Heart Trouble

by Jae

  “What?” Hope gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’ve had my asshole moment, so whatever you say, I’m not going to get angry.”

  Laleh fought the urge to brush her thumb over Hope’s knuckles again. “Well, it could also have to do with you not being so open toward emotions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but compared to me, you seem pretty…guarded.”

  Hope hummed her agreement. “Yeah.” A grim smile played around her lips. “Who knew that would turn out to be a good thing? Certainly not the shrink I saw as a child.”

  Hope had seen a psychologist? No wonder. She lost her mother when she was eight. Laleh couldn’t imagine losing her mother now, at the age of twenty-seven, much less as a little girl.

  “So,” Hope said after another minute of silence, “where do we go from here?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think we should do?” Laleh held her breath. Would Hope suggest that they stop spending time together? If that was what had caused their connection to grow stronger, it would be only reasonable not to see each other again. But reasonable or not, Laleh didn’t want that. She liked spending time with Hope and had looked forward to getting to know her better.

  Before Hope could answer, the front door opened. Navid and his wife stepped out, each carrying a bag of leftovers too. When Navid saw them, a frown creased his forehead and he hurried toward them. “What are you still doing here? Are you all right?” He trailed his gaze over Laleh from head to toe as if halfway expecting her heart to give out any second. Then his eyes widened.

  What was he staring at? Laleh followed his gaze. Oh damn. He’d seen them holding hands.

  Hope had probably realized the same thing. She tried to let go, but Laleh stubbornly hung on.

  They had nothing to hide, right?

  “I’m fine,” she said. “We were just…”

  “Talking about my mother,” Hope supplied.

  Navid averted his gaze. “Oh. I’m sorry. About interrupting you and about your mother.” He looked from Hope to Laleh and back. “Well, we’re heading home.”

  They watched Navid and his wife climb into their car and drive off.

  When the engine sounds faded into the distance, Hope turned toward her. “I think we’d better leave before the rest of your family comes out to check on us too.”

  Laleh nodded.

  With one last squeeze, they let go at the same time.

  “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” Laleh repeated.

  Hope strode toward her BMW as if she was in a hurry to get away.

  With a sinking feeling, Laleh watched the distance between them grow.

  Hope pressed the key fob, and the BMW’s locks clicked open. She opened the door, slid into the driver’s seat, and put the bag of leftovers onto the passenger seat.

  “Hope, wait!” Laleh called before she could close the door.

  Her arm already extended, Hope paused. “Yes?”

  Laleh took a few steps in her direction. “Please don’t shut me out, okay? We’re in this together.”

  Hope sighed. “I won’t. I promise.”

  Relief trickled through Laleh. “Do you pinkie-swear?” she asked to lighten the mood.

  “Um, yeah. I pinkie-swear.” Hope stuck her arm out of the car, her pinkie extended.

  Laleh walked over and hooked her pinkie around Hope’s. The finger touching hers was reassuringly warm.

  They looked at each other without saying anything else. Slowly, they let go, and Hope closed the driver’s side door between them. Their gazes connected through the side window, and they nodded at each other before Hope started the car.

  Laleh stood at the curb until the BMW’s taillights disappeared down the street.

  CHAPTER 13

  Hope gazed at the rows of lab-coat-clad doctors in front of her. The sight suddenly struck her as funny, and she had to suppress a chuckle. Laughing would definitely be inappropriate since the surgical resident in the front was clicking through his PowerPoint slides, explaining the circumstances that had led to the death of a patient.

  She tried to focus on the details of the case, but instead amusing things kept getting her attention—the hairpiece of the surgeon in the next row, the overeager scribbling of two medical students, even the caution symbol on her paper cup made her smile at the warning that her coffee might actually be hot.

  Next to her, Jordan kept sending her curious glances but then was distracted when the attendings started grilling the resident who had presented the case.

  Finally, the M&M conference ended, and doctors and students poured out of the room.

  Hope grabbed her cup of coffee and followed her colleagues.

  “Hope! Wait up!” Jordan jogged after her, and they walked down the corridor together. “What’s up with you?”

  Hope took another sip of coffee. Was it just her imagination, or did it taste better than usual? “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been smiling like the cat that got the canary all morning, and a second ago, you were even humming.”

  Really? It had to be that song that had been stuck in her head since she’d gotten out of the car this morning. “Can’t I be in a good mood?”

  “Of course. I don’t think there’s a hospital rule against that. I was wondering if there’s a particular reason for your good mood.” Jordan looked left and right and then nudged her with an elbow. “You got some action last weekend, admit it!”

  Hope nearly spilled her coffee. “What? No! Not everything has to do with sex, Jordan!”

  “Then why the perma-smile?” Jordan asked.

  “No reason.” There really wasn’t. The ER had been so busy the day after Thanksgiving that Hope had ended up staying longer, helping out the next shift for a few hours. And she still hadn’t worked up the courage to call Laleh, even though she had promised not to shut her out. She didn’t know how to handle things between them, now that she knew Laleh could sense her emotions. Somehow, it made her feel as if she were walking around stark naked.

