Parallel

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  * * *

  I don’t allow myself to call her until after lunch. The moment the clock strikes one, however, I’m in my office with the door shut, dialing her number. It feels an awful lot like the first time I called a girl as a nervous thirteen-year-old.

  “It’s Nick.” I pause. “Nick Reilly.”

  “I know which Nick you are,” she says with a soft, husky laugh.

  I inhale, fighting the temptation to make this a social call. To joke around with her and ask how her day is. I’ve never once struggled to act professional until Quinn came into the picture. “I was just checking to see how you’re feeling today, and if you had any side effects from the meds.”

  “No side effects,” she says. “But they didn’t work, either.”

  I sit up a little straighter. “So you had more dreams.”

  “Yeah,” she says, sighing. “They’re getting worse. I’m not just seeing things from London anymore. I’m seeing things from college and childhood. I know what your kitchen looked like as a kid. I remember being in the treehouse with you and Ryan, and—”

  My circulatory system whirs to a halt. I’m so stunned by the mention of my twin that I cut her off, my voice sharper than I’d intended. “How do you know about my brother?” I demand. He’s been gone for over a decade. The only reason I mentioned him to Meg at all was because I had to warn her before she met my mom.

  “How do I know about any of this?” she replies, with an exasperated exhale. “I thought we were past the point where you accused me of stalking.”

  I bury my head in my hands. Of all the things she’s known, this is the first one that actually kind of scares me. I don’t believe in ghosts but if my dead brother wanted to fuck with me he’d pull a stunt just like this. “We are. I’m sorry. It was just a shock hearing you say his name.” Even my parents won’t talk about him now, at least not in front of me. I’ve often wondered if this is because they know I blame myself for what happened, or if it’s because they blame me too.

  She pauses. “Did…something happen to him?”

  “He died. In high school.”

  “Oh,” she says, her voice catching. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I assure her. “Really. You didn’t do anything wrong, and it all happened a long time ago. I just was shocked to hear you mention his name.” She’s silent. It makes no sense, but I know she’s grieving Ryan’s death, and it feels like she has a right to. “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “It’s just strange,” she whispers. “I had that dream last night, and it’s like this whole box of new memories opened up. A lot of them about you, but a lot of them are about him too, as a child. I just can’t believe…I’m sorry. Never mind. What were we talking about?”

  I run a hand through my hair. There’s a whole lot more to unpack here, but I’m not sure I’m ready to hear it. “You were saying the drugs didn’t work.”

  “Right. So is there something else I can take to stop the dreams? Something stronger?”

  “We can try something else, but…Quinn, if the Prazosin didn’t work, I really doubt anything else will either.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Maybe it will go better tonight.”

  The conversation has reached its natural end but I’m just not ready to let her go. “Are you back at work?”

  She gives a low laugh. “Could you tell by the abject misery in my voice?”

  It bothers me that she’s at that job. It’s just wrong. “Why didn’t you go back to school for architecture when you returned to D.C.?” I ask abruptly.

  She hesitates. “It’s complicated.”

  I want to keep her on the phone, but I’ve pushed this as long as I can. “Okay, well, give the meds another shot, and if they’re still not working, we can try something else.”

  She thanks me and hangs up. But I sit here, still holding the phone like a lovesick teenager.

  14

  QUINN

  I’m so glad you’re here,” I whisper to Nick. He grips my hand hard through the tangle of wires—IV, blood pressure cuff, oxygen monitor—hinting at anxiety he’s trying to keep to himself. He’s used to hospital rooms, but usually he’s the one barking orders, not the one sitting and praying all will be well.

  And in this moment, I suddenly feel certain it won’t be.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” I whisper. “It won’t make sense, but I need you to—” I’m cut off mid-speech by a pain so sharp it knocks the words from my brain. His hand tightens. I’ll be bruised by it when this is done.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he says, but I see in those circles under his eyes, the greenish pallor beneath his tan, that he is no more certain of that than I am. And he doesn’t even know everything: all the horrible truths that have come back to me only recently. I picture him and Ryan as boys and I flinch. The things I did in that other life—would he have forgiven me eventually? I’ll never know.

