“Ethan’s an ICU nurse,” Claire said. Over her shoulder, I watched Brody grimace.
Several handshakes later, they made their way to the cafeteria. When they finally crowded into the elevator and little Tyler had pressed the button, I whispered into Ethan’s ear. As he shook his head, a delighted giggle escaped me. I trotted ahead, Ethan not far behind.
He strode purposefully to my room and did several things that seemed normal, but I sensed he had other intentions. He checked the fluids that dripped from a bag above my head, confirmed my blood pressure, adjusted the bed’s elevation, then scooted up a green chair, sat down, and gazed into my face. From the opposite side, I gripped the bedrail for support. He was so extraordinary; it almost hurt to look at him.
And then I looked down at me in that hospital bed—and cringed. Poor Ethan. His view wasn’t anything like mine. Then again, I reasoned, he was probably used to seeing people all beaten up. Even so, it seemed ridiculously unfair. Me—Stephen King’s recent creation. And Ethan—part melancholy, part mystery, a dark-haired fairytale come to life.
He covered his face in his hands, and when he dropped them, the emotion that I witnessed there was so raw, so unexpected, that I couldn’t speak for several seconds.
He laughed, the sound of it more painful than pleasant. Then, drawing in a ragged breath, he leaned in closer to my body. He smelled like heat on skin—a woodsy, balmy, earthy mix that left me slightly out of breath. His green eyes were staring at me like he’d seen a ghost. He lifted one of my hands to his lips, turned it over, and tenderly kissed my palm. Raising my left hand, I marveled at the tingling inside it. When he’d touched me, I’d felt it!
“Hope, I need you to listen carefully,” Ethan began, his voice soft and deep. I felt a happy shiver knowing I had consumed his attention. “If you were awake, I probably wouldn’t have the courage to tell you this . . . I’m only telling you now because I believe that somehow, some way, you can hear me.” He held onto my limp hand, his eyes locked on my face. “Can you Hope? Can you hear me?”
There was a fire burning in his eyes and an insistence in his tone that I answer. I snapped to attention, squeezing the bedrail so fiercely that my hands slipped through it. Awkwardly, I straightened up, catching myself just before I fell into my body.
Slightly out of breath, I shouted, “Yes, yes, I hear you! I’m right here!” I hoped he would look to where I stood across from him. But his determined gaze never left my face. I could feel the intensity rolling off him, like waves of heat on a summer’s day. By sheer force of will, he was trying to make me wake up.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, silently encouraging him to go on. Given the big build-up, I’d expected to hear something momentous, life-changing, maybe, so it was almost a letdown when he said, “I think . . . no, it’s stronger than that . . . I’m certain that I know you.”
“That’s not so odd. I have one of those faces.” I grinned. Well, on a good day.
“Not so odd?” he asked, causing my heart to flutter briefly. For a fraction of a second, I thought he was answering me. But then I realized he was talking to himself. He squeezed my hand tighter, casting a quick glance around to see if anyone was near, then he dropped his voice again. “I should probably tell you I didn’t grow up here, don’t have family here, never visited here. And yet I have this certainty. How’s. That. Possible?”
His face brightened slightly; he seemed relieved to get this off his chest. “From the first moment I saw you, I knew it was true. You don’t look the same, and don’t ask me how I know it . . . but aren’t there some things you just know?” He smiled painfully, pausing to kiss my palm again. “I don’t know the details, but I do know this . . . You have to wake up! We need to figure this out! I get the craziest feeling we’re—”
“Ethan,” a stern voice called from the door. The older-looking blond wore scrubs like his, but she exuded such authority that I suspected she was the manager on duty. He placed my hand gently at my side, and stood slowly to face her disapproval.
On the surface, Ethan looked unperturbed as the blond yanked the privacy curtain across the glass, then closed the door to my room. But I felt a confusing mixture of anger and embarrassment that I didn’t think belonged to me. Maybe from Ethan. Or the blond. I wasn’t sure. But if these were Ethan’s emotions, they didn’t match his exterior. Standing at his full height in a sort of quiet defiance, only the clenching and unclenching of his jaw gave anything away as to the tension churning beneath the surface.
