Parallel

by O'Roark, Elizabeth

  I sit, curling my knees to my chest and pressing my face against them. In a few hours Jeff and I will be heading to the airport and it’ll be over. I’m never going to risk anything and I’m never going to know what it’s like to hand myself over to another person, to love someone so deeply and want him so much I’d give up anything on his behalf.

  Outside, the storm is upon us, and the thunder hammers overhead, making our house shake like a terrified small thing. I slip out of bed and stand by the window, watching the trees sway. My father told me a story once, during a storm just like this, about the good wind and the bad wind. He said they came one day to visit a little girl just like me, because all of his stories were about a little girl just like me. The girl had waited a long time for the good wind to come along and blow all kinds of wonderful things inside, but when it finally came knocking, the bad wind was right there alongside it, which meant she couldn’t let in one without letting in the other. “All the wonderful gifts the good wind would bestow could only come alongside the bad wind’s chaos and disaster,” he said.

  “Couldn’t she tell the good wind to come back later?” I asked, and he shook his head.

  “They’re a package deal. So nothing bad ever came into the house, but nothing good did either. And that’s when the girl discovered there was something far worse than the bad wind.”

  I frowned at him. “What?”

  He picked me up and set me in his lap, and I think it’s only because his voice was so grave and serious when he replied that I remember the story at all. “What’s worse than the bad wind is the emptiness of letting nothing in at all,” he said.

  It puzzles me now, that story. I’d almost forgotten there was a time when he wanted me to eschew safety, to soar to greater heights. But when the end came he wanted the very opposite for me. What changed? Is it possible my father knew about Nick somehow? Because it seems obvious that finding Nick is the point at which my life seems to end, again and again, and pushing me toward another man might have seemed like the only foolproof solution left.

  I glance over my shoulder at Jeff and, though I couldn’t begin to justify my behavior if he were to wake, I open our window to the storm. Just a crack. Because, at the moment, even a bad wind would be welcome. Anything would be better than the emptiness I feel right now.

  * * *

  It’s still storming outside when I wake. Jeff is up and dressed, standing at the end of the bed. “I’m glad you’re up. I figure we might want to get to the airport early because of the weather. I don’t want to get bumped off our flight.”

  I swallow as I look at the empty duffel he’s left on the end of the bed. “Okay,” I whisper, taking the bag into the closet.

  I just need to think. I need time.

  And there isn’t any.

  I unzip the bag and begin filling it. My wedding dress is still at the bridal boutique, so I shove another dress in the bag instead, ambivalent about the fact that it will be crushed when we arrive. I can’t believe this is really happening. With each passing moment I get closer to a Vegas wedding while some voice in my head screams Stop! Stop! with increasing distress.

  “Don’t forget your swimsuit,” Jeff calls.

  Am I really doing this? Will we be at some hotel pool tomorrow as newlyweds? I open the drawer where I keep my bathing suits, but my hand climbs past the ones I wore all summer to an older one. Red, tiny.

  It makes me think of Nick. For that very reason, I should not pack it, but I do. If I could, I’d clutch it to me like a blanket throughout the whole ordeal to come.

  * * *

  The car arrives, and I take my purse and carry-on to the tiny Honda idling by the curb, the wind whipping my hair around my face. The car smells like something fake and floral, barely covering the odor of dirt beneath. Like our wedding will be—me saying all the right words to cover the ugly ones. I don’t want this. I think I’m in love with someone else. You don’t make me happy.

  “I’m not sure we can take off in this weather,” I suggest.

  “It’ll be fine. They take off in worse weather than this all the time.” His fingers wind through mine. “How weird is it that the next time you’re back here, you’ll be Quinn Walker?”

  A chill climbs up my spine. I catch my reflection in the driver’s rearview mirror—pale beneath my tan, eyes wide and scared—just as a burst of wind brings the trees to swaying, terrifying life. Inside the car, we are sheltered from it, breathing in only the dirt and its fake floral overlay. And I am so absolutely still, and empty.

