As if I’d truly lost my mind, he sighed in response. “Like I said . . . just another face to me. But I am curious—when is the last time you took a good look at yourself?”
“Don’t change the subject,” I snapped.
“Indulge me,” he whispered politely.
I rolled my eyes.
Positioning myself beside him, I roughed up the surface to clear away the drifting petals, and as it settled down again, I gasped. Side by side, in the water’s flat reflection, I saw two faces. One was Ethan’s. How could anyone ever forget that face? A tempting blend of melancholy and mystery, my dark-haired fairy tale come to life.
But the other face staring back at me was almost unrecognizable.
It was mine—that much I knew. And then again, it wasn’t. This new face was the perfect counterpart to the one beside it. The one with the tousled hair, and bearing that overly confident grin. This new face was definitely prettier, with chestnut hair that fell in loose, soft waves around it, and staring back at me with clear, and oddly inquisitive eyes.
“I look so different,” I muttered in disbelief. “How can that be?”
“You’ve always looked like that to me,” he said, suddenly making everything clear. That had to be it. This was the way that Ethan saw me.
I bit my lip. “I hope you’re not disappointed when you see the real me.”
Still kneeling, Ethan twisted to face me. He looked into my eyes, imploring me to understand. “I already see the real you, and that won’t ever change. You have no idea how long I’ve looked for you.”
Before I could speak, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him. With his free hand, he caressed my face. Patiently, he explored the bow of my lips, the curve of my chin, eventually allowing his fingers to drift down my neck and linger on those little bones around my throat.
I did my best to stay still as he touched me, to force my mind to stay clear. Every sleeping emotion inside him seemed to pour from his fingertips. The effect was numbing. Though I had been touched before, in a first love sort of way, my experience with Daniel wasn’t anything like this.
I was still willing air into my lungs when he kissed me. For once, probably for the first time in my life, I didn’t try to think. I wanted only to feel the sensation of Ethan. My hands flew to his hair, pulling him closer. Urgently, insistently, we kissed—as though we both feared the world might end in the next sixty seconds. And, on the off chance that it did, I wanted to go out just like this.
Still entwined, we tumbled sideways onto the damp ground. For the next several minutes, my mind was deliciously empty. It was amazing what you could feel when your mind was void of everything. If I’d ever questioned whether Ethan cared for me, I no longer did. When he touched me, I knew. When he kissed me, I knew.
Later, in one of those moments of nonthinkingness, Ethan lifted me off the grass and carried me to the boat. “Your clothes are all wet,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t want you to catch a cold.”
It was sweet, but utterly impossible. Still, I didn’t correct him. If Ethan wanted to spoil me rotten in any realm, so be it.
Aside from the petals, the bottom of the boat was strewn with what appeared to be hand-made quilts. As I settled into their bedlike softness, Ethan explained that they were his great grandmother’s and that she’d given him one each year on his birthday, right up until the year she died. Altogether, he had fifteen of them.
As he pushed the boat away from the dock, gathering the rough oars in his hands, I thought my happiness was so great it might swallow me whole. From my seat opposite him, I smiled with mixed emotions—secretly pinching myself for being so lucky, and totally terrified of losing him to something unknown.
I dipped my finger in the chilly water, watching the trail that lingered in its wake. Without meaning to, I looked at him, and a single thought slipped out. “Would you care to tell me what I’ve done to deserve this?”
“I already told you,” he said quietly. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
As Ethan busied himself with the oars, I had a moment to think. Now and then, a breeze would lift and it would start raining flowers again.
“I wish I could be as certain as you are,” I admitted. “I mean, about before. I don’t understand how you know it’s true. How can you be certain it’s me?” And what I wanted to ask, but couldn’t was, Would you like me as much if I turned out I wasn’t?
He smiled now, ceasing his rowing to gaze at me intently, and making me wonder if he’d heard my thoughts. Thankfully, that could happen only at the Station, but knowing Ethan’s strong intuition, I wondered if it were possible. At the very least, he often sensed my emotions, which coincidentally, I was presently fighting to get my head above—very much a lopsided battle of late.
I’d stretched my legs across his lap, and Ethan was lazily running his fingertips up and down them as if I hadn’t said a word. After a few moments, I saw something flash in his eyes, and his hand stopped moving. It took several seconds for the tingling to stop.
“Maybe we’re looking at this backwards,” he said. I felt my eyebrows knit together. “I mean—have you ever, in the absence of any proof, been certain of something?”
Nonchalantly, I said, “I’ve suspected at times, I suppose.” Wishful thinking was one thing. Certainty, quite another.
“So you’re not one hundred percent sure,” he said agreeably.
I shook my head, baffled by his unwavering optimism.
He thought again, and then continued, “Has anyone else ever told you that they were certain of something, and without question you believed them?”
I was surprised at how quickly it popped into my head.
“My mother told me that from the first moment she kissed my father, she knew he was the one. She said that one day I would know it, too. One kiss would tell me everything I needed to know.”
“And you believed her?” I listened for it, but there was no judgment in his tone.
“Yes.” I felt my face flush. Once again, I asked myself if he could hear my thoughts. Did he know how I felt when he kissed me?