“Do you know this girl?” Her tone was nasally unpleasant. The woman’s eyes slid sideways to the bed, lingering, it seemed on his close proximity to me.
“In a manner of speaking,” Ethan said vaguely.
“I hope I don’t need to remind you about . . . attachments, and the point at which you’ve crossed the professional line.” Her attention snapped back to Ethan. “You should watch your step. You’re dangerously close to the edge.”
He clenched his jaw once. “I’ll be sure to do that. Thank you, June.”
June yanked back the curtain, mumbling something about double shifts and young nurses and exhaustion. “And that’s a requirement, not a request.” Ethan gave a brief nod, stealing one last look at me before following her out of the room.
3 Eavesdropping
Once the idea crossed my mind, it became impossible to resist. Given my limited experience with such things, it probably wasn’t a great idea. Not wise. Not well thought out. Possibly dangerous. But on some unfathomable level, I needed to know more.
It was a mystery, this whole, “I’m certain that I know you.” But the strength of his conviction made me question the possibility. There had to be a reason for it, didn’t there? Either he was the most confident person on the planet—or he was the craziest. And I was about to find out which one.
Leaving my hospital room, I could see that Ethan wasn’t at the nurses’ station, nor did I sense him anywhere in the ICU. The very notion that I could sense his presence, as if a magnetic force pulled us together, led me to question if there might be something to his confession. In reality, it seemed highly unlikely. Forget meeting Ethan? Not in the course of several lifetimes. Shoving aside any realistic expectations that it might be true, I focused on where he could have gone. June had told him to rest before he started his next shift. But where could a person rest in a noisy hospital? Did they keep a quiet little room somewhere for such a purpose?
The instant I wondered this, I knew where to go. I took the elevator down several floors, carefully waiting until it was nearly empty to avoid any patients or visitors and the possibility of experiencing their pain. All it would take, I guessed, was for one of them to walk through me. And, somewhat ironically, that’s just what I was counting on.
The room sat at end of a quiet hallway. I knew this was the one because when I pressed my hand to the door I could feel him inside. A good minute slipped by before I found the courage to walk through the door. Old habits, I supposed, died hard. One big breath and one strong tug later, I dragged myself through the steel door.
Dim emergency lighting illuminated a long, narrow storage room. Shelves stuffed with assorted cleaning supplies and paper products ran along both walls of the windowless room. Towards the back of the room, beyond a stack of mops and brooms clustered together, Ethan was stretched out on a rickety cot. His long legs extended six inches off the end of it. By the looks of it, he was completely out.
I knelt down and watched him for a while. It was thrilling to sit that close to him, without his knowledge, and study his expressions as he slept. He looked at peace. Happy, even. Much happier than he was a few moments ago. His eyes moved rapidly beneath his eyelids, assuring me he was dreaming.
Here was my moment.
In theory, it seemed harmless enough. But ethically speaking, I wasn’t sure if this crossed some invisible line so I tried not to think about it. Besides, Ethan looked happy, not upset. And it would only be temporary—momentary, I assumed. How bad could
it be for either of us? If a living person could invade my soul without any lingering effects, it seemed logical to assume that I could do the same. Difficult as it was to experience the tidal wave of another person’s emotions, the initial shock had to play an enormous role. But now, I not only had the perfect excuse to try it myself (it seemed the only way I would ever know what was going on in the mind of the alluring Ethan Reid); I also had the home-court advantage of knowing what to expect.
Like the boy at my accident, I planned to just step into Ethan. But with him lying down, that would leave me standing in the middle of the cot. Also, that didn’t seem like the optimum stance if I needed to get out quickly. Perhaps this thing worked if there was any kind of connection—even a slight one. Still kneeling beside him, I placed one of my hands over Ethan’s, gently at first, as though I were merely attempting to hold it, then squeezed hard. Instantly, my hand disappeared. And so did the room we were in.
