Parallel (The Parallel Duet Book 1) Page 5

  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.”

  His frown deepens. “One problem. Quinn’s never been out of the country.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck go up. She knew about the swimming, and she knew I was in London. How? I only got back to the States last summer and I’ve been dating Meg the entire time.

  The guy is staring me down like a detective waiting for the perp to confess. I grit my teeth. I have no idea what’s going on here, but their interpersonal drama is not my concern. “Like I said before, people say a lot of things when sedated. Anyhow, since this is the second episode in a week, I’d like her to remain overnight. I’ll get her on the schedule for an MRI in the morning.”

  “She’s not going to like that,” he says. “She’s going to want to get back to work.”

  I glance over at her. I’ve certainly encountered workaholic patients who insist they’re too busy to get a test that could save their lives, but she looks so calm right now, so peaceful, that it’s hard to imagine her being one of them. I think she’s an architect—I must have seen it in her chart—and not to demean her profession, but it’s not like the fate of the world rests in her hands. “She needs an MRI,” I reply, my voice hard and unyielding. “So I’d suggest you make sure she gets it.”

  He looks taken aback, but I don’t care. I just need to get the fuck out of this room.

  I’m not much of a drinker, but I need a damn drink. I call Jace, a friend who was in med school with me and then wound up at the same hospital years later. His wife and Meg have become friends, which should make me happy, but instead makes me feel a little trapped.

  I meet him at Clyde’s, a few blocks from the hospital. It hasn’t changed since we were in school—same wood bar, tightly packed tables, dim lighting. He casts a glance at the double scotch in my hand and grins. “Heard you and Meg are moving in together. Is that why we’re hitting the heavy stuff before dinner?”

  For a moment, the words don’t even register, and then I laugh unhappily. “We aren’t moving in together. She’s going to stay at my place until she finds something else. But it appears you’ve heard otherwise.”

  “Maybe I misunderstood,” he says with a smirk. A smirk that says what we both know, which is that he didn’t misunderstand anything at all. “So, what’s up?”

  I take a sip of my scotch and then set it down, staring straight ahead at the mirror behind the bar. “I’m going to tell you something that sounds crazy.”

  “I doubt it’ll sound all that crazy to me,” he replies. Jace is an obstetrician. Of all our friends, he tends to have the most bizarre stories—patients who’ve contracted sexually transmitted diseases from pets, a woman with a baby hanging between her legs by the umbilical cord as she exits the elevator.

  “This may even top one of your stories,” I tell him, hesitating before I start to recount what happened this afternoon. It’s so surreal I’m starting to wonder if I’ve gotten the facts wrong. “I walk into a patient’s room today. A new patient. She’s sedated and her eyes are closed, but when I get to her bedside she seems to know who I am.” I pause, taking another sip of scotch. “She knew that I swim every morning. She knew I was in London for my residency. And then she says something about how we were married.”

  Jace tips his head. “Come on, bro. She’s fucking with you.”

  “How? Her eyes were closed. She’d never even met me.”

  He shrugs. “You had a million fangirls when you were swimming. She’s probably some superfan and knew you’d be the one treating her.”

  I shake my head. “I really don’t think so. She knew way too much, and she said it all in front of her fiancé, who was clearly unhappy about it, by the way.”

  “What other explanation is there? Unless you believe in psychics.”

  I stare at my drink. “Here’s the thing: I’ve seen her before. I mean, not in real life. I’ve dreamed about her.” Jace is looking at me like I’m crazy, which I can hardly fault him for. I wonder if this is how I look at my patients sometimes. God, I hope not. “I know this sounds nuts, but I swear I’ve dreamed about her. And in those dreams we’re definitely together, and then here she is today telling me we’re married. I mean, I know it’s not true, but it’s like I’m somehow not connecting to a huge part of my memory.”

  He raises a brow. “Well, no matter what has happened and no matter what you feel, she’s still your patient. You can’t act on it.”

