with. You should make her come see me every morning.”

  Trevor’s palm shoots out. “No. Absolutely not. Dee already resents her just for being young and pretty. You start putting her in nice clothes and makeup every day, and we will all suffer.”

  Five minutes later, I walk out of her bathroom in a Dries Van Noten dress that could pay my mortgage, and Caroline is appeased. “So much better.”

  I have to agree. I wouldn’t say I’m frumpy under normal circumstances, but when Caroline gets her hands on me, I wind up feeling like Gigi Hadid, which is an experience words can’t sufficiently describe.

  “If only Lindsay could see you now,” says Caroline. “You could tell her to shove that Hermes purse right up her ass.”

  I laugh. I cannot believe Caroline is still holding a grudge about the purse incident nearly a decade later. I’m not sure I’d even remember it if she didn’t reference it so often.

  “Who’s Lindsay?” asks Trevor.

  “This girl on our floor freshman year,” I reply. “She was awful to everyone but she hated me the most because I was there on a scholarship.”

  “No,” corrects Caroline, “she hated you because you were her first experience of not being the hottest girl in the room. That’s why she went out of her way to throw her money in your face.” She turns to Trevor. “You know that Hermes Kelly bag? Real ones are like ten grand, but we found the best knock-off and I talked Quinn into it. And then we get back to the dorm, and Lindsay says, ‘Bless your little heart. It almost looks like a real Kelly bag.’ And then the bitch goes and buys a real one, just to show she can.”

  I shrug. “Well, I’d suggest karma would get her eventually, but she’s got this amazing job and she’s married to so
me millionaire, so I guess she won in the end.”

  Trevor and Caroline glance at each other. “You could have that too, if you wanted,” says Trevor cautiously.

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t want that. You know I was just joking. And you’re in my wedding in seven weeks, remember?”

  “But the job,” Caroline says. “You’re only twenty-eight. You could still go back to school.”

  I wrap an arm around each of them and pull them close for a moment as we walk down the street. “I appreciate your concern, guys, but I don’t need Lindsay’s life. The one I have is just fine with me.”

  I force myself not to think of Nick as I say these words. But inside, it sort of feels like a lie.

  * * *

  When I finally get into bed, I’m exhausted and a tiny bit buzzed, which I hope means there will be no dreams of Nick. I want to have nonsensical, boring dreams—the kind where the toilet floods and I have to fix it using a car engine, or where my boss is at my wedding demanding I return to work to correct something, although the latter seems completely within the realm of possibility. But even as my eyes shut, I already feel Nick calling to me, as if he’s been waiting for me to find him again, somewhere inside my head.

  Nick stands on the dock, shirtless and surrounded by sunlight, like some kind of mythical figure. Watching me float away.

  “Hey!” I call, just a hint of panic in my voice. “I don’t know how to sail this thing.”

  I don’t know how to sail anything, not even the tiny Sunfish that the current took as soon as he untied it from the dock.

  “It’s okay,” he calls out. “Just pull the sail to the left.”

  I do what he says, but that seems to send me farther. I stand, balancing in the center and waving to him. “SOS!”

  He smiles, sweet and sheepish in the same moment, and that dimple appears. God, I love that dimple. It makes me feel as if my heart has swelled until it is pushing against my sternum—my ribs stretched to the point of pain. I watch him dive in, all lean muscle and easy grace, the sunlight glinting off his back. His strokes as he swims toward me are long and even. He reaches the boat in no time at all, which amazes me, though it shouldn’t. He got a full scholarship based on that particular ability of his.