  The pain hits again, another wave, wiping my brain clear of its mission, leaving only the panic behind. I struggle to focus around it. “My mother…my mother will explain everything.” I cling to his hand so I’m not swept away. “About the Rule of Threes. I’m sorry…I didn’t believe her.”

  “Something’s wrong,” Nick barks at the staff, his eyes focused on a monitor overhead.

  The doctor glances at us. She is setting things on a tray, slow and methodical, without a clue how bad this is about to turn. “She’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “It’s not,” he insists, and his voice sharpens. “Check everything. Check every goddamned thing you think you don’t need to check because something is wrong.”

  “Dr. Reilly, you need to calm down,” she says sternly, “or we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

  He leans over me. His concern has turned to panic. “Honey, you’re okay,” he says, but I feel it already, the dimming inside me. I want to cry out and beg the universe for one more minute, a chance to explain, but I know it’s useless.

  My lids start to flutter. The world grows thick and slow, too liquid for me to grasp. I start to sink beneath it.

  An alarm triggers. “Goddammit!” Nick shouts, rising. “Look at her blood pressure. I need Levophed, stat!”

  The door opens, and that’s when I see her—the woman who enters silently, her pale blond hair shimmering beneath the hospital lights. The room is in chaos and no one but me even notices her. She is capable of terrible things, just like me, and her presence here means the end of everything. Of this life I wanted so badly. “No,” I whisper. “Don’t. Please.”

  “There’s no other choice at this point,” she says.

  I turn to my husband, taking in the face I love so much. “Wait for me,” I plead. “I’ll find you, but you have to wait.”

  Nick’s panicked, desperate face is the last thing I see.

  * * *

  My eyes fly open. For a moment my limbs are unresponsive, weighted, and I can’t even cry out. It feels as if I’ve been held underwater for too long. A part of me wants to fight and another part is lethargic, ready to sink low.

  It only takes a few seconds before it subsides and I pitch forward, gasping for air, limbs flailing. What the hell just happened? It’s the same dream I had as a child, but it’s the first time I’ve ever woken feeling as if I was dying.

  I climb from the bed with my pulse racing, too scared to fall back asleep, and go to the living room. I turn on the TV and all the lights, wishing Jeff was awake too. What would have happened if I hadn’t woken when I did? It terrifies me, the power these dreams seem to hold.

  I spend hours pacing or curled in fetal position on the couch. Eventually I’m able to convince myself I only thought I couldn’t move, but what I cannot shake, even hours later, is the horror I felt—not just of the woman who entered the room, but of myself. I truly believed there was something terrible inside me—something I had to hide from Nick.

  I sense it inside me still. And I cannot shake the sense that Nick is
the one person capable of setting that terrible thing free.

  * * *

  By the time Jeff rises, I have a plan. A plan born of desperation, but surely even that is better than no plan at all. Jeff is the right choice, the good choice, and he deserves far better than what he’s been getting from me of late. I need to do whatever I can to stick to the path I’ve been on for our six years together.

  “You were up again?” he asks. “Stress?”

  It’s easy enough to nod in the affirmative. I’ve never been more stressed in my life. “Yeah,” I say. “And I was thinking…maybe we should just go to Vegas. It seems like the wedding is triggering my seizures, and we don’t even know if I’ll be able to make it through the ceremony without having one. So maybe the solution is just to get it over with.”

  He laughs. “I’m marrying the most beautiful, brilliant woman I’ve ever known. I want everyone we love to see it happen. And people already have plane tickets. Think about the money your mom has spent.”

  “We can still do the big wedding,” I say eagerly. “We’ll just do Vegas first. It all feels so monumental. It’s like we’re wrapping the biggest moment of our lives up with the biggest performance of our lives, and it’s too much.”

