Nick returns a minute later, and lies down beside me. “I’m sorry I left like that.”
“Why did you?”
He laughs unhappily and pushes his hair off his forehead. “Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to stop every time? Suggesting it might be okay at that moment, when my defenses are down…could have been disastrous. I had to get out of here because it was the only way to make sure I didn’t lose it entirely. I mean, what were you thinking?”
“What I’m thinking is that we don’t know everything,” I reply quietly. “And that we are supposed to be together, and there is obviously something driving this. Fate or history or something else. Maybe it knows more than we do.”
His hands go to his hair again. “Don’t. Don’t go down the path of justifying it. It fucking kills me, the fact that Jeff has had something I want this badly. And every day it gets harder. But until something changes, until we know you could actually survive a pregnancy, we cannot take that risk. Because as badly as I want it, I want you more. I want you to survive and be here with me for the next seventy years.”
I don’t realize I’m crying until he pulls me against his chest and brushes away my tears. I want everything he does. I want to give him those seventy years. And I’m so bitter right now about all the things—fate, the crazy blond lady, whatever—conspiring to separate us again.
* * *
The next afternoon I go to the hospital to visit Darcy. I’ve been in a few times, but this is the first where I can say definitively that she’s getting worse. She’s thinner and pale and the circles beneath her eyes have gone from lavender to a bruised sort of blue. There’s a wheelchair in her room permanently now, which leads me to think she no longer roams the halls freely dragging her IV behind her.
It’s late in the day when Nick walks in to join us for the cutthroat Connect Four tournament now underway. He smiles at Darcy and Christy before he allows himself to look at me, but when he does there’s a single long moment where I forget there’s anyone else in the room.
“Who’s winning?” he finally asks.
“Darcy. Never bet her money on this game.” I’m not trying to pump her up—she’s truly unbelievably good at it, and every time she wins I’m swallowing down a lump in my throat. It’s so fucking unfair that I’m dying now that I’ve found Nick. And it’s so much more unfair that she’s dying before she’s experienced anything at all, before she’s gotten a chance to even uncover that amazing potential inside her. I hate that she’s getting worse. Even over the course of our game she’s been falling asleep and then jolting awake a minute later, without seeming to realize she was asleep at all.
Christy smooths a hand over her daughter’s head, where only tiny wisps of light hair remain. “That’s exactly what Darcy’s father says.”
Nick raises a brow at her. “Any progress with that?”
Christy shoots a wary glance at her daughter, who’s dozed off again. “Nothing yet.”
I know, from Nick, that Darcy’s father was stationed in Afghanistan and is recovering from serious injuries there. The hope is he’ll be stable enough to be transported back to the States before Darcy gets too ill. Except, based on how thin she is and those circles under her eyes, I’m beginning to wonder if he’s going to be too late.
“Quinn,” Darcy says, opening her eyes as if nothing’s happened, “what’s Prom?”
My lips press together and I try not to think too hard about why she’s asking me this. “It’s a dance. In high school. Girls wear long dresses and boys wear tuxedos.”
She drops a yellow disc into a row, basically trapping me. No matter what I do, she will win on her next turn. “Who did you go with?” she asks.
Nick’s eyes flicker to mine, waiting for my answer. “Um…his name was Josh. Josh Casey.”
“Did you kiss him?” she asks. “Was he a football player?”
“Darcy,” her mother scolds softly, “that’s a little personal.”
I smile at them both. “It’s okay. Yes, I kissed him. And no, he played hockey. He still does, actually. He plays for Vancouver now.”
“I just won,” she says, dropping in her last yellow disc. Her eyes close for a long moment, but then open again. “Are you still friends?”
I shrug. “I guess. He moved away so we only see each other at Christmas.” When I glance up at Nick, I find his jaw is set. And he looks absolutely miserable. He can’t possibly be jealous of someone I dated a decade ago, but it would certainly appear, to look at him, he is exactly that.
* * *
He says nothing about it as we leave the hospital. We maintain a safe distance between us until we’re outside and have crossed to Reservoir Road. That’s when his fingers twine with mine. “I hate that,” he says quietly. “I hate that there were other guys. It feels like whoever’s changing your life has stolen something from me. I should have taken you to Prom. I should have been your first kiss, your first everything, and I fucking hate that I wasn’t.”
I sigh. I’ve tried not to let myself think about it, but there’s always a small weight in my chest, knowing he’s been with other people. From the sound of it, a lot of other people. “I know. It bothers me too.”
“And with fucking Josh Casey of all people,” he mutters. “You went to Prom with Josh fucking Casey. I can’t believe you never mentioned you used to date a pro athlete.”
I shrug. “I don’t think of him as a pro athlete. I just think of him as a nice kid from the town over who was obsessed with hockey. And I didn’t sleep with him, if that helps. Jeff’s the only person I’ve ever been with.”
“It helps less than you think. No guy wants to picture his girlfriend with the center for the Canucks in any capacity.”
I laugh and lean my head against his arm. “He was a kid, Nick. And actually…this is going to sound crazy, but I think it’ll help both of us: I want to see pictures. I want to see who you took to Prom. I want to see the first girl you ever slept with.”