  I am suffocating here. I need to let the wind in, both the bad and the good. My father gave me two different messages. I don’t know what changed, but the version of him that wasn’t dying and drugged would never want this for me. He’d want me to embrace the unknown, even if it was dangerous.

  Yes, Nick could break my heart, could hurt me in ways that make the tumor’s damage seem minimal by contrast. But maybe even that is better than this stillness, than being so empty inside I’m not sure I care if the plane goes down. There are worse things than chaos and disaster. There is death.

  This, with Jeff, feels a lot like death.

  The cab turns into the airport’s entrance and pulls up to ticketing. Jeff jumps out first, grabbing his bag and setting mine on the curb. “Wait,” I tell the driver as I slide out. Jeff is halfway to the doors before he realizes I’m still by the car.

  “I can’t do this.” The sound of the words shocks me.

  He comes back and reaches for my hand. “Quinn, it’ll be fine. They aren’t going to put the plane up in the air if it isn’t safe.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not talking about the plane. I’m talking about the wedding.” I slide the ring off my finger. “I can’t marry you. I’m so sorry.”

  He steps close, wrapping his hands around my arms. Just like Nick did the other day, only his grip is hard, bruising. “Stop this,” he hisses. “We made a plan and we’re seeing it through.”

  My heart stutters, trips over itself. “No.” I try to pull back, but his hands tighten. “Let me go.”

  “Let’s just get on the plane,” he says, struggling to control his voice. “We’ve already got tickets. If you really don’t want to go through with it when we get there, we won’t. We’ll just have a fun night in Vegas and come home.”

  I’m tempted to go along with it, to not make a fuss, because that’s who I am. That’s who I’ve been with him, always. Except I don’t want to give him another day, or another hour, of my life. He’s had far too many of them as it is. “I’m sorry, Jeff. I’m so sorry. But our life just doesn’t make me happy.”

  A vein in his neck throbs. “I can’t believe this shit. Since when does our life suddenly not make you happy?” he demands. “Since you met Nick?”

  No, I think. Our life always made me unhappy. I just didn’t realize it until I saw something better. “You’re not hearing me,” I tell him. “I probably only have a year or two to live. I’m not sure how I want to spend it. But I know this isn’t it.”

  I pull out of his grip and step into the Uber before he can find a way to stop me. He’s banging on the window and trying to open the door, even as we pull away.

  34

  QUINN

  It should only take an hour to get to the lake, but between the weather and the beach traffic, the trip takes twice as long. It would feel long anyway. Now that I’ve made my choice, I’m desperate to see Nick, and every minute I’m stuck behind the wheel seems to occur in slow-motion.

  Yes, maybe there’s something evil inside me. And maybe Nick is what will set it free. I’m going to risk it because the reward—him—is too great to miss out on.

  Jeff is calling, again and again. I don’t answer, but just before I can turn it off, my mother calls too… and ignoring my mom when she’s upset is never a good idea.

  I answer to find her crying uncontrollably, already drinking though it’s not even noon. My mother isn’t an alcoholic, but when she has a drink or two she flies o
ff the rails. Soon she’ll be buying stuff she doesn’t need off QVC and telling anyone who will listen that she’s heartbroken and her life isn’t worth living. Abby’s been the one monitoring her mood of late, but I’m guessing, thanks to what I’ve done, she won’t be willing to comfort my mom anytime soon.

  I’ve probably just ruined the relationship she has with her best friend and the man she considers a son. She’ll be completely alone when I’m gone. It’s a thought that brings all my misgivings to the surface. If it were for anything less than Nick, I’d probably have called Jeff and taken it all back by now.

  I tell her I’m coming up there, make her promise to stop drinking, and turn off my phone entirely. She and Jeff are the two people I’ve carried, in one way or another, for most of the last decade. It’s a relief to know that for a brief period of time, I won’t have to carry anyone but myself.

