Parallel

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  His mouth twists as if he’s just eaten a piece of fruit gone bad. “Right. Your dad dies, and Jeff, who’d probably been after you for years, suddenly comes to the rescue.”

  I place my sandwich carefully on the plate and turn toward him. “He did, yes. Why are you trying to make that sound like a devious thing?”

  “I just suspect he had an ulterior motive.”

  I run my tongue over my teeth, feeling flustered and angry, though I don’t know why. While it’s true Jeff was interested in me well before I moved home, he didn’t act on it for a long time. He just remained quietly in the wings, helping us where he could. “He’s not a bad person, no matter what you think.”

  His eyes are as stormy as the clouds that now gather in the distance. “He’s also not quite as good a person as you seem to want to believe. He left you alone at the hospital after you had a very serious episode,” he says, his voice low and gritty. “He should have been there. He should have been home every fucking night since it started happening.”

  I want to cover my ears like a child, or simply walk away. “Well, we can’t all be doctors, Nick. He was trying to keep his job. And it’s how we were raised. Men wake up at 5 a.m. and work until dark, and they do it until they’re in the grave. That’s how Jeff shows he cares.”

  His jaw shifts. “That doesn’t mean you have to accept it.”

  This is a fruitless topic to explore. Nick was raised with different values. He will put whomever he ends up with first, always, the rest of the world be damned. There’s a piece of me that cries out for that kind of care, but it’s not reasonable to hope for it from Jeff. “Why are we discussing this?”

  He stares hard at the water. “Because I think you should cancel the wedding.”

  I glance at him quickly and away. I long to ask if he’s saying it as my doctor, or as something…more, but I doubt he’d tell me the truth.

  “Jeff is suggesting moving the date up,” I reply. “He wants to do something small and private next weekend instead.”

  His head jerks toward mine. “I wasn’t saying you should skip the big wedding. I was saying you should skip any wedding. You can’t seriously be thinking about marrying him next weekend.”

  My spine goes straight. “I’ve been with him for years. Why wouldn’t I consider it?”

  “Because you’re not in love with him,” he says, standing, fists clenched.

  “Ah,” I challenge, gathering our stuff as I climb to my feet, “but you and Meg are? It must be a real love story for the ages, what with you spending all your free time with me.”

  “I’m not marrying her.”

  My throat tightens, and I feel the start of tears…angry tears. “But you will,” I rasp. “Or someone just like her.”

  He steps toward me, pulling the bag from my hand and throwing it behind him before he cups the back of my neck and pulls my mouth to his. Without hesitation or gentleness, he kisses me, and the moment his mouth touches mine, all thought seems to stop. I am only a mass of nerve endings and sensation and want. There is heat and pressure and his hands sliding over my skin, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

  I moan against his mouth and he pulls me harder against him. I’ve missed this. My God, I’ve missed this. For years, for decades. I am molten, nothing but a collection of burning atoms, so weightless I could be floating in midair, for all I know. My hands are on his chest, but itch to lower, to pull at his shorts, to slide my dress around my waist.

  Sex for me has always been precise and careful, led by thought rather than impulse. This is the opposite of that. I’m driven entirely by instinct, some ancient part of me rising up and taking over. I want everything from him, right here on this splintery dock. I don’t care who sees. His hands are on my thighs and my greedy fingers are already sliding into his waistband before I come to a sudden, shocked halt.

  Jeff.

  I gasp for air, pushing away from him so fast that I stumble backward, steadied only by his hands on my hips. “Oh my God. What are we doing?”

  His hands soften, but he doesn’t let me go. “I must be ridiculously bad at this if that wasn’t clear.”

  “You’re about to move in with someone, and I’m engaged,” I reply, pressing a palm to my forehead. Yes, my actions around Nick haven’t been completely pure, and my dreams decidedly less so, but this crosses a line I can’t begin to rationalize.

