Parallel (The Parallel Duet Book 1)

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  I might be able to help, but I don’t want to get her hopes up. “The important thing is it’s happening.”

  “Yeah,” she agrees. The excitement has left her voice. “Probably.”

  “What do you mean by probably?” I demand. “This is what you want. There’s no probably about it. It’s happening.”

  She hesitates. I can picture her there, pressing fingers to her temple or twisting her ring. “I don’t know. If I put it toward a house, Jeff would be able to enjoy it…or he could sell it and move back to Pennsylvania and start over. It’s what he wants to do anyway. Is it selfish to spend that money on a degree I might never use?”

  Anger, sharp and all-consuming, pierces me. She has a fucking brain tumor. He should be turning over the world to make every one of her dreams come true. “No,” I hiss. “It’s not. What’s selfish is him asking you to do anything else with it.”

  “Well, once we’re married it’s our money, isn’t it? It won’t even be my decision anymore.”

  Jesus Christ. The idea of her really going through with this wedding kills me. The idea of Jeff keeping her from that degree bothers me almost as much. “Can you meet me at the harbor tonight? Around six?” I ask. “There may be something I can do. I need to make a few calls first.”

  She hesitates. “Sure,” she finally says, her voice soft and a little uncertain.

  And I begin to count the minutes until I see a woman I can never have.

  The light is already waning when I finally get out of the hospital. I walk fast, weaving through the throngs of students and tourists, a pulse of people entering Dean & Deluca, and another pulse trying to escape it. The sun is at half-mast by the time I reach the waterfront, and I scan the crowd with a sinking heart, wondering if I’ve missed her.

  She is sitting on a bench in a blue dress, the sheer fabric floating around her knees. The expression on her face is wistful as she watches the dancers. When our eyes meet, the wistful look disappears, and she gives me a smile that is pure sunshine.

  I take the seat beside her, trying to focus on my reasons for being here and not her proximity, her smooth skin, the smell of her shampoo. It’s harder than it sounds. “I placed a call today. A buddy of mine works in the admissions office. You’re in this fall, if you want to be. Most of the classes you’ll need will already be full. He said he can find a way to get you into the majority of them. He’ll email you in the morning.”

  Her mouth is open, her eyes wide and uncertain. “Wha…what? You got me into the fall class? Just like that?”

  I nod. “If you want to be. I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring you. I just thought—”

  She springs forward and throws her arms around me tight, laughing and crying at the same time. “Pressuring me? You just saved me!” she cries. “Oh my God, I love you so much!”

  Jesus, what I wouldn’t give to hear her say it for real.

  She releases me, pressing palms to rosy cheeks. “This is unbelievable! I’m starting school!” she squeals. “I’m really starting school!”

  She’s beaming, and it’s impossible not to smile back, but I still need to discuss something else with her and it’s slightly more sensitive. “I also talked to a friend who practices family law about protecting your money. He said a prenup would be best, but as long as you’ve signed the contract with Georgetown prior to the date of your wedding, the money from your father will be considered legally committed to your education and should precede any claim Jeff might have to it.”

  She gives a small nod. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “So much. I don’t even know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I just want to make sure you’re happy.”

  She bites her lip as her eyes flicker to mine. Maybe she hears the finality in those words, the way I’m trying to convince myself this is goodbye. And it does have to be goodbye. As much as I don’t want to walk away tonight, leaving her in Jeff’s incompetent hands, I also don’t have a choice. It’ll have to be enough for me to know she’s going back to school. Whether she marries Jeff or not, at least she’s getting something she wanted.

  I rise. “I think maybe you owe me a dance before we leave.”

  She looks up with cautious eyes, then slowly stands. “I really have no idea what I’m doing,” she says.

  I take her left hand and place it on my shoulder, before taking her free hand in mine. “Okay, just step,” I tell her. “One, two. One, two. Now rock step.”

