Parallel (The Parallel Duet Book 1) Read online

  I should be too upset by what this MRI might uncover to be capable of humiliation right now, but I’m not. I feel the heat in my face and there is no way to stop it. “No comment.”

  He raises a brow, holding the elevator door open and following me in. “Oh, you’re not getting off that easily. If we had a honeymoon in Paris, I need to hear all about it. What did we do?”

  I roll my eyes, trying hard not to smile. “It was December and cold as hell, and we were there on our honeymoon. What do you think we did?”

  He laughs. “Wow. Any other glamorous trips where we never left the hotel?”

  I glance up at him as we arrive at our floor. “Not really. Well, I guess we went to the lake, if that counts.”

  The elevator door opens, but he doesn’t move. “What lake?”

  I pause, puzzled by the sudden change in him. There is no longer anything playful about his tone. “I have no idea. It’s kind of like the lake where I’m getting married. There’s a dock and a big, white house with a deck, and I’m on this boat I can’t sail, while you watch me go.”

  The elevator doors have shut again, and he sags against the wall. His skin looks slightly green under the fluorescent lights.

  “Where are you getting married?” he asks.

  I hear dread in his voice. For some reason it makes me dread answering him. “Lake Hester? It’s outside—”

  “Annapolis,” he whispers. He leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes. “My parents have a place there. Their weekend house. I think you’re describing it.”

  He can’t even look at me. I try to put myself in his shoes—some random patient reciting facts from his life, describing the interior of his flat and his parents’ vacation home. I’d have picked up the emergency phone long before now if I were him.

  “I’m not stalking you,” I say quietly. “I understand why you’d be freaked out, but I swear to God I’ve never even looked up your name.”

  “I don’t think you’re stalking me.”

  “Then why—”

  “I’ve had that dream too,” he says. “About you.”

  I blink. I’ve heard him but his words just…don’t make sense. This is my problem, my messed-up brain. If this is his idea of a joke I don’t find it amusing. “What?”

  He swallows. “I thought…when I saw you here that my mind was playing tricks on me. But I’ve had that precise dream. You’re standing up on the Sunfish, and then I swim out to get you.”

  I feel lightheaded again and lean against the wall of the elevator, the same way he did just a moment before. How can we share the same memory of something we both know never happened? I remember seeing him on the dock, I remember the way he dove into the water and emerged moments later, seal-sleek, grinning. There have been other things in the past, other times my brain somehow misfired. But I’ve never had someone else’s brain misfire alongside mine.

  He steps closer, his hands on my arms. “Are you okay?”

  I nod. My voice is muted, hoarse. “I just need this to make sense.”

  “Me too,” he says, pressing the button to open the elevator’s door. “And I’m not sure a brain scan is going to accomplish that.”

  Throughout the exam, I keep my body still, but my mind won’t stop racing. What was that look he gave me when he left? The part of me that wants to romanticize all this might call it longing. And God knows I didn’t want him to leave, but what I really need is not to feel anything for him at all. I’m hard-pressed to imagine we will ever solve this, but I don’t need it solved, I just need it to stop. I can’t keep having these dreams anymore.

  When I return to my room, the nurse says she’ll get my paperwork together so I can leave. “I’d like to see Dr. Reilly before I go.”

  “I don’t know what his schedule is like today. You may have to book a follow-up with him if you need more information.”

  My nails dig into my palms. “No. I need to see him today. I’ll wait if I have to.”

  “Yes, all the female patients want to see Dr. Reilly again,” she says with a smirk. “But he’s a very busy man. I’ll see what I can do.”

  She thinks I’m trying to fuel a crush, when I’m really trying to end one.

  My stomach growls loud enough for us both to hear. “There’s a room at the end of the hall with snacks,” she says. “You can grab something while I get your discharge papers ready.”

  As it turns out, the only snacks I find are graham crackers and juice, but I’m hungry enough I don’t even mind. I reach for a cranberry juice, peeling off the foil and drinking it before I’ve even closed the refrigerator door.