  “Honey—” he pleads. I hear apology, and thus refusal, in his tone. “I’m killing myself trying to get stuff squared away so we can go on our honeymoon.”

  Despair makes my voice hitch. “I know. But it could be a quick trip—”

  “Hon, when would we even go? I’ve got the trip today and three more over the next month. Between that and my bachelor party and your bachelorette, we just don’t have the time.”

  My shoulders drop. He’s right. I’m not sure why I even suggested it. Jeff doesn’t have a spontaneous bone in his body. “Ignore me. I’ll be fine.”

  He kisses my forehead and moves away. He’s relieved, but I am not. It feels like we’re racing against time. I don’t know the consequences of losing this race, exactly, but if these dreams continue until the wedding, I’m pretty sure I’ll find out.

  * * *

  Nick calls again that afternoon. I sit rigidly, swearing to myself that he’ll be nothing more than my doctor from now on, yet from the moment he says hi, I’m rolling the sound of his voice over and over again in my mouth, like it’s my last piece of chocolate. “I’m actually calling for a favor,” he says.

  Excitement and dread both seep into my blood until I can’t tell them apart. “What kind of favor?” I ask.

  “Darcy—you met her the other day—is having a birthday party tonight at six. It’s actually her half-birthday, but…you know. And she’s completely smitten with you. She told her mom you look like Starfire.”

  “Starfire?”

  “I guess you don’t watch a lot of Teen Titans. She’s the hot one.”

  I find myself smiling despite my good intentions. “Do you rank the hotness of all female cartoon characters, or just on select shows?”

  He laughs low, under his breath. “I keep an Excel spreadsheet. It’s not as comprehensive as I’d like, but I have a demanding job. So yes or no?”

  Every bone in my body screams no, but what am I supposed to say? It’s a dying child’s request. And as long as Nick isn’t there, how much harm could it do? His days start early, so there’s no way he’s staying until six for a patient’s birthday party. “Yes, I’d be happy to.”

  “Cool,” he says softly. “I’ll let her know. See you in a few hours.”

  Well, shit.

  * * *

  I walk through the lobby of the hospital, trying to convince myself I’m not nervous, not excited. That the girl I see in the mirror as I wait for the elevator—the one with the bright eyes and flushed cheeks—is no different than the one I see each day.

  I am here to see Darcy. I am doing a nice thing for a sick child. Nothing more.

  I can repeat these words a thousand times, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am moving faster than I should, my feet skittering through the halls at twice their normal speed.

  Darcy’s door is open. Before I even set foot inside, I hear Nick’s low, reluctant laugh. It flares deep in my stomach like a hundred votive candles lit at once. My mouth twitches toward a smile against my will and I pin it down by force.

  I step into the room and for a moment, he is all I see. His grin, that dimple, the way something changes in his expression when his eyes lock on mine, like a predator who’s spotted what he wants before even he realizes it. His smile doesn’t lessen but simply morphs, becoming a private thing only for me. It’s the smile he had before he flipped me on my back in Paris. I think of that mouth of his sliding over my skin and I can feel it, the way he tugged each nerve ending to the surface.

  “Quinn!” shouts Darcy, breaking the spell. She’s in bed, sitting with Nick and a woman I assume is her mother.

  My smile for her is flustered and slightly panicked. Why the hell am I thinking rated-R thoughts about a stranger at a party for a dying child?

  “Hello, Birthday Girl,” I say, handing her the wrapped gift pressed to my chest.

  Her eyes go round as dinner plates. “You didn’t have to get me a present. It’s not my real birthday.”

  I grin at her, and for just a moment—thank God—I’m able to forget the man sitting on the other side of her bed. “There’s no reason whole birthdays should get all the fun,” I reply, wondering what the odds are of her making it to age eight. She’s obviously still getting chemo. That must mean there’s some hope left, right?

  Nick introduces me to Christy, Darcy’s mom, as Darcy tears the wrapping paper. Acquiring this present in such a short period of time was no small feat, so I hope I chose well.