  “I broke up with Meg the morning we came back from Baltimore,” he says, closing the distance I’ve placed between us. “Because I want to feel the way I do around you, and I’m not willing to settle for less than that. And you shouldn’t be settling for less either.”

  The world seems to stop. The birds are silent, the air grows still. Nothing exists but Nick in front of me, and this thing in my chest—terror and desire, twisting until I can’t tell one from the other. He’s offering me everything I want in the world, and yet something inside me panics at the thought of taking it. I hate the idea of disappointing Jeff and my mother, but that’s not what this is about.

  “Say something,” he urges. My hands are pressed to his chest, and I can feel, beneath them, his heart beating away at a pace that can’t be normal, his body taut with what could be desire, or could be impatience. I think of his hands tugging at my dress, the heat of his mouth on my neck.

  “I can’t think when you’re so close,” I whisper. “I need to leave.”

  He stiffens. “Quinn—” he starts, but I cut him off because he is too compelling, and already a big part of me is hoping he refuses to let this go, refuses to let me go.

  “I’m not a cheater,” I say quietly, focusing on his chest. “I…just need to think. And I can’t make a reasonable decision when we’re standing here like this.”

  Slowly, he releases me, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “I know what I’m asking of you is huge, and I’ll take you back to your car. Just please promise me you’ll consider it.”

  I tell him I will, but I suspect it’s a lie. Because I don’t really need to think, and it has nothing to do with the size of what he’s asked. What keeps me here, refusing to take what I want most in the world, is a truth it seems I’ve always known, one proven to me as a child: something dangerous lurks inside me, and it would only take loving someone too much to set it free.

  And if I allowed myself to, I would definitely love Nick like that.

  I’d love him far more than Jeff. In fact, I’m scared I already do.

  * * *

  The ride back is quiet. He drives slowly, but we arrive at the market much too soon. I’ve never been so reluctant to step out of someone’s car. If only his words didn’t make as much sense as they did. I may not have a lot of time left. Would it be so wrong to make myself happy while I can?

  I just don’t know.

  My eyes flicker to his mouth, remembering our kiss earlier. I want to lean over and bury my nose in his skin, consume that lingering hint of soap from his morning shower. I want to bite that lower lip of his and climb him like a ropes course. “Thank you for today,” I say instead.

  I reach for the door handle, and he tugs me back toward him, his hands grasping my jaw as he presses his mouth to mine for one long moment. I breathe, memorizing all of it—the smell of his skin, the softness of his lips, the pressure of his calloused hands. “Please come back to me, Quinn.”

  My ribs squeeze tight. I want to promise him something, but terror and desire…they’re equally weighted right now. Can I really abandon Jeff after he gave up everything for me? Can I move past this nameless fear and give in to that desperate, wholehearted kind of love I’ve felt for Nick in my memories of other lives?

  I don’t know. So instead of replying, I press my lips to his cheek, and then I slide from the car, refusing to look back as I walk away.

  33

  QUINN

  I’m outside your building,” I whisper. My voice is raspy from crying most of the way back to D.C. “Can you let me up?”

  Caroline has known me long enoug
h that she asks no questions. She merely says ‘of course’ and moments later her head is peeking out the door, looking one way and then the next for my car.

  We get up to her apartment. Even now, in my despair, it calls to mind the home of some Arabic princess in a Disney tale—a jewel box of rugs and artwork and furniture, all of it vivid and alive.

  I sit on her purple velvet couch and she takes the chair across from me, hugging a fur pillow to her chest. “Based on your current level of blotchiness, I estimate you’ve been crying for at least a full hour.”

  My laugh is shaky. It threatens to turn into a sob, but I pull it back just in time. “Good guess. You should have a show.”

  “Like the kid who talks to the dead, but I guess how long people have been crying?” she asks. “I can’t see how it could fail.”

  I smile, but I don’t attempt a laugh this time. Too risky.

  “So, what’s up?” she asks softly. “You and Jeff never fight.”

