Page 13 of Parallel

6

NICK

Iget to the cafeteria just after Meg does and slide my tray next to hers at the salad bar. She watches me make my salad and turns away. “Just once, I’d like to see you live alittle.”

“In what way?” I ask, loading a second chicken breast on myplate.

“That,” she says, nodding toward my tray. “You probably burned a thousand calories swimming this morning, but it’s like the world will fall apart if you actually use dressing or cheese, or anything that would make your meal pleasant instead of merelyhealthy.”

I shrug. “You see people die every day. Isn’t it enough to be alive without needing everything to befunon top ofit?”

“I’m not saying everything has to be fun,” she argues. “But the minute you seem to enjoy yourself, it’s like you feel guilty about it or something. It’s okay to have alittlefun.”

“Believe me, if I was in the mood for fun, it would not involve blue cheese dressing.” I grin at her, but she doesn’t smile back. There’s a shadow to her eyes I’ve seen before, a warning sign that she’s unhappy aboutsomething.

I pay and we take our seats, but she remains silent, grim. I pinch the bridge of my nose and brace myself for the relationship talk that appears to be coming. “What’sup?”

Her eyes are on the table instead of me, her palms pressed against it, trying to rein herself in. “You were talking in your sleep lastnight.”

Fuck.

I’m generally an open book, but there are two recurring dreams I’ve had for years that I’d prefer to keep to myself, for Meg’s sake as much as my own. There’s the one about the girl on the boat, obviously, and a similar one in which I’m dancing outside with that same girl—I know it’s her though I can never quite make out her face—and trying to summon the courage to ask her something. I’ve always wondered if it’s a metaphor for my fear of commitment, although in the dream I want that commitment as much as I want my next breath. But it’s sure as hell nothing I need Meg to hear about. “Yeah?”

She continues to avoid my eye. “Yeah. And it was like you were talking to someone you werewith. You were promising her she’d be fine and then you were…” she swallows. “You were yelling at someone to get away fromher.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but it sounds like an accusation, which leaves me feeling both annoyed and guilty at once. I force a laugh. “Maybe I was dreaming about the EMT that kept asking youout.”

Her lips press tight. “You weren’t dreaming aboutme.”

I blow out a breath, suddenly tired. Meg and I have known each other a long time. She knew the deal when I returned from London. She knew my romantic history consisted only of brief, relatively meaningless relationships, and that I couldn’t promise ours would be any different. And things are going well, much better than I thought, but she can’t start scrutinizing what happens in mysleep. “How could you possibly knowthat?”

“Because,” she says, “you sounded like you were in love with her. And you’ve never once sounded like that withme.”

Another accusation. It bothers her that I won’t say it, that I can’t say it. It bothers me too, but I just need to be sure about things and I’m not there yet. “Meg—”

She holds up her hand. “Don’t. I know you said you just want something casual and you can’t make any promises. What bothers me is that you made it sound like you don’t think you’recapableof more, and obviously youare.”

“It was just adream.”

She nods. I’ve never seen her cry but she’s swallowing hard now, as if she might, and I hate myself in this moment. I want to be better and do better by her. I’ve just got to figure outhow.

* * *

After our lunch concludes,I get upstairs and a resident briefs me on my next patient as we walk down the hall. “Quinn Stewart. Twenty-eight-year-old female. Fell last week and suffered some memory loss. Today, she appeared to go unconscious for a few minutes, still standing, and she came to with some memory loss and a severe migraine. The pain was so bad they had to sedateher.”

I rub the back of my neck. A migrainethatsevere is not a good omen. I send him off to check on someone down in oncology, and then tap on the door and walk in. The patient is asleep, but her face is turned towardme.

My heart seems to give one long audible thud and my steps stutter to ahalt.

It’s her—the girl in the dream. I’ve never seen her face clearly, and yet standing here the experience of it is the same. If I were standing on a dock right now I’d dive off and swim toher.

I pinch the bridge of my nose.Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with me?I’m a neurologist. I should know, better than almost anyone in this hospital, that the brain is capable of tricking you into thinking anything is true. It happens to my patients all the time. I just had no idea it would feel this fuckingreal.

A guy sitting in the corner chair rises and I turn toward him, extending my hand, scrambling to feign normalcy. “I’m Nick Reilly. Andyou’re…”

“Jeff Walker. Quinn’sfiancé.”

I frown, irritated by him for no reason.Focus. You’re here to do a job. “I saw in the chart that this happened last week too, so I have to ask: does she have any issues with drugs andalcohol?”

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