What felt like a hammer struck me on the bridge of my nose. Tears of pain welled in my eyes as I dropped to my knees. Stars appeared. My eyes closed involuntarily and I waited for the throbbing to stop. A young girl’s voice shouted in disgust, “No fair, Finn! He wasn’t even looking at you! He never saw it coming!”
My eyes opened. Or rather, Ethan’s did. I saw a small lake, one that, in my mind, looked similar to a lake near Mac. But this one had more trees, not a pasture around it, so it couldn’t have been the same one. Ethan looked down at his hands, but the hands that I saw weren’t his hands. They were still a young man’s hands—but rougher, not quite as slender. This was a twist I hadn’t anticipated! I’d encroached into Ethan’s mind hoping to glimpse his thoughts. But, instead, Ethan was dreaming he was someone else, and I was inside his skin, experiencing life through his eyes, feeling his emotions as if they were my own!
The boy scrambled up, took a few staggered steps to the lake, and knelt down. I looked at his face in the water’s reflection. Angular, wholesome, honest. He looked about fifteen. His hair was a dirty shade of blond and his eyes were a bright blue. He dipped his hand in the water to wash away the blood, but it didn’t ease the throbbing in my eyes.
“Slug him hard!” the girl said to the boy at the water. He looked sideways at her. I thought his heart stopped. He was clearly smitten with her. The girl had her pale hair pulled up in a high ponytail and she was wearing a simple dress that looked out of style. Her feet were bare. “It doesn’t matter if he’s your older brother. He deserves it. Beat the dickens out of him!”
The young boy scrambled to his feet, and I could feel his anger building. Ten feet away stood his brother. They looked alike, but Finn was a few years older, with darker hair and fewer angles to his face. When their eyes met, the boy charged his brother like a bull gone mad.
He tackled Finn in mid-air. They tumbled around on the ground, neither of them getting in any good hits. Then the boy grabbed hold of Finn’s collar, drew back his left fist, and connected with his cheek. The blow hurt my hand, and no doubt, hurt Finn too. Finn rolled onto his side, and the boy collapsed beside him, the two of them exhausted.
The girl ran to comfort the boy, afraid to touch his bruised face. Her face left no doubt that she thought it looked painful. “You’re going to have quite a shiner,” she said proudly. “I like it. It makes you look tough.”
The boy leaned up on one elbow. “Are you saying I usually don’t?”
She laughed. “You almost have a prettier face than I do.”
“No one could ever be prettier than you,” he said, smiling and wincing.
“All right, love birds—I think it’s time for my exit.” Finn took his time getting to his feet, the swelling of his cheek already causing his right eye to close. “For once, you did good, baby brother. Guess I’ll make a man out of you yet.”
“You were molding my character?” the boy said disbelievingly. Standing up now, he reached for the girl’s hand. “Funny. I thought you were taking your personal frustrations out on my face.”
“Of course not,” Finn said wryly. “Like Lu said, your face was too pretty. That broken nose gives it some character.” He started to walk away. Without looking back, he called, “Bet no one ever sucker punches you again. Let that be a lesson to you. Never look away in a fight—especially at a girl.”
When Finn was gone, the boy and girl sat beside the lake. Lu’s eyes, alive with adoration, never left his. And, despite the persistent throbbing that made my eyes water, the boy was happy. Deliriously so. I could feel his adrenaline rushing and, in turn, mine rushed too. As his heart raced, a sticky swirl of emotions coursed through me. I could taste them on my tongue.
“I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you, you know that, don’t you?” Lu said. For looking all of fifteen, I was surprised at her boldness. But the boy wasn’t.
“I’d do anything for your happiness, Lu,” the boy replied with a laugh. “Anything at all—even if it means me having to marry you someday.”
“Not everyone could put up with me,” she replied. “I have a tendency to speak my mind. That’s not the way women are supposed to be—I’m supposed to stay home, cook dinner, have babies. You won’t be marrying that woman.”
Really? That didn’t sound right—cook, clean, have babies? But then I thought of her clothing. What—what year was this?