  “You have to shut the door,” says a small voice. I look over my shoulder to find a little girl with no hair, pulling an IV behind her. “If you don’t, an alarm will go off.”

  “Want one?” I offer.

  She frowns. “I’m not allowed until my test is done.” I look longingly at the cranberry juices stacked high in the fridge and shut the door. I can’t sit here and drink anything else in front of her.

  “So, are you here all day?” I ask.

  She drops her eyes. “I kind of live here. When I ask my mommy if we are going home again, she smiles and cries at the same time.”

  She scans my face, searching for some kind of answer there. I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Do you miss being home?”

  She nods. “And I miss being outside. We used to go get cupcakes. They have cupcakes here, but not good ones.”

  “What kind of cupcakes did you get?”

  “Red velvet with the white icing that isn’t just white.”

  “What about this person?” I ask, pointing to the cartoon character on the T-shirt that covers her hospital gown. “If I come back with a cupcake for you, should I bring one for her too?”

  She giggles. “That’s Raven. She doesn’t eat cupcakes.”

  “Doesn’t eat cupcakes?” I ask, feigning horror. “That’s crazy talk.”

  “I should have known Darcy would find you,” says a voice. I look up and Nick is standing there in all his broad-shouldered glory, crooked smile and dimple on full blast.

  My heart flutters and begins beating hard. All my good intentions fade away in his presence—I just want to stay right here and follow him wherever he goes. “Darcy was informing me that Raven does not eat cupcakes. I thought everyone ate cupcakes.”

  “She’s pretend,” says Darcy, dragging out the word and giggling at the same time.

  Nick grins at her. “You, Miss Darcy, need to get to your room so they can get you ready for your test. And you, Miss Quinn, need to get to your room so we can go over your discharge paperwork.”

  I wave at Darcy before she turns away. “Later, Raven. Later, Cupcake Girl.” Her smile is so wide it hurts. A patient like that must break Nick’s heart. She’s breaking mine and I just met her.

  When I look up, Nick is watching me in that quiet way of his. I think if I could peek in his head I’d find a thousand words he’ll never give voice to. “So, it looks like you’re ready to leave?”

  I want to run my hand over the rasp of his jaw, pull his head low enough that I can press my mouth to his forehead. Exactly the sort of thought that needs to stop. “I was wondering if there is something you can give me to stop the dreams? Maybe some kind of sleeping pill?”

  He frowns. “There’s a drug that could help, but one of the primary side effects is headaches. I’m not sure it’s a good idea, under the circumstances.”

  “I’ll risk it,” I say quickly. “I need these dreams to stop.”

  He cocks his head to the side. “Why? You were in so much pain yesterday you had to be sedated, and it sounds like these dreams aren’t even bad.”

  I’m frustrated more with myself than with him, though it probably doesn’t come across that way. “Because there’s no point. Do you actually think we’re going to figure out why this is happening?”

  “Probably not, but it’s possible. I keep thinking there’s some obvious explanation we a
re both missing.”

  “There isn’t,” I reply firmly. “And in the meantime, I have a real life, and these dreams are making it seem like a life I don’t want. I would rather not know any of this than be unhappy with what I have.”

  His teeth sink into his lower lip, an action that makes my stomach clench in an unfamiliar way. Both pleasant and unpleasant at the same time. “Maybe your dreams are saying you’re already unhappy with what you have.”

  I look away from him. It’s sort of what Caroline said too. “Then I’d like them to stop telling me that.”

  He sighs. “We’ll need to wait on the results before I prescribe anything. I assume you’re heading home. I can call you there with results when they’re in.”

  I shake my head. “I’ve got to get to work. We go to print next week. I’ve lost way too much time as it is.”

  “Print?” he asks, frowning. “Aren’t you an architect?”

  I still. “What made you think that?”

  “I’m not sure,” he says slowly. “I thought I saw it in your file. But…you aren’t? I could have sworn...”