  “No reason, huh? So your good mood doesn’t have anything to do with Thanksgiving and a certain cute Persian-American?”

  Hope sent her an annoyed look.

  “Come on. Tell me. How did it go?”

  Other than her mother asking about my family and us discovering that Laleh can feel whatever I’m feeling, it went just peachy. “It went fine.”

  “That’s all I’m getting?” Jordan raised her eyebrows. “Now I definitely know something’s up.”

  Hope growled out a warning. “Stop it, okay? Nothing’s up. Unlike you, I’m perfectly capable of being just friends with a woman.”

  “Hey, I’m just friends with Barbara.”

  “The woman is in her seventies!”

  Jordan shrugged. “She’s still a woman, isn’t she?”

  Hope didn’t dignify that with a reply.

  “So you’re not going to give me anything?” Jordan asked. “You know, it’s healthy to share your feelings.”

  I’m sharing my feelings with Laleh already, thank you very much. Hope stepped into the elevator. “I have to get downstairs. I bet we’re going to be swamped today.”

  The elevator doors started to close between them.

  “Chicken,” Jordan called through the gap. “I know you’re hiding something!”

  Okay, her good mood was now officially gone, but that song was still playing on auto-repeat in the back of her mind. Sighing, Hope leaned against the mirrored wall and tried to focus on the soothing melody while the elevator carried her down to the ER.

  * * *

  Later that day, after her shift, Hope flopped down onto her leather couch. Her hair was wet from the shower, and as she ran her fingers through it, she remembered that Laleh had said she liked her hair, as tousled as it usually was.

  Laleh… She glanced at her cell phone on the coffee table. Should she call her?

  Her natural instinct was to avoid anything that could lead to emotional
entanglements, but with Laleh, it was already too late for that. The only thing that could bring them even closer emotionally was if she suddenly started experiencing Laleh’s feelings too. Or if you fell in love with her.

  She huffed out a breath. That wouldn’t happen. She’d never been one to fall in love at the drop of a hat and certainly not with a straight woman.

  So calling Laleh shouldn’t be a problem, and she had promised not to keep her distance. She sat up and reached for the phone—just as it began to ring.

  Hope flinched and looked at the display.

  Laleh’s name flashed across it.

  Wow. Were their minds really that synchronized, or was it a coincidence?

  She quickly accepted the call. “Hey, Laleh. I was just about to call you.”

  “I bet you say that to all the women.”

  The warm, teasing tone made Hope smile, and her tension eased. “Nah. Only to the ones who have access to my brain.” Her ability to joke about it stunned her.

  “So, what did you do today?” Laleh asked. “Save any lives?”

  Hope appreciated Laleh’s attempt to keep their conversation light. “Not today. Still mostly dealing with upset stomachs and acting-up gallbladders from the Thanksgiving overeating. Does that mean I have to give up my superhero cape?”

  Laleh laughed.

  The sound of it made Hope smile reflexively.

  “No,” Laleh said. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got it for life.”

  “Thanks. So, what did you do today? It was your day off, right?” Hope realized how well she knew Laleh’s schedule already.

  “Yes. I didn’t do a thing. Just lazed around on the couch all day, reading and watching funny videos on YouTube.”

  Hope wasn’t the couch potato type, but the way Laleh said it didn’t make it sound so bad. “Did you get any more emotions? I mean, any that weren’t your own?”

  “I think so. Around noon, I got pretty annoyed for no good reason. Did that resident make you furious again by any chance?”

  “Not the resident. I got into a little argument with one of our consultants. I think that was around noon.”

  For a moment, only Laleh’s breathing filtered through the line. “So it definitely wasn’t just a fluke. I am definitely sensing your emotions, at least the stronger ones.”

  A heavy feeling settled in Hope’s stomach. Why did this have to happen to her of all people? She hated feeling so transparent. “How are you dealing with it?”

  “It was a little easier today,” Laleh said.

  “Easier?” Hope echoed. Nothing about this was easy.

  “Yeah. At least now I know that I’m not going crazy or have a serious hormonal problem.”

  Okay, Hope could see why that would be a relief.

  “And,” Laleh added, “now that I know the emotions are not my own, I can filter them out and try to ignore them. How about you?”

  “Me?”

  “You’re not getting anything? Any emotions from me?”

  “Nothing. Thank God, my mind is my own. Well, other than this damn song that’s been stuck in my head all day.”

  “Which one?” Laleh asked.

  Hope settled more comfortably on the couch. “I have no idea what it’s called. Some love song about begging this girl not to leave.”

  Laleh laughed. “Now that narrows it down. Sing it.”

  Hope barked out a nervous laugh. “You don’t want that, trust me. There’s a reason I became a doctor, not a singer.”

  “Sing it,” Laleh repeated.

  “No way.”

  “You can’t be worse than me. Once, my father stopped the car and threatened to leave me behind if I didn’t stop singing along to the radio. Listen to this.” Laleh turned the music louder, which Hope now realized had been playing in the background the entire time, and sang along.

  Hope nearly dropped the phone. There had to be millions of songs in the world, and Laleh was singing the song that had been going through her mind off and on all day?

  “Hope? You still there?”