  That dream I always have of us dancing—was it something in the past or was I dreaming about this, right now? What I mostly remember is how badly I wanted her. How badly I wanted to keep her with me forever. I feel it now, every bit as much.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, frowning.

  “I guess you won’t be too weirded out if I tell you I think I’ve dreamed about this?”

  Her gaze shifts away from me. “I have too. You used to…I mean, I’ve dreamed you used to come meet me outside of this evening class I took to walk me home. And one night we danced in the grass.”

  Her words settle, fill the blank spaces in my mind. I pull her closer. “Is that why you come here to watch?” Because if I’d known this existed, I think I would have come here too.

  Her smile flickers out for a moment as she looks around us. “I think so. And now it reminds me of—” She flushes, letting her words trail off.

  My hand presses to her hip. “What does it remind you of?”

  She focuses on the ground rather than me. “The night you proposed.”

  I stop dancing for just a moment, surprised by what she’s said, but even more surprised that I already sort of knew this. I can’t detail our past the way she can, but I know the color of it, the feeling behind it. I know I wanted to marry her, even if I can’t remember asking the question. “I feel like I knew that,” I tell her. She’s still embarrassed by the admission, so I pick up our steps again. “And now we do a little spin.”

  “I can’t sp—” she begins, but she is already twirling away from me, unfurling effortlessly like a spinning top before momentum pulls her back. She lands against my chest, and when I glance down, I find our mouths are inches apart. My eyes focus there a moment longer than they should. We’ve been here before too. Exactly here. I wonder if I wanted her as badly then as I do right now.

  She swallows and steps away. “It’s getting dark,” she says. There’s a breathless quality to her voice that would give me a semi if I didn’t already have one. “I should probably head to the Metro.”

  I want her to stay. I want this goodbye to never end, but it isn’t my choice. We head to the path along the water, though it’s the longer way to go. The sun is in its last gasp, coloring the sky in swaths of charcoal and pink. The crickets seem to begin chirping all at once, although it’s probably just that there’s finally enough silence to hear them.

  “I had another dream,” she says quietly. “The night we were in Baltimore.”

  I freeze. She’d be better off remaining unaware of some of what happened that night. “Yeah?”

  “About your brother.”

  My brother has been dead for over a decade, but the idea that she climbed into my bed seeking Ryan makes me want to throw my fist through a wall. “Please tell me you don’t remember anything sexual with my brother when you were apparently married to me but remember nothing.”

  She laughs. “No. It wasn’t like that. I was at homecoming with you, and he was there with…what was her name? Lisette Durand. She was French.”

  Jesus fucking Christ. She remembers things even I don’t remember. “So, I took you to homecoming and what you remember about it is my brother. You are singlehandedly destroying what remains of my self-esteem.”

  Her laugh is throaty, and the sound goes straight to my cock. “Are you jealous?”

  “Weirdly, yes.”

  “Don’t be,” she says, smiling. “We wound up in the back of your car.”

  I groan. This is not what I need to hear in a pu
blic place, but I can’t stop myself from asking for more. “And I guess that, just like our honeymoon, you mysteriously don’t remember what happened there either?”

  She flushes, her tongue tapping once against her upper lip. “Actually…” she says, “I do.” We’ve reached the Metro at the worst possible moment.

  “But you’re not going to tell me any of it, are you?”

  She shakes her head, blushing furiously. “Nope.” And, pressing her lips to the corner of my jaw, she turns and walks away.

  28

  QUINN

  Getting home from Foggy Bottom is never not a pain in the ass. It involves taking the orange line back to Metro Center, then catching the yellow line to my stop. I’m bumped and jostled, pushed forward as I climb onto the train, pushed backward when others join us. My toes are stepped on. I inevitably give up my seat for an old person or a child, while some douchebag sits with his legs spread, taking up two seats instead of one.

  Tonight is no different, yet I smile the whole ride home.