  * * *

  The drive is uneventful, despite the weather. It’s only when I reach Nick’s exit that the nerves hit. I have no idea how it will work. From what he’s implied, I doubt he’s allowed to date a patient. Right now, I don’t really care. I’d live quietly in his basement, hidden from sight, if it meant we could be together. But what if he isn’t so willing? I know what he said yesterday, but people say all kinds of things in intense moments, before they’ve thought them through. At heart, Nick—like me—is logical. And potentially risking your job for a girl who may not even be around in a year is hardly that.

  I pull into the parking lot of the market where Nick and I met yesterday and walk inside. Behind the counter is the same old guy who teased us about condoms in another life. “Hope you’ve got an umbrella,” he says, glancing from me to the windows outside. The sky has turned ominously dark all of a sudden. “There’s a flood warning.”

  I smile without teeth and head to the bathroom, where I wash my hands just for something to do and look at myself in the mirror. There, I see clearly the girl Nick married at least once, and chose more than once. I think of what Caroline asked yesterday—if the situation were reversed, would I want to be with him in spite of everything? And my answer is the same. Yes, I would. And he would too.

  I walk out the bathroom door, waving to the woman we ordered sandwiches from yesterday, and then come to a shocked, stumbling halt. Up ahead, at the front of the store, is someone I recognize. Not from some past life, but from this one. From the photo in Nick’s office.

  Meg.

  It cannot be a coincidence that she’s in a market a mile or two from Nick’s parents’ house. It can’t be.

  It takes me a second to move my frozen limbs. I step into an aisle, letting a display of chips block me from her view but not blocking her from mine. She’s even prettier in real life than she was in the photo, and she’s obviously put forth a level of effort I never have. Her hair is curled and her makeup is done. The guy at the counter is asking about her car. I peek into the parking lot, and there, beside my fifteen-year-old clunker with its rusting paint, is a sleek, silver BMW.

  “Lot of dirt roads around here,” the guy says. “Gonna be a mess with all this rain. Hope you’ve got a four-wheel drive as a backup.”

  Yes, Meg, the roads are bad. Maybe you should go home.

  “It’s okay,” she replies with a too-wide smile. “My boyfriend has a Jeep.”

  The potato chips rattle as my body sags against the display. Even as my brain scrambles to create any explanation for why she would be here, I already know the most obvious answer is usually the correct one. Nick called her to reconcile after I left, if he ever really broke up with her at all.

  I wait until her car pulls away before I walk out of the store. My shoulders are back and my is head up, but I’m made of twigs right now, skeletal and frail, ready to collapse—which I do, the moment I get in the car, leaning my face against the steering wheel and weeping like a child.

  Why did it take me so long to leave Jeff? And Nick…did he even wait until I was back on the road yesterday before he called Meg and invited her out here? It takes all my self-control not to turn on the phone and rage at him, blame him for my disappointment, ask him why he said any of those things when he clearly couldn’t have meant them. Mostly I’m just so…blindsided. I wouldn’t fault him at all for deciding I wasn’t worth the risk. But I never thought in a million years he’d change his mind so easily. And maybe if he knew I was here he’d change his mind about her, but if he did, he wouldn’t be the person I know he is.

  Or the person I thought he was, anyway.

  I’m still crying as I turn my car on and head back to the highway, toward my mother’s house. Time no longer drags for me. I’d like as many minutes as possible between now and the moment I have to stand in front of her defending my decision to leave Jeff—never mentioning that I did it for someone who decided he didn’t want me back.

  * * *

  When I get up to Rocton, I don’t go straight to my mom’s. It’s not a conscious decision, but when I find myself at the river I’m not surprised. It’s where I came when I was young too, all those times when it seemed like I didn’t belong.

  I park on top of the hill, and go sit on a big rock since the ground is soaked, letting my legs dangle over the edge. This view—the lazy river winding endlessly in both directions—used to be one of my favorite things in the world, but today it doesn’t touch me. I look at it, but all I’m seeing is Meg’s face in the convenience store, vivid with excitement. I understand that feeling. It’s exactly how I felt too, until the moment I saw her there.