“I know I won’t be marrying that woman.” He looked into her eyes and sighed. “I want to marry you—feisty, outspoken, and unconventional. I’d marry you in this lifetime or any lifetime. You’re my girl, Lu. Always will be.” He kissed her gently. She returned it more forcefully and he winced again.
“Sorry, sorry!” She stood and reached for his hand. “Let’s get back to the house and put some ice on that.”
He pulled her back down and she fell across his lap. “Not yet.” He planted a long, slow kiss on her lips. It left me a little dizzy. And, strangely, jealous. He loved this girl in a way I had never been loved.
The dream jumped.
“Coming in?” the girl called. I heard a splash, and the boy turned in time to catch sight of her dress lying in a heap on the grass. She was almost halfway across the lake by now, her light blond hair trailing behind her.
His heart sped up. Mine did, too. He gave an appreciative laugh and began to pull off his clothes. “You don’t have to ask me twice!”
“It’s one of the things I love about you,” she replied as she reached the other side. “I barely have to ask once!”
Again, the dream jumped. Now they were lying side by side, staring up at the sky. His emotions were changing quickly, dipping into a darker place. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, and a hard knot in my stomach.
“I guess you heard the news.” His voice was low. “It was all over the radio this morning. The Germans have invaded Poland, and Britain has declared war.”
World War II? The 1940’s? I wondered, was he dreaming of another time?
“Maybe it will be over soon.” Her voice betrayed her true thoughts. She sounded afraid that the war might go on for a long time. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Hitler seems pretty determined it won’t end soon.” He pulled her body closer. “And you know I can’t sit back and do nothing. If it gets worse, like some people are saying it will, I’ll join up as soon as we graduate.”
She turned her eyes away, but I saw the tears there. “It won’t come to that, I’m sure. Besides, only your father seems to be talking that way. No one else thinks so.”
“Maybe not,” he told her, brushing away the tears. “But if it does, I’d like to know you’re behind me.”
It took her a moment to find her voice. “Don’t be silly. That war’s between Germany and Great Britain. We aren’t even involved. It can’t possibly go on for three years.”
“Maybe,” he said, but it didn’t sound like he meant it. For a while, the boy cradled her in his arms. When he felt her heart slow, he whispered, “You have half my heart, and I have half of yours. Nothing could ever keep us apart. Tha
t’s my promise to you.” He drew in a sharp breath, waited until Lu looked up. “You believe me, don’t you?”
She smiled a little, and the tension in my stomach eased. “I believe you think that,” she muttered. “But being mule-like seems to run in your family!”
“Takes one to know one.” The boy laughed, but there was an odd rhythm to it.
Bzz! Bzz! Bzz! The sound was getting louder.
Ethan shot up, swiftly breaking our connection. I plummeted through the cot and did a face-plant into the floor. Some part of me wondered what had happened, but I was too busy struggling to get my face out of the floorboards to give it more than a nanosecond’s thought. With a tremendous grunt of effort, I rolled slowly onto my back. It took several rubbery arm tries to push myself into a seated position. By now, Ethan had finished tying his shoes, and was exiting the room when he surprisingly stopped to scan the room. He wore a puzzled expression on his face, as though he sensed he wasn’t alone. Seeing nothing unusual, he let the door click quietly behind him. I sat immobile for what felt like forever, unable to even close my eyelids, my head and shoulders poking out of the cot. I was quite certain I looked ridiculous. Despite my lingering cotton-brain, I came to two conclusions:
1) I knew even less about this mysterious Ethan Reid than I knew before. And . . .
2) I was never going to do that again. Not if I could help it, anyway.
4 Guardian Angel?
Since I had intruded enough on Ethan’s thoughts for one morning—and recovery was slow, to say the least—I wandered the ICU for a while after that, mostly passing time in the hallway. I saw several people like me. I wasn’t sure if they were living or dead, but I smiled at them like we were old friends. Only one of them smiled back—a skinny little girl about eight-years old, with waist-length hair that was black and wavy, and a playful look in her dark eyes that made me wonder what she was up to.
Pieces of Hope Page 3