  The room grows silent. My voice is a whisper when I finally speak. “I was an architecture major in college, but my father died after my sophomore year and I had to move home where it wasn’t an option. But…in my head, when we were in London, that’s what I was studying. I was there getting a graduate degree.”

  The weirdness of it rests between us. “I guess,” he says with a faltering smile, “you’re not the only stalker of the two of us, then.”

  I walk into the office, hoping to escape Dee. No luck—she’s just leaving as I walk in. She holds the door but remains still, blocking my path. “We are seriously behind,” she says, jaw clenched. “Please try to get caught up. I need proofs before you leave today.”

  A torrent of words I won’t say to her rises in my throat: we’ve worked together for six freaking years. You know I was just hospitalized and you know I never take sick leave. How dare you act put upon right now?

  I clench my fists and slide past her into the office. We need this job. I could leave and wind up with half the pay and a boss who’s just as awful. And then my inheritance, the one I’ve refused to touch for the past seven years, will be gone as soon as Jeff loses his job, frittered away on the mortgage and groceries and I’ll have nothing to show for it.

  The layout is already open on my Mac and has obviously been tinkered with by someone who has no knowledge of Photoshop. Only Dee would dare, and she’s managed to create twice as much work for me as I’d have had otherwise. I let my head sink back against my chair, staring up at the exposed ceiling, at the gleaming metal of heating ducts and maze of white pipes, wondering how I will feel about Dee and this job if Nick calls with bad news.

  Will I be glad I sucked it up all these years, managed to keep us afloat all the times when Jeff was out of work? Or will I feel like this place stole six years of my life?

  Except, the magazine didn’t steal those years. I stole them from myself. I’m the one who listened when my mom begged me to stay at home after my father died. I’m the one who let Jeff persuade me it would be foolish to go back to school for architecture. I’m the one who chose to remain at this desk for so long.

  I never fought for a single thing I wanted, and now it might be too late.

  The real question, however, is what I will do if it isn’t.

  It’s late in the afternoon when I finally hear from the hospital. I’m oddly disappointed that it’s one of the nurses calling, rather than Nick. "Dr. Reilly is wondering if you can come in tomorrow for another MRI,” she says.

  I lay my pen down. “Another one? Was there a problem?”

  “I doubt it,” she says breezily. “It’s a different kind of MRI. It may be that the other one wasn’t clear.”

  I convince myself it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not until much later, when Jeff and I are having dinner and he asks about the test, that I actually start to worry.

  “So what is it again that the hospital wants you to do tomorrow?” he asks.

  I shrug as I help myself to seconds, which is something I never do. Poor Jeff probably made extra for his lunch tomorrow and I’m demolishing it, but I’ve had nothing to eat since that juice this morning. “Some other kind of MRI. They didn’t really explain.”

  There’s a crease between his eyebrows. “Do you think it means anything?”

  I hesitate, will away the nervous flutter in my chest. “It doesn’t sound like it. It sounds like they used the wrong kind of test. Why? Do you think it means anything?”

  Jeff frowns. “That guy barely looked old enough to be out of med school, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn he ordered the wrong test. You need to switch doctors.”

  I set down my fork, but it remains in my grip, stiffly held. I want to argue in Nick’s defense, but it would be poorly received, given what happened in the hospital last night. “I don’t know that he ordered the wrong test,” I reply, the words spoken carefully. “I’m just saying it might be what happened.”

  “Well, if this turns out to be something, I still think you should switch.”

  No. My shoulders are rigid and it takes everything in my power not to snap at him. His concerns have nothing to do with Nick’s professional abilities. He’s just jealous, and as much as it pisses me off…he’s more right than he knows. For my own sanity, for the health of our future together, Nick Reilly is the last person I should be spending time with.

  10

  QUINN

  Nick creeps into the flat, trying hard not to wake me. He always does this, on the nights he works late, but I’m a light sleeper and there are little things that give him away long before he sets foot in the room: the clink of keys against a counter, a coat falling against a chair. He keeps a spare toothbrush at the kitchen sink for nights like this, just so the bathroom light won’t wake me.