  Hope cleared her throat. “Yeah. I just…”

  “That bad?” Laleh chuckled.

  “Oh, no, no. I… That song…”

  “Not your cup of tea? I really like it. I’ve had it on auto-repeat while I was reading today.”

  Hope’s heartbeat thundered in her ears, drowning out Laleh’s voice. The song… It hadn’t been a song that had stuck in her head after she had heard it on the radio. And her good mood…the laughter wanting to bubble up during the M&M conference… It had come from Laleh, who had probably been watching some funny video clips.

  Oh God. That reading emotions thing wasn’t restricted to Laleh. It was going on with her too.

  “Hope? Hope!”

  The urgency in Laleh’s voice caught her attention. “I’m here,” she said, trying to sound normal but knowing that she was failing miserably.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Hope said.

  “Don’t lie. I can sense your emotions. You’re having a panic attack or something. That’s not nothing! What’s happening?”

  Damn. Damn. Damn. She couldn’t even hide this from Laleh and pretend all was fine. There was no escape. Hope jumped up from the couch and started pacing. With any other woman, she would have faked getting an urgent page from the hospital, but Laleh knew that emergency physicians were never on call.

  “Do you want me to come over?” Laleh asked.

  “No!” Hope realized she was shouting and lowered her voice. “No. I’m fine. Really. I just… I realized there’s something I have to do tonight.”

  “Hope, if you—”

  “I have to go. Talk to you later.” Not waiting for Laleh’s reply, Hope ended the call and then shut off her cell phone. She pressed both hands to her temples. Calm down. Calm down. Goddammit, calm down. Everything she felt, Laleh would feel it too. If she didn’t manage to calm herself down, Laleh would ring her doorbell in less than twenty minutes and demand an explanation.

  Come on. This isn’t so bad, is it? If Laleh could deal with it, so could she. And if she kept repeating that about a million times, she might start to believe it.

  She grabbed her car keys and headed out. Maybe if she focused on something else—on driving, for example—she could drown this all out for a while.

  * * *

  Laleh paced her small apartment. She hadn’t thought anything could be worse than the sadness she’d felt that Sunday when Hope had been visiting her mother’s grave, but this was. Maybe it was because she now knew these were Hope’s emotions and she instantly wanted to do something to soothe her.

  What the heck had happened? Hope had gone from being relaxed, joking about her superhero cape and her lack of singing skills, to an almost panic within moments, and Laleh didn’t believe for a second it was because she’d remembered a commitment for tonight.

  Laleh grabbed her car keys and was at the door before she could stop to think about it. If she didn’t talk to Hope and find out what was wrong, neither of them would get any rest tonight. It would be like trying to go to sleep next to a construction crew with jackhammers.

  She drove straight to Hope’s condo. Thankfully, traffic had died down by now, so she rang the doorbell twenty minutes later.

  No answer.

  She leaned against the doorbell and rang it repeatedly.

  Still nothing. Was Hope ignoring her?

  Laleh crossed the street and gazed up at the third floor. No lights were on in Hope’s condo.

  Somehow, Laleh wasn’t surprised. Hope was full of energy, barely able to sit still even under normal circumstances. If she got scared, she seemed like the type to run. But where would she go?

  The hospital?

  No. She wouldn’t want her colleagues to see her upset.

  Think, think, think. But no other place in the city came to mind. Not a bar, that much she knew. Hope wasn’t the type to drown her sorrows in alcohol or pour her heart out to the bartende
r. She would seek solitude, but where would she find it in a city like Los Angeles?

  Laleh slid back behind the wheel, started the car, and then sat there with the engine running, not knowing where to go.

  Wait a minute… She had a connection to Hope. What if she tried to use it? With a determined nod, she pulled away from the curb. Instead of attempting to blend out the waves of emotions coming from Hope, she focused on them and imagined them as a beacon, lighting up the night and guiding her through the traffic on Los Feliz and then toward the Hollywood Hills.

  She didn’t really see anything—not with her eyes, at least. It was more like radar, an awareness of where to turn left or right and where to continue straight ahead.

  After a few minutes, she realized her own personal “Hope-dar” was leading her to Griffith Park. It was already after nine and had been dark for hours, but there were still parked cars lining the streets on the way up.

  Laleh decided to continue on since she didn’t know where exactly their link would end up guiding her. When she rounded another bend, the illuminated white complex of the Griffith Observatory with its three bronze domes appeared before her.

  She knew instinctively that Hope would be there, and indeed, Hope’s BMW was in the small parking lot. Laleh took one of the last available spaces and got out of her car. The air was cool up here on the hill overlooking the city. She shivered and rubbed her upper arms, wishing she’d thought to bring a jacket.

  She promptly forgot about it as she walked toward the observatory and the waves of disquiet became more intense. It was like a living, pulsing thing, drawing her to the other side of the building.

  Several people were enjoying the stunning view of downtown LA from the observatory’s terrace.

  Laleh walked closer and peered from person to person.

  Most of them were leaning on the white balustrade, their backs to her. Even from the side, she couldn’t make out their faces in the dark. It didn’t matter. She sensed that Hope wasn’t among them.