  Going back to school is a part of it, a big part of it— it means taking the classes I’ve been dreaming about for so long and telling Dee to kiss my ass sometime in the near future—but I’d be lying to myself if I gave it full credit. Because what really has me smiling right now, closing my eyes to remember the last hour more fully, is Nick. It’s dancing with him, having him walk me to the Metro, the call he placed that singlehandedly made something I’ve wanted for years happen in an instant.

  When the long ride finally ends, I walk home, preparing myself for less happy things—like the discussion with Jeff that’s coming. He’s in the yard when I arrive, playing football with Isaac, and I stay where I am for a moment to watch them.

  “Go long!” Jeff shouts and Isaac runs hard, catching the pass with his fingertips before he turns back to grin at Jeff, waiting for the praise he knows is coming.

  Jeff gives him a thumbs-up, beaming like a proud father. The sight makes me happy and sad at the same time, because this is who Jeff was meant to be. A dad and a football coach in some small town. But instead, he’s been trying to fit into my world, trying to constrict himself to my parameters, attempting one thing after another that doesn’t interest him or come naturally. He did all of that for me. Have I considered him once while I fantasize about someone else and make plans to quit my job?

  There’s a brick in my stomach as Jeff sees me walking toward him and smiles wide, clutching the football to his chest. His love for me is so pure and uncomplicated, but I can no longer say the same. “Hey babe,” he says, kissing my forehead. He throws the ball back to Isaac and waves to him as he wraps an arm around me and walks me inside.

  He opens the refrigerator door. “I was going to start dinner, but I wasn’t sure when you’d be home.”

  His goodness makes me feel petty and small. “I thought you weren’t getting in until later.”

  “I caught an early flight,” he says, squeezing my shoulder. “I just needed to see you after our talk last night. I know it’s been a pretty stressful couple of weeks, between your tumor and losing our reception hall. And maybe I’ve been pushing too hard on the house. I just really want—”

  “Georgetown is letting me start in the fall,” I say, all in a rush.

  His jaw swings open. “What? We said we’d talk about it.”

  “No,” I reply. “You said we’d talk about it. I want to finish my architecture degree, and I have the money to do it. I’ll give Dee notice sometime in the next few weeks.”

  “What the hell, Quinn?” he cries. “We discuss these things. You can’t just go off and do whatever you want.”

  I meet his eye, and I feel…different. Like there’s another version of myself eager to be brought into the light, one who’s tired of sacrificing. I’m giving up everything I could have with Nick, but I’m done pulling my punches. I’m done acting like his happiness and my mother’s matter more than mine. “Do we discuss these things?” I ask. “Because I don’t remember you saying a word before you quit your job. Twice.”

  “You know I’ve been trying,” he says, almost mute with shock. What he’s really saying is how can you throw this in my face right now? And maybe he’s right. I’m no longer sure of anything. “And what you’re talking about is so different. I tell you I might lose my job and you just decide to quit yours. Even if I keep my job, do you realize how tight things will be on one income?”

  My hand grips the counter. Did he really just ask me that question? We’ve been living on one income—mine—on and off for the past six years. I’m not sure I realized, until this moment, how much I resent him for it. “Of course I fucking realize how tight things will be,” I reply, and I march into the bedroom and shut the door behind me before I can say anything worse.

  I hear the roar of his truck, and instead of being worried that we’re fighting, I’m just really glad he’s gone.

  I want Nick right now. Instead I turn on Netflix and find Inception. Even watching it feels like a small act of rebellion. I’m two minutes in when Nick texts, and it doesn’t even surprise me. I needed him, and here he is.

  Nick: I’m listening to Everlong on repeat.

  Me: I’m watching Inception. It’s just starting.

  Nick: With Jeff?

  I hesitate. The impulse to whine to Nick about the fight we just had is an unworthy one.

  Me: No, he went out.

  Seconds later the phone rings. “I’ll watch it with you,” Nick says. “Where are you at?”