“Mmmm . . . so you believe in fairytales?” he mused.
It took a second to respond. I was remembering the way I used to cringe when Mom brought up Cinderella. And then I thought of my description of Ethan . . . part melancholy, part mystery, my dark-haired fairy tale come to life.
“I didn’t used to,” I admitted, skipping over any explanation. “But I saw how happy my mom and dad were, and if she knew that he was the one from their very first kiss, maybe there’s something to it.”
“And maybe your day isn’t too far off.” He was so sure of himself it defied common sense.
“Maybe,” I admitted, his persistence wearing on me.
The boat had drifted into the middle of the pond, and the sun peeked in and out of the trees. The shifting light reflected off of his skin, making him appear golden and then dappled. My heart ached as I watched him, the way it did when you were scared to death of losing something extraordinary.
“Does this visit seem a lot longer to you?” I dipped my finger in the water again, watching the ripples left in its wake.
“Bored with me already?”
I looked up. “Bite your tongue.”
He gave a short laugh. “I did it on purpose. For once, I don’t feel like I’m running off the minute I get here. But any length of time with you feels like too little time,” he confessed.
Now I was more than curious. “How’d you do it?”
“I went to bed early and I don’t have to work tomorrow—though I’ll definitely have to check up on you—so that gave us more than our usual amount of time together.” His gaze flicked away. He stared blankly at the oars.
Something didn’t feel right. The hair on my arms stood up.
“What aren’t you saying, Ethan?”
“I’m not keeping secrets,” he insisted. “I just don’t want you to worry.”
“Why are sent
ences like that always followed by a but?” I asked.
He continued to avert his gaze, eventually looking guiltily back at me.
“I experimented a few days ago by taking a couple of sleeping pills, thinking they might knock me out longer. I don’t usually sleep longer than five hours a night,” he explained, as though this justified his behavior. “But, well, something . . . happened.”
“What?” I grabbed his hands, recalling Creesie’s words about harm and Ethan and soul-to-soul visits. “What happened?”
“You never showed up. Or I never dreamt. Or . . .” He scowled. “Maybe the pills put me in too deep of a sleep to find you.”
I wanted to be angry with him for behaving so irresponsibly, but I kept seeing the image of my body lying back in the ICU, the one that Ethan cared for every day . . . the one rapping not-so-softly on death’s door.
“Please don’t do that again,” I urged quietly, as my heart slowed to a normal beat. “I’m sure that can’t be good for you.”
“Unless you’re setting the example, I’m going to have a hard time following your advice.” He was trying to keep his voice level, but his irritation was obvious.
I swallowed hard, unsure of what to say yet unwilling to discuss it further. It took a while to find my voice. “Please don’t be angry with me, Ethan. I’m not sure my heart can take it.”
“I’m not angry, Hope, I’m—” But instead of finishing his thought, he scooped me up and, in one swift movement sat me down gently on his lap. I tucked my head into his neck. He smelled like the woodsy scent at his apartment. Then he began again, though I wasn’t convinced it was the same thought he had started a moment ago. “I—I was thinking about what you told me,” he said. “About your mother . . .”
“Yes?” I responded, secretly hoping there wasn’t a difficult question coming—one I might have to dance around or ignore, and risk upsetting him again.
“I know, too,” he announced, probably assuming I knew what he meant. But I was too busy getting lost in the sound of his voice. It vibrated pleasantly on my cheek where I’d pressed it against his throat.
“You know what?” I asked.
“You’re my one.” His voice was suddenly hoarse. “There’ll never be another.”
“Never is a very long time,” I teased, ignoring the pleasant tingles that ran down my spine, “and you haven’t met all the people in the world yet. Honestly, there could be another someone somewhere—”
Ethan abruptly lifted my chin, startling me. I could see the misery in his eyes, a sadness that seemed to seep into his soul. I longed to make that misery go away, and I knew what would do it, but the words refused to form.
I’m coming back, Ethan—I am!—I’m coming back!
“I’ll never love another, Hope. I’ve know it since you—”
I was staring at him wide-eyed, and it must have dawned on him how shocked I was. It had nothing to do with his heartfelt confession. But given my missing backbone, he would probably think that was the reason why. I scrambled to explain, but his tortured expression suddenly disappeared into a tenuous grin.
“I knew it long before I kissed you,” he began. “For the record, I’d say it was—”
Before he’d finished his thought, I grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled him to me, and pressed my mouth to his. He was definitely surprised, his mouth still slightly open from speaking, but that faded within seconds, replaced with an utter disregard for reason that I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried. The twin sound of our hearts thrummed in my ears and, for once, Ethan’s ragged breathing matched mine. There was a sense of urgency radiating between us, as though this opportunity might never come again. Though I tried to ignore it, a nagging voice whispered repeatedly in the back of my mind that time itself . . . that endless, indefinable entity . . . was . . . running . . . out.
The voice was nearly unshakeable, but suspecting that my guilt was the source of it, I focused instead on the sound of Ethan’s irregular breathing, the altering pressure of his lips on mine, the feel of his hands in my hair . . .