  “He left this morning for his camping trip,” I reply, flinching a little. He went away for his bachelor party and I cheated on him. I can’t believe I did it, but I can’t quite regret it either. “We aren’t fighting.”

  She tips her head, thinking, and then her mouth opens into a perfect circle. “Oh. My. God. You slept with that doctor.”

  She’s not accurate, of course, but she’s not that far off from it either, which is pretty impressive. “I didn’t sleep with him.”

  She leans forward, her whole face alight, more excited than she is concerned. “Tell me everything.”

  So I do. Jeff’s inability to sit through the movie. The trip to the lake. Nick asking me to call off the wedding. The kiss.

  That’s when her face falls. “That’s it? He only kissed you?”

  I manage another smile. Only Caroline would be disappointed that I didn’t cheat enough. “I kissed him back, and…I don’t know.” My voice catches. “I have no idea what I’m even doing anymore.”

  “Quinn,” she groans, “do I need to get a flashing neon sign? Or maybe have God descend from Heaven and speak to you directly? It’s so freaking obvious you shouldn’t be marrying Jeff to everyone alive but you and your mom.”

  I sink low into the cushions behind me. I want her to convince me she’s right. It’s probably why I came here in the first place. And, at the same time, I need to convince her she’s wrong—except the objections I can actually say aloud are weak ones. “I love Jeff.”

  “You may love him, but not in the right way,” she argues. “He’s familiar and you care about him, but there’s no spark. I’ve never once seen you light up about him the way you do when you’re discussing Nick.”

  “Even if that’s true, Jeff gave up everything to come down here. And my dad…he begged me at the end to choose him. It’s like he knew something I didn’t.”

  She leans forward. “He was a dying man high on painkillers, and you were his baby. He just wanted to leave the world knowing you were taken care of. And that’s sweet, but that doesn’t mean he was psychic.”

  It’s so tempting to let her sway me, but my fears remain. And I can’t imagine breaking up with Jeff this late in the game, especially when the rest of his life isn’t going so well.

  “At least tell me how the kiss was,” she urges. “Because if he’s the guy who uses too much tongue or whatever, you need to say so upfront, so I know whether or not to encourage your fling or discourage it. You know my opinions on tongue usage.”

  I laugh through my tears. “Yes, you prefer it sparingly. I know.”

  “And?”

  I can still feel the imprint of him on my mouth. The heat, the pressure. The smell of his soap, the needy way his fingertips pressed to my skin. I want to groan at the memory. “It was good,” I admit. Such an understatement. It was perfect.

  “Well, then I feel like there’s only one foolproof way to decide if you should go through with your wedding,” she says. “You have to sleep with Nick.”

  I glance at her to make sure she’s joking. I’m not entirely sure she is. “I’m not sleeping with him. I’m not a cheater.”

  “Fine. I’ll make the ultimate sacrifice and sleep with him myself and report back to you.”

  I know she’s joking, but it doesn’t stop jealousy from tearing through me like a white-hot needle. I bury my head in my hands. He broke up with Meg, but there will be someone to replace her eventually. Even if I choose him, there will be someone else eventually anyway, thanks to the tumor. And that thought makes me want to run from all this now, before it hurts even more.

  * * *

  Eventually I return to my empty home, despite Caroline’s entreaties to join her for enough margaritas that I “forget about Jeff entirely”. I move woodenly through all the normal things I’d do on a night at home. I shower, put on pajamas, and stick a frozen pizza in the oven. There is nothing different about my life. It just makes me feel numb. I think perhaps I’ve been numb for a very long time, and meeting Nick is what’s made me realize it.

  I watch hour after hour of a stupid sitcom that doesn’t elicit a single laugh. It’s after ten, and I’m preparing to go to bed when lights turn in the driveway. My heart leaps despite itself.

  Jeff’s deep in the Pennsylvania mountains right now. And there’s only one other person who’d show up at this hour.