  I tell him, wondering if his girlfriend isn’t there or if he’s just been slightly more open with her than I’ve been with Jeff about all this. Somehow, I doubt he has.

  We watch, mostly in silence, aside from my occasional pleas for spoilers. “Is his wife going to be okay?” I whisper.

  His laughter is low. I can almost feel it against my ear, can almost feel his warmth against my side, smell his chlorine and shampoo. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Just tell me if—”

  He cuts me off. “Watch the movie, baby.”

  It’s a quiet thrill, that word. I wonder if he realizes he said it.

  At the movie’s end, I am weeping. Not pretty crying, but hysterical sobbing. “I’m so glad you can’t see me,” I say with some combination of laugh and sob. “I look like an idiot right now.”

  “No, you don’t,” he says quietly, certainty in his voice. “Did you like it?”

  I swallow. I am full and heartbroken at the same time. “It was the most gorgeous movie I’ve ever seen. But do you think he got home? I guess we’re not supposed to know.” My voice breaks. I can’t believe I’m crying this hard over a movie. “I think he got home.”

  “I think he did too,” Nick says. We sit in silence for a moment, and I let myself picture an entire life like this, one in which all the beautiful and painful things in the world are shared with someone else, someone who feels them and sees them like I do. My eyes squeeze tight. I wish I could have that. I wish he was mine.

  29

  QUINN

  The next morning, Dee barks at me from her office and I walk to her slowly, teeth grinding. I’m never in the mood for her bullshit, but that is especially true today with so many other things stressing me out. I still have not exchanged a single word with Jeff since our fight last night.

  Dee regards me with even more hatred than normal when I walk in her door, but I expected it. Today when I got ready I didn’t downplay anything. I put on my favorite pale gray sheath, red strappy heels, careful makeup. I knew I risked a day of her ire by coming in pink-cheeked and shiny. It was freeing that I no longer had to care. It’s freeing even now. I can’t believe I’ve spent so many years at this job I hate, cowering as if the fate of the world rested on remaining here.

  I haven’t decided when I will quit—it would make sense to wait until just before school starts, especially since Jeff could lose his job any second now—but I expect it’ll be the moment she pushes me too far. Which could be anytime, real
ly. Maybe today.

  She has a litany of complaints, of course. She hates the layout, hates the cover, she even hates the design elements she herself insisted on. Funnily enough, it bothers me less than it normally would, because at last there’s a finish line, a light at the end of the tunnel. Her time to use me as her whipping boy is running out quickly.

  I’m at my desk making yet another set of unnecessary changes when Trevor pulls up a chair beside me.

  “You look gorgeous today,” he says. “And way too happy.”

  I grin at him. “The times they are a-changin’.”

  “And now you’re quoting Bob Dylan,” he says. “So, you’re either morphing into a seventy-year-old or you finally got laid.”

  My phone chimes. Jeff’s name flashes across the screen and my smile fades. He was in bed beside me when I woke this morning. I took in his face, dredging up every good memory I had of us in order to feel the way I’m supposed to feel—but it didn’t work. “No one’s getting laid, I assure you. But I’m leaving early today, which is almost as good.”

  “To see Dr. Hottie?” he asks eagerly.

  I swallow. “We’re meeting with another doctor but he’ll be there, I think.”

  “Jeff and Nick in the same room?” he asks, eyes lighting up. “Can I come today? I’ll be your plus one. There’s bound to be punches thrown.”

  I laugh begrudgingly. “I’m not sure you bring a plus one to a doctor’s appointment. And there will be no fight. I plan to tell Jeff he has to be civil.”

  Trevor grins. “From what I saw the other day, I doubt it’s Jeff you need to worry about.”

  I hand Trevor the proofs for Dee on my way to lunch. When I return, Dee is waiting in reception, clicking those nails of hers on the desk in a failed attempt at self-control.

  “This is entirely wrong,” she says, handing me the pages I gave Trevor earlier.