And then, inexplicably, the hair on the back of my neck stood up—the way it did when someone was watching me. My eyes flew open. I watched a shadow flit across the lake. Across the lake? Shadows didn’t move like that. What, or rather, who was here? If they weren’t already dead (and the odds were that they were), I was going to kill them a second time for interrupting my kiss.
I loosened my grip on Ethan and leaned back a few inches. He beamed a stunning smile at me. The hair on my neck settled down. I smiled back, forgetting my distraction.
“I’ve always thought of kissing as an art form,” I said, noticing that Ethan wasn’t breathing nearly as hard as I was. “Given that they recognize great poets and painters and writers, it’s about time they gave out awards for exemplary kissers.”
“We should definitely add this to your list of talents,” he said, not sounding the least bit serious. “Because if someone starts handing out awards, I’ll certainly nominate you.”
“I didn’t do it all by myself!” I reminded him with a laugh.
He grabbed an oar, turning the boat in the direction of the setting sun. “Maybe you just worked harder at it than I did,” he said, and I laughed harder. I could see that he was glowing more than usual, in a deeper shade of violet. Strong emotions, Creesie said, tended to make the color more visible. In my mind, I high-fived myself.
His voice turned serious as he brought up the hospital, saying that he wasn’t able to sense my presence, and that I seemed very far away. He had no idea how right he was.
I told him about the Station and the travelers. “I’ve never clocked the mileage, but I think it’s halfway between the living world and heaven.”
I felt him nodding as though this sounded perfectly reasonable.
“Supposedly, every person in the world is connected—I mean, in a way that most of us aren’t accustomed to. People can hear your thoughts there. Technically, they don’t have to speak, you know, no bodies. But they look just like you or me . . . well, more like you, actually.” He heaved an exasperated sigh, and I laughed. “I’ve made several friends, tasted some great food, and travelled to some exotic locales. And somehow—and this, by the way, was definitely the best part—managed to land a great boyfriend as well.”
“You’ve been a very busy girl.” There was a smile in his voice. “Would you care to elaborate on that? Well, skip the last bit, I’m familiar with that.”
I told Ethan everything I could remember—when he first spoke at my bedside, my meeting with Amora, my uncanny ability to understand other languages, the elevators in Amora’s room, my trips to the Station, the beauty of the place, and the food at the café. I told him about Creesie, Rin, Charlotte, and Gus. I described them in great detail, told him how weird it was that Creesie was really seventy-seven and looked no older than us. Then I told him how much love I felt from everyone, and how much they seemed to care about me. That last part didn’t surprise him at all, he’d said.
I failed to mention that the living realm was quickly becoming a stranger to me. I felt more at home here—halfway to everywhere. Without a body, the living realm often made me feel like I wasn’t alive.
“Oh, and Creesie was in the accident with me! She tells me it was part of the grand plan, that I needed a wake-up call, of sorts.” I was going to leave out the rest of the story. Not bother to mention Daniel. After all, it didn’t really seem necessary.
But Ethan was thinking. I could tell he was putting it together.
“Hope, there’s been a cop hanging around the ICU the last couple of days. Checking up on you, he says. But he’s been looking around another patient’s room—Daniel Hartlein’s. Know him?”
He’d asked the question casually—too much so. Instinctively, I knew better than to lie to him. He probably already knew the answer. After all, Brody had a very big mouth. I leaned back a little, watching his face.
“I do,” I said.
“And he
was in the accident with you?” Again, too casual.
“He was.” I let it hang there for a minute, then I said, “And if you’re wondering if I went back to the hospital to see him, the answer is yes.”
Before going on, I took a deep breath, monitoring his progress. He seemed to take this news well enough, though his expression told me nothing.
“Honestly, I didn’t know we were both in the accident until the other day. At least I think it was just the other day. It’s difficult to tell. Time sort of flies here.”
His mouth hadn’t moved, but I thought I heard him thinking, “Lucky you.”
I dropped my head. “Daniel looks terrible, doesn’t he?”
“He’s in bad shape,” Ethan admitted, not bothering to elaborate on the details. And he seemed to have something else on his mind. “Have you seen him . . . since?”
It took a moment to realize what he was implying.
“Like this?” I blurted. “No, of course not.” It disturbed me that he would ask such a thing. Did Ethan really suppose that I was travelling back and forth between the two of them, having the time of my life while he waited for my return? What kind of girl did he take me for?
But then I took one look at him and all my exasperation faded. It was too easy to forget what he dealt with every day—wondering whether I was going to wake up, or be lost to him forever. I was being stupidly selfish these days. I wasn’t like that before the accident, was I?
I reached for his right hand, flipped it over the way he often did mine, and looked at the lines etched there. Shortly after Grandpa George’s death, Gigi had taken up, of all things, palm reading, and she’d taught me a little. I traced the line closest to this thumb; it made a wide arc, indicating an outgoing personality. There was a major split at the top of it. That break had nothing to do with the longevity of one’s life, but rather, it signaled an upheaval of some sort. With relief, I saw that it eventually repaired itself as it continued down his palm. Whatever it was—and I hoped it had nothing to do with earlier lifetimes, tragedies, or me—he was going to get past it.
Pieces of Hope Page 18