  I scowl at him. “Of course I’m not going to act on it,” I reply. “Give me a little credit. I’m just trying
to figure out what the hell is going on.”

  He appears unimpressed by this situation, like it’s an every-day occurrence to feel intensely attached to a patient you’ve never met, and then have her claim to be your wife. “Look, you probably had a dream about a girl who looks vaguely like her, nothing more. And then your mind drew these connecting lines where they don’t exist. The real question is why you’re doing it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He leans on the bar, swinging his stool to face me. “Don’t you think the timing of it is a little suspect? Your fear of commitment is legendary, and now the minute you and Meg start moving in together, bam, you decide you’ve been dreaming about a patient you’ve never met. You’re freaking out and looking for the escape hatch. Nothing more.”

  “We aren’t moving in together,” I mutter, swirling the ice in my empty glass.

  “Fine, whatever,” he says. “You and Meg are moving forward. Same thing.”

  Fuck. I want to be someone who can do that, move a relationship forward. I want it to be with Meg. But the fact that I’m now feeling so attached to a complete stranger tells me I’m definitely not ready to do so. And a piece of me wonders if Quinn Stewart is the reason why.

  7

  QUINN

  Nick and I are in our favorite pub. It’s a recent find, and though the drinks are overpriced, the music is amazing—it’s mostly British bands, but they play a fair amount of older stuff from home. “Everlong” by Foo Fighters comes on and most of the bar starts singing. I’ve never given the lyrics much thought but as we sing-shout them tonight, I realize how perfect they are. It’s a song about love, perhaps a slightly obsessive love, and meeting someone you waited for, maybe before you even knew he existed. I have goose bumps when it concludes.

  “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.”

  For a moment, my jaw hangs open, stunned into speechlessness. The fact that the doctor is named Nick could be a coincidence. But the swimming? London? That seems like a few too many coincidences. And if it’s him, if it’s really him…is he a lot older? I was dreaming about Nick when I was toddler. Which means he’d be pushing sixty by now.

  I take a deep breath. Jeff is standing there, waiting for a response from me and growing paler every second I don’t offer one. “Of course I’m not stalking him or seeing him,” I finally say. “I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

  He press
es the base of his hand to his forehead. “Look. I just need the truth. Are you… Is there someone else?”

  I blink once, twice, stalling for time. Looking for an answer that won’t be a lie. On one hand, I know I’ve done nothing wrong. On the other, there is definitely someone else, someone who may, possibly, exist. I’m not a dishonest person, but this isn’t a time when the whole truth will help anyone. “No. I’m not seeing anyone. Of course I’m not. And this whole thing is hard enough without you trying to make me feel bad about something crazy I said when I was sedated.”

  His eyes close, and his teeth grind against each other. “It’s not just one crazy thing you said. It’s several. Plus the hickey last week.”

  I bury my face in my hands. “It wasn’t a hickey! It was just a weird bruise.” I can’t believe this is still a thing, that it’s even a question. “My God, Jeff. Is our relationship really so fragile that this is the first conclusion you jump to?”

  His shoulders sag. “No, it’s not. I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. You just knew a lot about him, and if it was a coincidence, it was a bizarre one.”

  I nod, restraining a thousand questions I would like to ask right now: what did the doctor look like? Was he our age? Our parents’ age? What was his last name? Did he know me too? I’m imprisoned by my inability to ask, by the fact that any question at all will trigger suspicion.

  There’s a knock on the door and my head jerks toward it, my pulse racing. A nurse enters with dinner for me and I fall back into the pillow, struggling to hide my disappointment.

  “You can have it,” I tell Jeff. “I’m not hungry.”

  He shrugs and eats the bland meal without complaint, but that is just him—he takes what he’s given, he’s happy with it and he doesn’t ask for more. Nick, at least as I’ve imagined him, is not like that. He’s hungry—for knowledge and experience and competition. He’s hungry, most of all, for me. I grow wet just picturing that ferocity of his, the restrained violence in him when he flips me on my back and crawls over me.