Page 19 of Parallel
I squeeze my eyes shut. It is impossible that she knows these things. If she were to interview every person I’d ever known, she might be able to gather most of this, but not all of it. Meg knows maybe half, at best. I open my eyes to find her watching me again. She glances away, and then reaches for a binder besideher.
“Since I’ve already completely creeped you out, look at this.” She opens the binder and pushes it into my hands. A drawing. Goose bumps crawl across my neck when I realize what it is. She’s drawn my flat in London. Theinteriorof my flat. I push against my temples, trying to make sense of this. Nothing feels real, almost as if I’m asleep and will wake up at any moment pondering the bizarre dream I just had about a patient. Because it would be easy enough for her to find my old address with a little sleuth work, but how the fuck does she know what it looked likeinside, down to the cow-shaped kettle my mother sent me as a joke? “How the hell do you know what theinsideof my flat lookedlike?”
“I have no idea,” she says. She is frowning, lips pressed tight. She seems as troubled by this as I am, so I’m inclined to believe her. At the very least I thinkshebelieves she’s telling the truth. But there has got to be an explanation. I believe in science. I do not believe in reincarnation, ghosts, fairies, vampires, or psychics. I don’t even believe in God, for that matter, and I think miracles are just another name for things we don’t yet understand. With enough investigation, I canmakethis makesense.
“Okay, I’ll play along. How did we meet?” Iask.
She winces. “Don’t say you’llplay along, like this is something I want to be part of,” she says. Her tone pleads with me more than it demands. “I’m engaged. Do you really think I want to fall asleep every night and dream about anotherman?”
“I’m sorry. I phrased that poorly. In your dream that told you all this,” I say, lifting the sketch, “how did wemeet?”
She toys with the hem of her shirt. “I went to the hospital, right after I arrived in London. I had a migraine because I’d left my meds at home. And you came to dischargeme.”
“And when would this havebeen?”
Her teeth sink into her lower lip. My gaze flickers to that peony mouth again. “Late August, probably four years ago. You wanted to watch the World Rowing Championship because you had a friend in it. Matt, Ithink?”
I gawk at her, frozen aside from my heart, which is thumping so hard it would be impossible to miss. How? How could she possibly know this? Matt Langois was a friend from undergrad. He rowed for the US, and I watched it whenever I had time. “This can’t be happening,” I murmur. “This has got to be…I’m not accusing you of anything, but someone is fucking withus.”
She sighs heavily. “How?It’s not like someone could climb into my head and make me dream all thisup.”
I have no answer to that, but it reminds me of the real reason I’m here. I glance at my watch. “Let’s table all this for now. I’ve got you scheduled for an MRI in fiveminutes.”
She stiffens. “Is itnecessary?”
“There’s nothing to be scared of—you’re not claustrophobic,right?”
She inhales and sets her shoulders. “No. I just don’t…never mind. It’s fine. What are you lookingfor?”
“There are a couple of things that could be going on, but this is just a precaution. In all likelihood, everything will come back completelyfine.”
I rise but she does not. “What kind ofthings?”
“A bleed, a cyst, a tumor. Really, it’s probablynothing.”
She looks worried. I reach out to grab her hand, and I’m an inch from hers when I realize what I’m doing and jerk it back.What the hell is going on here?I’ve never tried to hold a patient’s hand in my life. It’s as if it was areflex.
I’m beginning to wonder if I need an MRItoo.
9
QUINN
Nick Reillyexists.
I sit here on the edge of the bed, my mind trying to grasp it all, but the reality of him is too large to be held in one place and madelogical.
Nick, in my dreams, was beautiful. In real life, however, he’s so much more. He’s vital and male in a way I didn’t entirely grasp until now. The bump where his nose was broken, the tiny hint of a scar just to its left from a fist fight with his brother—they don’t mar the perfection of his face, they emphasize it. They roughen him up just the right amount, make himhotrather than lovely. Nick without that scar, without the small asymmetry, would be a face for photographers, for ad campaigns. Nick with those things becomes someone you want to have pin you to the nearest availablesurface.
Which I remember him doing so, so many times. But to him, I’m simply a new patient. Potentially one who’s been stalkinghim.
It’s me,some voice inside my head whispers to him.Remember? Remember our flat? Remember the way I’d wait for you to slide into bed and wrap yourself around me? Do you remember the first time you told me you loved me? The night youproposed?
That same part of me cries out for him, wants to hold him tighter than I’ve ever held anyone, wants to breathe in his smell of soap and chlorine and skin and just remainthere.
Thank God the rational piece prevails. The part that knows this is not real life and remembers I’m in love with someone else.Just because you dreamed about him doesn’t mean it ever happened, the rational piece warns.It doesn’t make himyours.
He asks how I know the things I do, and I proceed to recite more of them, my stomach sinking at the wary look on his face. Perhaps he’d appear relaxed to a casual onlooker, but I know better somehow. He’s restraining himself. Beneath that oxford his arms are taut, braced…against me? I’m not sure. God, I want so badly to press my mouth to that line between his brows, let it fall to the curve of his upper lip. As if I really need to do one more thing to ensure he sends me for a psychconsult.