Page 15 of Parallel

“I’ve loved that song since I was a kid,” Nick says, holding my eye. “But now I think it’s my favorite.”

“Mine too,” I whisper.

A rotation of British bands starts up next. Arctic Monkeys, Florence and the Machine—music you can dance to. The crowd even manages to dance to Radiohead, though I’m not sure how. “Sofa Song” by The Kooks starts playing and he grabs my hand.

“Come on,” he says.

“I don’t dance,” I whine, pulling back. “Remember? That whole thing where I was so bad at it you had to propose just to make it stop?”

He laughs. “Yes, thank God I happened to have an engagement ring in my pocket that night.”

On the dance floor he gets me in position and coaches me once more, with his “one, two, one, two, rock step”. Then he spins me out and back to him. As I land against his chest I feel a shift inside me, and it’s as if I’m in two places at once. Here with him now, but also in his childhood treehouse. The treehouse I’ve never laid eyes on but know intimately. I remember the creak of the floorboards under our feet, the slanted roof he had to duck to avoid. A chill creeps up from the base of my spine. “I feel like we’ve done this before,” I tell him. The words are spoken at a near-whisper. “In your treehouse.”

He pulls me closer, knowing this weird knowledge I have of us unsettles me. “All I care about is the fact that you’re with me now,” he says.

I smile, but my throat tightens at his words. Lately I’ve had this odd sense that our time is running out, and I have no idea why. “Distract me,” I whisper.

With a flick of his wrist I’m spinning away from him, anchored by his hand, and then twirling back. When I look up again, his face is inches from mine. “Distracting enough?” he asks.

“Yeah.” My shoulders settle and I smile up at him. “I think we’re okay at this as long you’re doing all the work.”

A feral light is in his eyes that wasn’t there a moment ago. “I’m more than happy to do all the work,” he says, his voice low and raspy, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Desire is like a fist, squeezing tight in my stomach.

“Take me home,” I say, going on my toes to press my mouth to his. “You’re at your most distracting there.”

Jeff is gazing at me just as my eyes open. I swallow down that terrible disappointment I always feel when I discover him in Nick’s place, closely followed by guilt over the disappointment. He forces a small smile but seems…irked. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “I’m supposed to let them know when you’re up.”

He returns with a nurse a minute later. She asks a number of relevant questions about my accident and my general health, as well as a number of ridiculous ones about drug use and suicidal thoughts. She says they’d like to keep me overnight, but when she asks to speak to Jeff privately, I feel a bubble of frustration pop inside me. I am not a child.

“Aren’t there laws that prevent discussing my case with outsiders?” I snap.

Jeff’s mouth falls open. “Outsider?” he demands. “I’m going to be your husband in a few weeks, remember?”

The nurse looks between the two of us. “I’ll give you some time to chat,” she says, backing from the room.

I know from Jeff’s wounded expression that I need to backpedal, though I feel like doing anything but. “I didn’t mean you were literally an outsider. But she’s asking all these questions as if I passed out on purpose, and then she wants to talk to you alone? I don’t need people discussing my case behind my back.”

He takes the seat beside me and sits there, his jaw shifting. “Hon,” he says quietly, not meeting my eye, “who’s Nick?”

My stomach drops. God only knows what I said when I was sedated, but I can certainly imagine how bad it could have been, given how many hours I’ve spent dreaming about Nick and what we were doing during those hours. “I don’t know anyone named Nick,” I whisper. He doesn’t believe me and I can’t fault him—it sounds like a lie to me too.

“You asked for him that day, the first day you passed out,” Jeff says, the words coming faster, carried by an undercurrent that is undeniably angry. “You didn’t even fucking remember me, but you were asking for him. And then this doctor comes in tonight, a doctor named Nick, and you fucking hold his hand and tell him you’re married to him.”

My heart has climbed all the way to my throat. I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I’ve kept a pretty tight lid on my words for years, and the possibility that I let the lid come loose is terrifying. I scramble back through my memory, but all I come up with is Caroline bringing me here and a needle going into my arm.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. It must be a coincidence.” A bizarre, humiliating coincidence. There isn’t a bone in my body that believes the Nick who apparently came into my room earlier is the same one I’ve been dreaming about. Nick is a common name, and, more importantly, it’s just not possible. I press my hands to my heated face. “God. That’s so embarrassing.”

“It’s more than that,” Jeff says, rising, his fists clenched. “You knew him. You knew stuff about him you shouldn’t have known unless you dated him.”

I grow still. “Like what?”

“You knew that he goes swimming every day and you knew he did his residency in London.”

It takes a moment to find my voice, and when I do it’s a shadow of itself. “So are you saying I was correct?” I whisper.

“Yes,” he spits. “You were correct. The guy seemed as freaked out as I was. Which really only leaves a few possibilities. You’re stalking him or you’ve been seeing him.”