He stops walking entirely. “Why the fuck would you want to see that?” he asks incredulously.
“Because I think it’ll make me feel less jealous. I’m picturing supermodels, but really, they were just girls. And Josh Casey was an 18-year-old boy who was badly in need of a haircut and had terrible taste in music.”
“I’m taller than he is,” he mutters, unappeased.
I go on my toes to kiss his cheek. “Yes, baby, I know. Now let’s go find some pictures.”
* * *
Because I just unpacked, it doesn’t take long to unearth my childhood photo album, but Nick’s box of memorabilia is a little harder to come by, so it takes a few more days before we finally get around to the big reveal. When I show him the infamous Josh Casey of a decade ago, his shoulders relax. “Okay, you were right. I feel better.”
“Your turn,” I reply, nodding at the box. It will bother me, no matter who the girls are, that I wasn’t his first for anything. But I think it will normalize it a little—as long as they’re all not as attractive as Meg.
He digs into a large box he’s brought up from the basement and stares at the contents in dismay. “I have no idea what half of this crap is,” he says, handing me a pile of papers. “But the yearbooks may be at my parents’ house.”
I begin looking through the stuff he’s handed to me. “Are you hoarding love letters from old girlfriends?”
“Doubt it,” he says, retrieving another stack of miscellaneous cards and photos, “but you seem to remember my life back then better than I do, so you tell me.”
My smile fades as I pick up a picture of Nick and Ryan. “You really were almost identical.”
“Yeah, even my father confused us occasionally.”
Was I really at fault that night I confused them? I know there wasn’t a bone in my body that thought I was kissing Ryan until the horrible moment when he said I wanted you first. But should I have figured it out sooner? Did Nick continue to blame me in some quiet corner of his brain?
He comes t
o a sudden halt, staring at something in his hands, a half-second of hesitation before he shuffles the paper to the back of the pile.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
He glances at me and away, handing the paper to me. “I kept the flyer from Ryan’s memorial service. I don’t know why. I can’t seem to get rid of it.”
I don’t want to take it.
But I find myself reaching for it anyway, and darkness closes in the moment it’s in my hands.
* * *
Even as Ryan’s coffin is being lowered into the ground, I’m thinking about the party.
Nick sits beside me, crushing my fingers with his own, his face pale, empty. On the other side of him, his mother is bent low, shoulders shaking.
I did this.
It was so simple, time traveling back a few hours the night of the party. I stood there watching Nick and Ryan beat the shit out of each other—because of me—and it felt like the world was caving in. And it was so unnecessary, when I had the power to fix it.
It never really occurred to me that I shouldn’t go back. I’d done far harder things with my mother over the preceding years. It was all so easy. Traveling back, convincing Nick to skip the party. And when I was in the treehouse with him, pulling his T-shirt over his head, it didn’t feel like an act. It felt like the night we should have had all along.
Until the next morning, when I heard Ryan was dead. That’s when I realized how wrong I’d been.
There’s no one I can tell. Not Nick, who would never forgive me if he knew. Not Ryan, who will never hear my words, my apologies, again. And not my mother, because she warned me. Time and time again she warned me that when you go to the past to fix things, you risk making them worse. And she was right. I should have just left it alone. I have done a terrible thing, and I will never, ever do it again.
17
NICK
It’s going to be okay.”
I’ve said this aloud so many fucking times, and I’m not sure if it’s for her or for myself. I just know that repeating it a thousand times still won’t make it true.
It’s been several hours now. Me with my useless words. The only response—that rhythmic beat of the heart-rate monitor, the constantly bleat of the alarm on the IV. I can’t get her latest MRI images out of my head. The tumor is swallowing her brain. The radiologist’s face as he handed me his report said it all.
She is heavily sedated…I know this. I’m responsible for it. But no one is even sure she’ll regain consciousness and Jesus, I need to see her open her eyes. I need to know she’s still with me.
I squeeze her hand, tell her again that she’s going to be fine. I’m grateful she can’t hear the lack of certainty in my voice.
How did I exist without her? That two months ago I didn’t even know her seems impossible to me now. And if she doesn’t come back…I can’t even think about it. I was such a dick the other day, when she suggested we sleep together. So appalled and so desperate for it at the same time I could hardly put two coherent words together. If I’d realized how little time we actually had left, I’d have given her everything. I just didn’t know.
The staff mostly leaves us alone. None of them approve of the fact that I broke up with Meg and am now clearly with my patient, but they seem to sense I’m too close to the edge to be pestered. I should have handed her case to someone else a while ago, but no one is going to monitor her as carefully as I will. No one else will be as thorough as I’ll be, will refuse to leave a single stone unturned. I dare any of them to even suggest it.
There’s a timid tap on the door and then Sully, the only male nurse on the floor, pops his head in. “They sent me to deliver the bad news,” he says with wary eyes. “There’s a guy outside saying he’s Quinn’s fiancé. The hospital must have called…”
I don’t even let him finish the sentence. “No.” There’s not a chance in the world that asshole is getting anywhere near Quinn right now.
