Page 13 of Parallel

Her lips press tight. “You weren’t dreaming about me.”

I blow out a breath, suddenly tired. Meg and I have known each other a long time. She knew the deal when I returned from London. She knew my romantic history consisted only of brief, relatively meaningless relationships, and that I couldn’t promise ours would be any different. And things are going well, much better than I thought, but she can’t start scrutinizing what happens in my sleep. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Because,” she says, “you sounded like you were in love with her. And you’ve never once sounded like that with me.”

Another accusation. It bothers her that I won’t say it, that I can’t say it. It bothers me too, but I just need to be sure about things and I’m not there yet. “Meg—”

She holds up her hand. “Don’t. I know you said you just want something casual and you can’t make any promises. What bothers me is that you made it sound like you don’t think you’re capable of more, and obviously you are.”

“It was just a dream.”

She nods. I’ve never seen her cry but she’s swallowing hard now, as if she might, and I hate myself in this moment. I want to be better and do better by her. I’ve just got to figure out how.

After our lunch concludes, I get upstairs and a resident briefs me on my next patient as we walk down the hall. “Quinn Stewart. Twenty-eight-year-old female. Fell last week and suffered some memory loss. Today, she appeared to go unconscious for a few minutes, still standing, and she came to with some memory loss and a severe migraine. The pain was so bad they had to sedate her.”

I rub the back of my neck. A migraine that severe is not a good omen. I send him off to check on someone down in oncology, and then tap on the door and walk in. The patient is asleep, but her face is turned toward me.

My heart seems to give one long audible thud and my steps stutter to a halt.

It’s her—the girl in the dream. I’ve never seen her face clearly, and yet standing here the experience of it is the same. If I were standing on a dock right now I’d dive off and swim to her.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with me? I’m a neurologist. I should know, better than almost anyone in this hospital, that the brain is capable of tricking you into thinking anything is true. It happens to my patients all the time. I just had no idea it would feel this fucking real.

A guy sitting in the corner chair rises and I turn toward him, extending my hand, scrambling to feign normalcy. “I’m Nick Reilly. And you’re…”

“Jeff Walker. Quinn’s fiancé.”

I frown, irritated by him for no reason. Focus. You’re here to do a job. “I saw in the chart that this happened last week too, so I have to ask: does she have any issues with drugs and alcohol?”

“No,” he says. “None. They gave her something for the pain that knocked her out, but she barely even drinks.”

I walk to her bedside. She lies there like a beautiful present, waiting to be unwrapped and discovered. Her eyes are closed, but I already know their color—smoky green, like the forest seen through fog. I can picture them in my head, as familiar to me as my own. Her lids flicker and her hand trails along the side of the bed until it finds mine. Her fingers curl there, as if it’s something she’s done a thousand times. I slide my hand away quickly, hoping her fiancé didn’t notice.

“Hey,” she says, the word slurred, half-asleep. “How was your swim?”

I freeze, wondering if I’ve heard her correctly. “I… How do you know I went swimming?”

She laughs, a throaty noise that strikes a chord inside me, like a song I’d forgotten I loved. “You’re cranky if you skip it,” she murmurs.

My breath comes short. I can name on one hand the number of people who know this about me, so how the fuck does she? Across the room, her fiancé has gone rigid. It’s like I’ve walked into some soap opera without knowing my part. “Um…have we met?”

Her mouth curves upward but she doesn’t answer, so I try again. “Quinn, how did we meet?”

“Hospital,” she says. “London.”

At last something makes sense. I’m still hard-pressed to imagine how I could have treated anyone who looks like her and forgotten, but I’m not sure there’s another explanation. “Right,” I reply. “Sorry it slipped my mind. I was a resident, so I saw a ton of patients.”

She smiles as she drifts back to sleep. “That’s okay,” she murmurs. “As long as I’m the only one you married.”

The words hit me like a hammer. Somewhere inside me they land, settle in and feel true, even though I know they can’t be.

Her fiancé sits wide-eyed, his frown deepening. “You two know each other?” he asks.

For a moment my mind is blank. Do we? No. I know I haven’t met her. I know I’d remember her. I shake my head. “People can say crazy things when they’re sedated. I have no memory of meeting your girlfriend—”

He cuts me off. “Fiancée.”

I’m irritated by his outburst and ignore it. “—but I did my residency in London, so she must have been a patient.”