  Did he kiss her the way he kissed me on the dock yesterday? Did he tell her all the things he told me? I’m incapable of imagining it. The man I thought I knew just wouldn’t do this.

  I dry my tears and take one last glance at the river. As a child, coming up here reminded me that the world was incomprehensibly large, and in it, somewhere, I was bound to find my place, and the one person who would accept me the way I am. Now it just reminds me that so many of the things I wanted as a child didn’t come true.

  I drive down to the far side of town, to the neighborhood my mom moved to after we sold the farm. It’s only a few miles away, but it feels like a different world: shiny, hollow, artificial. All the trees are new and all the houses look the exact same.

  God, I don’t want to be here.

  I don’t want to hear everything she’s about to say. As bad as I feel about what I’ve done, my mother will manage to make me feel worse, and I can’t even blame her for it. I know how this town works: she’ll never walk into the grocery store again without being the object of gossip. Without people discussing what her daughter did, how she and Abby are no longer friends. For the rest of my life, I’m going to be the girl who broke poor Jeff Walker’s heart. And for the rest of her life she’ll be the mother of that girl.

  I tap once on the door and then—guessing correctly that it will be unlocked—I walk in. She’s waiting for me in the kitchen with a thin smile and circles under her eyes.

  “Have you eaten?” she asks, walking to the refrigerator. In two seconds, she’s got a pan on the stove and is unloading the contents of the dairy drawer. I feel a sudden burst of affection for her. Even in a crisis, even when I’ve destroyed her, she still wants to make sure I’m fed. “I could make you a sandwich, but I only have mozzarella. Or if you can wait, maybe we could just go out to dinner. There’s a cute little cafe now, where the barber shop used to be—”

  “I’m okay, Mom,” I reply. I give her a tentative smile. “So how much have you bought off QVC?”

  Her hands grip the counter, her head sags, and I finally see what all her bustling around the kitchen has been hiding—intense disappointment, grief, shame. All caused by me. I should have known a joke wouldn’t lighten the mood. We’ve never had that kind of relationship. “I just don’t understand how you could have done this.”

  I lay my palms flat against the old oak table. It fit in the farmhouse, but it’s too worn and heavy for this bright room with its thin walls. “I never meant f
or any of this to happen. But the tumor has put everything in perspective,” I say, carefully skirting around how limited my time may be.

  She frowns. “Jeff thinks it’s the tumor making you behave this way.”

  The softness I felt just a moment ago, watching her move around the kitchen, is gone. In its place is something sharp-edged and cold. I know I’m not the daughter she wants. I never have been. She wanted a normal child who couldn’t occasionally predict the future, who didn’t wake knowing things she shouldn’t. And maybe any parent would, but I’m still her child. Her only child. And that’s where her loyalty should lie. “How long have you been having conversations with Jeff about me?”

  “I’m just—” She stops, throwing up her hands. “I know you won’t want to hear this, but you have to look at it from my perspective. Imagine if I had some disease. If I were schizophrenic, for instance, and suddenly decided to give away all my belongings and live on the streets—you’d intervene, wouldn’t you?”

  I’m more weary than I am angry. “I really hope you’re not comparing my tumor to a severe mental illness.”

  “I don’t know what to compare it to!” she cries desperately. “You’re making a lot of decisions that don’t make sense. You and Jeff were really happy together, so I have to question it when you suddenly decide you want nothing to do with him.”

  I’m not sure why Caroline and Trevor figured out so easily that I wasn’t entirely happy with Jeff, while my mom doesn’t appear to have a clue, but I’m guessing it’s my fault: ever since her breakdown after my father’s death, I’ve been on a tight wire, trying to keep her safe from grief or disappointment. Just as I did with Jeff, I made it my mission to hold her together in the wake of tragedy—a role I never allowed myself to retire from. And part of that was convincing everyone I was thrilled to be dating her best friend’s son.