  She inhales sharply as she pulls the purple satin from the box. “Raven’s cape! And face mask!”

  I smile wide at her enthusiasm, and as her mother helps her put on the mask, my eyes go to Nick. He is watching me again, neither smiling nor unsmiling. He doesn’t look away when my gaze meets his.

  “Thank you!” Darcy cries. She launches across the bed to give me a tight hug, tiny arms wrapping around my neck. The fierceness of the action has me swallowing down a lump in my throat. Have I ever thrown myself that wholeheartedly at anything in my life? I’m not sure I have.

  “I don’t know when the nurses are coming in,” says Darcy’s mom, “so maybe we should do cake.”

  I move to the chair next to Nick’s while Christy places candles on the cake they’ve somehow procured. “How on earth did you find that cape on such short notice?” he asks quietly.

  By calling twenty toy stores and taking a profoundly expensive Uber ride to Silver Spring during my lunch break. I shrug. “Just saw it.”

  His gaze is steady, his mouth ticking upward at the side. “Is that right?”

  I can’t seem to look away. What the hell is happening between the two of us tonight? I need to make it stop, whatever it is, but I don’t want it to stop.

  Christy begins singing “Happy Birthday” and I finally break the connection, joining the song just as the cake is placed on Darcy’s bedside table.

  “But that’s eight and a half candles,” says Darcy.

  “Seven and a half, plus one to grow on,” says her mom, blinking back tears.

  Darcy falters before she gives us a too-wide smile, and I swallow hard. The sight of them, forcing themselves to be brave and cheerful for the other, makes me want to run a thousand miles away.

  Christy cuts the cake into massive slices and passes plates to me and Nick. Grief weighs me down. It’s a struggle to move the fork to my mouth.

  “Hey,” says Nick quietly, while Darcy and her mom talk to the nurse who’s popped in the room. His hand clasps mine for a millisecond to get my attention, and I glance up at him. “Are you okay?”

  I nod, staring at the cake that rests in my lap. “I don’t know how you do this.”

  He hesitates. “I couldn’t if it was always like this. But occasionally, instead, you get a woman in who tells y
ou only the most boring details about your honeymoon in Paris.”

  I laugh. “Maybe if you’d been more interesting in Paris, I’d have better details to share.”

  “I refuse to believe the fault lies with me. I bet you’re the type who wants to play Words With Friends on a date. Or insists on showing me one video after another of your cat jumping around in the snow.”

  It’s a struggle to look stern. “My cat, if I had one, would be fascinating. You would love my cat videos if I chose to share them with you.”

  “Yeah?” His lashes lower and I get a glimpse of that secret smile of his again, the seductive one. I picture myself pulling the cake from his hands and climbing into his lap, but I realize as it plays out in my head, it isn’t a fantasy, it’s a memory. We were in our flat on his birthday, with the sun’s dwindling rays streaming in through the kitchen windows, and I was in his lap. I remember kissing the corner of his jaw, shifting against him and relishing the tiny way he inhaled at the motion. His right hand slid into my hair, grasping a thick handful of it as he pulled my mouth to his.

  My fork falls to the floor. Christy and Darcy don’t seem to notice, but Nick’s eyes flicker to my mouth, as if he knows exactly what was going on in my head. I’m so grateful he doesn’t. While this would all be easier if he remembered things in the same detail I do, it would also be ten times more awkward.

  I focus on Christy and Darcy, trying to pull my mind out of the gutter. I ask Christy about the candle business she runs out of her home, solely to think about something—anything—else, and then tell them I need to head to the Metro before it gets dark.

  “I’ll walk with you,” Nick says.

  I still. Spending time with him outside the walls of this hospital is a terrible idea. I should tell him no. But I’ve got no idea how to do it gracefully, and—more importantly—I don’t want to. The idea of more time with Nick thrills me as much as it terrifies me.

  15