  “I’m up,” I tell him when he comes into the bedroom, feeling around in the darkness for the dresser before he stubs his toe on it again.

  “Sorry,” he says. He pulls off his scrubs and slips beneath the sheets, wrapping cold arms around me, pulling the covers up to my chin. “I tried to be quiet.”

  “I was already awake.” I scoot until I’m pressed tight to his chest. His bare skin, his smell, the weight of his arm—they’re all I need in the entire world right now. “I had the weirdest dream and woke up all upset.”

  His calloused hand squeezes my arm lightly in sympathy. “What dream?”

  My legs stretch, tangle with his. “We were together but we were teenagers, I think? And we were trying to elope.”

  His low laugh brushes my ear. “That does sound terrifying. I’m bad enough now. A teenage Nick wouldn’t have left you alone for a minute.”

  I roll his way, wishing I could laugh with him but I can’t yet. It all still feels so real. “We were at this gas station and I called home to tell my mother what we were doing and you were inside, in line. And I started crying because I was never going to see you again. I just knew somehow that it was all over, and I was going to die. And then I woke up.”

  I can’t get it out of my head—the sight of him in the convenience store, smiling at me from his place in line, while I stood there panicked, certain it was over. The distress I feel in dreams normally fades immediately. This one though—it remains unchanged.

  His lips press to the top of my head. “Hon, it doesn’t require a degree to figure that one out. Call your mom. She’s probably going to be less upset with you for getting married than she is that you waited so long to tell her. And you’re an adult. It’s not like she can ground you and lock you in your room.”

  I nod, but I’m not so sure he’s right.

  I wake missing Nick. I close my eyes and can almost imagine the way he fit against me, long arms pulling me tight. The mint from his toothpaste, a hint of chlorine as I buried my face into his chest. Jeff and I don’t cuddle like that, and he isn’t someone I share my worries with—I supp
ose because I’m too busy shouldering his. I leaned on Nick in that dream, physically and mentally, and it’s something I didn’t know I was missing until this morning. My future with Jeff contains wonderful things: a house, kids, a trip to the Jersey shore every summer. But right now I’m aching for what my future won’t contain instead.

  I dress and head to the hospital. My inappropriate eagerness to see Nick outweighs my dread of what he might say—I’ve almost convinced myself that the need for another MRI is meaningless anyway.

  I’ve just signed in when his head pops around the corner. Like an idiot, like a teen with a crush, I begin blushing. It’s so strange to see him now, to be a stranger to him, when in my head, we were together an hour ago. I can still remember him sliding against me, bare aside from his boxers.

  I blush harder. I remember removing those boxers too.

  “Come on back,” he says, holding the door so I can walk past. We go to his office, which is larger than I’d have anticipated. His diplomas are on the wall and there are photos too. I keep my eyes focused straight ahead, scared of what I’ll discover if I look too closely. It’s funny it never occurred to me, until this moment, that he might not be single. My gaze shifts to his ring finger. It’s bare. My shoulders settle again.

  He perches on the edge of the desk, long legs eating up the distance between us. “I’m sorry we had to ask you to come back in. How do you feel today?”

  “Great,” I reply, “but I’m wondering why I need another test.”

  He nods, his hands wrapping around the edge of the desk. “I don’t want you to panic when I tell you this, but we found something on your scans yesterday.”

  Found something. I freeze, suddenly aware of my heart, pounding louder than normal, so loud I’m surprised he can’t hear it too.

  He rises, flipping on a light board just to our left. What I presume is an image of my brain hangs there. I’m oddly relieved to see it looks normal, as if I thought it might be half a human brain and half something wildly improbable, like antennae or another set of teeth. “This,” he says, pointing at a black dot in its center, “is what we found. It’s so small I’m not even sure it’s what’s caused your seizures. Something of that size, in that location, should not be symptomatic.”