He swallows. “I checked her file—he’s still listed as her next-of-kin. I’m not sure what to say to him.”
My blood boils at the thought of Jeff in this room when he knows she wants nothing to do with him. “Tell him I said to go fuck himself,” I reply. “If he complains, let me know and I’ll deal with him myself.” Gladly. The only reason I’m not already out there is because I don’t want to leave Quinn’s side.
I hear shouting down the hall less than a minute later, and then the door is thrown open. Jeff storms in, freezing at the sight of me sitting beside Quinn. “Why the fuck are you here?” he asks.
I rise. Nothing seems to matter anymore. Not my job, not what happens after this. Only that Quinn walks out of this hospital again. “For the same reason I’ve always been here with her when you’re not. Because I’m the only one of us she wants.”
He lunges. There’s a security button on the wall. I could have back-up here to deal with him in a matter of seconds. But my mind empties. This hatred toward him…it’s been in me since the first night we met. And I want to expel all of it, right here, while I’ve got the chance.
He flies into me with his hands on my throat and the two of us topple to the ground. Within seconds, though, my fist makes impact, and I sling him off me, with his back to the floor. I could stop now, but it isn’t enough. When he groans at the second hit and stops fighting back at the third, it is still not enough.
Security rushes through the door. I should have stopped two punches ago, but it’s not until they grab me that I finally allow reason to intervene.
“You okay, Dr. Reilly?” asks one of them. They’re still holding my arms but it’s the way your buddy does when he’s pulling you out of a fight.
I give him a stiff nod, breathing heavily more from anger than exertion as I rise.
The other security guard helps Jeff to his feet and starts pulling him away. “You’re dead, motherfucker,” Jeff says, turning back toward me when they reach the door. “I’m reporting you. You hear me? You’re going to lose your job.”
The words mean nothing to me. Maybe he’s right, but I’m already back in my seat, my fingers twining through Quinn’s, pleading with her to wake up.
* * *
“Hey.” The word is raspy and uncertain. My head, resting against her hand, jolts upright. She is heavy-lidded, but there’s a weak smile on her face.
I haven’t cried since my brother died but I have to swallow hard to keep it at bay right now. My jaw clenches as I try to get a grip on this illogical twining of grief and joy. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” she says. “You may need to get used to it.” Her hand reaches out, brushes my cheekbone. “Is that a bruise?”
It’s been hours since the fight with Jeff. I’d almost forgotten. “I had a little scuffle with your ex.”
Her eyes open wide and she tries to sit up, but I gently push her shoulder back to the mattress. “It’s fine. Believe me, he looks a lot worse than I do. How do you feel?”
“I feel great,” she says dismissively. “Are you okay? What happened with Jeff?”
I smile. It’s so like her to regain consciousness worried about me. “I told you it was fine. You’re the one who’s in a hospital bed. Let’s focus on you.”
She looks like she wants to argue but restrains it with a frown. “Did you already do an MRI?” she asks.
God, I wish she hadn’t asked. Even her best-case scenario at this point is a shitty one, and I know she’ll see that no matter what I tell her. I stare fixedly at the bed rail, gripping her hand tighter. “Your tumor has doubled in size.”
She nods, lips pressed tight, trying to hold it together. “And what does that mean?”
It means you could be dead in a week, in a day. It means the staff will be shocked you even woke up. God, I can’t tell her any of this. “It’s close to the point where it’s going to impact things—your memory, your gross motor function,” I reply. “I’m surprised it hasn’t already.”
I watch this sink in, and then her fingers
tighten around mine. “That’s not how I want you to remember me,” she whispers, “so when it happens I want you to promise you’ll stay away. I’ll go to my mom’s when it gets to that point.”
I sigh. If she thinks I’d ever consider that, she doesn’t know me at all. “I am not fucking leaving you.”
“But—”
“Ask me a thousand times and the answer will still be no.”
“Such dedication,” she begins, brushing at her eyes, trying to make light of it. “It really must be true—” She stops herself, flushing at the conversation she’s opening up. A conversation she thinks would be ridiculous this early on. Except it isn’t ridiculous at all. I’ve been dying to say it for weeks.
“Love,” I reply, completing the sentence. My eyes hold hers. “Yeah. It is.”
18
QUINN
Nick stays with me for hours, feeding me water through a straw like I’m an invalid. “I can hold my own cup,” I scold. “Or do all your patients get this level of service?”
His lips twitch. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only one.”
I throw my head against the pillow. I feel fine and it’s not like being in this room is going to extend my life, so I don’t want to waste what’s left of it here. “Can’t we just leave?”
“Soon,” he says, brushing the hair back from my forehead. “In the meantime, your food is on the way, and I was thinking if you’re up for it, we could go down the hall to see Darcy. She’s been asking for you.”
“How is she today?” I ask.
A shadow crosses his face. I wonder if he can’t think about Darcy without seeing my future at the same time. “Not good, apparently,” he replies.
Intersect: The Parallel Duet, Book 2 Page 12
