Page 24 of Parallel

“It’s Nick.” I pause. “Nick Reilly.”

“Hi Ni— Dr. Reilly.”

“You’ve gone on a honeymoon with me, so I feel like we ought to at least be on a first-name basis.”

She laughs. The sound is husky, intimate. I have to reach down and adjust myself, which is not exactly typical when calling a patient about her brain tumor. “I’m going to assume,” she says, “that you wouldn’t be making jokes if I only had a month to live.”

This is true, although since I appear to be incapable of behaving normally around her I couldn’t say for sure. “It’s all good news. We don’t see signs of increased blood flow to the area, which indicates it is not growing. It’s possible it’s been there forever.” I’ve never been so relieved by a scan in my life.

“So I’m okay?” she asks. “Aside from the bizarre knowledge of your personal history, that is.”

I grin and lean back in my chair. “Aside from that, I think so. We’ll still need to keep an eye on it, but as long as you don’t have any more incidents, a follow-up MRI in six months will be fine.”

Except, in six months, she could already be married to that tool I met in her room the other night. The thought makes me queasy.

“So if the scan looked okay, does that mean you can call something in for me, to stop the dreams?”

Why does a part of me want to tell her no? I sigh heavily. “We’ve got your pharmacy on file. I’ll call it in and check with you tomorrow to see how it worked.”

It takes a minute for us to actually hang up the phone. She seems as reluctant as I am to end the call. And I like her reluctance way, way too much.

12

QUINN

I’m fine. I’m going to live. It’s a relief…so I’m not sure why I feel vaguely disappointed when Nick hangs up. I pick up the phone to call my mother afterward but put it down again. She doesn’t know about the brain tumor because I didn’t want to worry her until I knew more, and I suppose there’s no reason to tell her now. Plus, she’s worked herself up into a fever over the fact that I’ve now passed out at the inn twice—which certainly doesn’t bode well for the wedding—and I don’t feel like listening to any more of her theories about why it’s happening. No pesticide or allergy has ever caused the problem I’m currently having. I concocted some theory about the sunlight from the lake affecting my pineal gland, and she’s gotten the inn to agree to let us place the tent in front of the main building rather than beside it, so I can avoid looking at the house if necessary.

I pick up the meds on the way to the Metro, bouncing them from one hand to the other during the long ride home. I don’t actually want to take them. I’ve seen myself falling in love with Nick, marrying him. It’s like a really engrossing TV show that’s just ended on a cliffhanger, and I’m desperate to know what comes next. Except, with each of these dreams, I fall a little harder for him, and that is so much more dangerous now that I know he exists.

Jeff’s in the yard when I get home, playing football with Isaac, this teenager who lives a few houses down from us. He’s in his element right now, and the sight of it is bittersweet. It’s who he was meant to be—a football coach, a big fish in a small pond—and I took it from him by moving here. My friends are less forgiving than I am of his job woes, but that’s because they didn’t know him back when he was succeeding. They’ll never understand how much he gave up to be with me.

My father saw that quality in Jeff. Knew he would always be there, loyal and steadfast in his devotion, willing to follow me wherever I went. I trusted my father’s views implicitly, and for good reason—I wasn’t the only one of us who sometimes knew things I should not. My father knew I was allergic to shellfish before I’d ever had it. He knew Matisse was my favorite artist before I’d ever set foot in a gallery. So sometimes I wonder if he knew things about my future that I did not, and wanted Jeff to be there by my side when they happened.

I cross the street and Jeff smiles over his shoulder, throwing one last pass to Isaac before following me inside.

“That kid has an amazing spiral,” he says. “He’s fast too. I could totally have him ready for JV if his mom would just agree.”

We make dinner while he continues to tell me Isaac’s strengths, and bitches about Isaac’s mom’s fear of concussions. That stupid Will Smith movie made everyone paranoid. You know what sport has the most injuries? Cheerleading.

I was worried my news about the brain tumor would ruin our evening, but the whole time we’re cooking he never asks once about the MRI. I try not to let it bother me.

Over dinner he complains about the new asshole at corporate and some policy on travel reimbursement I’m unable to care about. I wait for him to finish his diatribe, resentment churning in my stomach, but when he’s done with that he moves on to another topic entirely.

“We need to go back to that development in Manassas,” he says, oblivious to my unhappiness. “The agent called today and said the model is open.”

I’m already in a bad mood, so the suggestion hits me poorly. “I told you I don’t want to live in Manassas. It would take me two hours to get into work.”

He shrugs. “Well, it’s not like you have to work in D.C.,” he says. “You can get a job anywhere.”

I grind my teeth. I go out of my way not to remind him about his employment history, but the fact that he’s managed to stay at his current job for four months doesn’t mean my job is suddenly irrelevant. “Washington Insider pays me twice what anyone else will,” I remind him. “And there have been months when we’ve needed every penny of it to pay our bills.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. His shoulders sag and I immediately want to take it back. “I know it’s been rough going for a while. But it’s not like we’re completely screwed if one of us is out of work. You’ve never even touched your inheritance.”

Just like that I’m irritated again. “I want that money to go toward something special. I’m not going to fritter it away on things we should be able afford on our own.”

“You thought you were going to use it on school,” he argues, “but obviously that’s no longer happening. I get not wanting to fritter it away, but let’s at least put it toward something like a house. We can’t stay here. We need a place where we can raise a family.”

Nothing he’s said is untrue, but my stomach sinks all the same. Once that money’s gone, it’s gone. And with it, any lingering hope of becoming an architect. I know it’s probably never happening, but the idea of giving it up hurts anyway. “Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”