  I know I should make him leave. Maybe I shouldn’t answer at all. But that eager, desperate part of me throws the door open anyway…to find Jeff climbing out of his truck.

  He carries his gear into the house and I hold the door, while disappointment continues to carve itself wide through my stomach. I’m not even capable of a fake smile, much less a real one. “What happened to your bachelor party?”

  He dumps the last of his gear in the foyer and points at the lightning off to the west. “It’s supposed to storm all night. Wasn’t really ideal for a camping trip.”

  There’s something forced in the words which makes me suspect I’m not getting the whole truth. “But…you didn’t want to go to a bar or something at least?”

  He raises a brow. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

  I should be. And maybe I actually would be if I hadn’t expected Nick in his place. If I buckle down, if I avoid Nick from now on and focus, could I be happy with what we have again? That’s the problem though. I’m not sure how you stop craving joy, and fullness, once you realize they exist. “I just hate that your bachelor party was ruined.”

  He steps close, backing me to the door. “I had an idea anyway, and it inspired me to come straight home,” he says. His mouth fastens on mine. His lips are dry and thin, the kiss perfunctory. Has it always been like this? I feel panicked, unable to respond, and my reluctance only makes him try harder.

  I slide away. “What was your idea?”

  “I was thinking about Vegas, like you said a while back—you were right. I booked us on the first flight out in the morning,” he says, pulling me back to him. “By this time tomorrow, you’ll be my wife and it will all be over with, just like you wanted.”

  I freeze. I’m…I’m just not ready. That other version of me, the one from London, says stop this. Tell him you can’t go. But I just stand here with a blank stare on my face and the words trapped in my throat.

  He laughs at my reaction. “Thought I was incapable of spontaneity, didn’t you?” he asks, wrapping an arm around my waist.

  I did. And I fall asleep wishing I’d been right.

  * * *

  Nick and I are in the master bedroom of the house at the lake. I hear the crinkle of a condom wrapper being torn. The mattress dips as he climbs in behind me, his hand grasping the curve of my hip.

  “You can still change your mind,” he says against my ear. “At any point. Okay?”

  I roll toward him. “I’m not going to change my mind.”

  Everything I want in life is a distant second next to him. Even the promise I made my mom. I think I’ve known this for a while, but when he pulled himself into the bo
at today and said those words—"I’d never just let you float away”—I felt it. And I knew it was time.

  My bikini is untied, and the bottoms are tugged down. His hand slips between my legs. “Jesus,” he whispers, pressing his face into my hair and breathing deep. “You’re already wet.”

  My hand slides between us, but he stops me. “Just the idea of it has me close. This will be over before it starts if you do that.”

  He moves down the bed. His breath skates over my inner thigh, closer and closer until he reaches my center. His tongue flicks—once, twice, again—and he slides a finger inside me the moment my back arches. He continues and after a moment he adds a second finger, glancing up at me to make sure I’m okay.

  It hurts but it’s oddly pleasant at the same time. His fingers move and it becomes less like pain, and more like a small fire that burns and warms simultaneously. I’m floating, anchored only by the pressure of his hand. And I want more.

  “Come up,” I plead and I feel a pulse of breath against me, his low laugh.

  “Not yet.” He adds a third finger and my objections die on my lips. It burns, but his tongue is moving faster and without even a second to warn him I shatter, squeezing those fingers of his so hard I’m surprised nothing breaks.

  I just came but it’s not enough. I lean up just enough to rest my hands on his shoulders and pull him down to me. “Now,” I demand.

  There’s a small, ragged noise in his chest at the words, need and capitulation and relief. He shifts until he’s right there. I feel that first hint of pressure, of the fullness that’s coming. “I’m not going to last long,” he groans.

  * * *

  Lightning strikes outside and I jolt awake, my entire body rigid, seconds from coming. Jeff is snoring quietly beside me and all I want in the entire world is to go back where I was. Because being with Nick just now felt so different, so much better, than anything I’ve ever known that I can’t stand not having it.