Page 24 of Parallel

“And if mine isn’t benign? Whatthen?”

He nods, his eyes flickering away. “Operating in this area of the brain is impossible. But again, it could very well be nothing. We need to do another imaging test—similar to what we’ve already done, but this time looking at the metabolic activity around the tumor. It should help us determine the type of tumor it is and how likely it is togrow.”

My mouth is dry. I nod, feeling…nothing. Nothing at all. I dig my nails into my palms but it barelyregisters.

“Are you okay?” heasks.

“I don’t know.” What I want more than anything is to dislodge the sense that all of this can’t really be happening. I’m only twenty-eight. I’m about to get married. My life is just starting, and out of nowhere I’m missing him and wanting what I’ve never wanted, and I may be looking at the end of all of it. I don’t know how to put this into words. “My life was completely normal a week ago,” I finallysay.

“Let me take you down to imaging,” he says, rising. “Your life may still be completelynormal.”

This time he sets me up for the exam himself, helping me onto the table, getting everything into position. He seems to hesitate when it’s time to leave. “It’s going to be fine,” hesays.

“You know, even if the tumor is nothing, I’m still having bizarre dreams about someone I don’t know and discovering they’reaccurate.”

His smile is soft. “Hey,” he says, “I’m not a bad guy. There are worse people to dream about. Unless I’m a jerk. If I am, then your dreams are completelyfictitious.”

“You weren’t ajerk.”

“Good.” His dimple appears, and I have a sudden memory of him in that convenience store smiling at me through the glass, unaware that my heart was breaking, that we were going to be separated. And as I slide into the MRI to check on my inoperable brain tumor, I can’t help but feel history seems to berepeating.

11

NICK

Meg and I both have an hour free. She wants to go out to lunch and is not happy when I tell her I want to swiminstead.

“Again?” she asks. “You already workedout.”

I blow out a breath. I am way too keyed up to sit with her for an hour. “It’s just been one of those days.” One of those days when I’m waiting for a report from radiology that won’t fucking arrive. One of those days when I’m going to put a fist through a wall if I hear,again, that it’s “on the way.” And one of those days when I can’t stop thinking about a patient, can’t stop picturing her…even though we are both with other people, and, as my patient, she’d be off-limits even if weweren’t.

I get over to the pool and dive in without preamble, with no routine in mind. I just need to push, to swim until I’m too exhausted to think about this anymore. I’ve always hated impossible questions. Medical journals produced nothing helpful, not that I expected them to. There’s no answer to what’s going on with me and Quinn, but I can’t stop pushing and prodding at it, as if something completely obvious will present itself. It spins in my brain until I’m sick of thinking. And thus the need for this swim, which doesn’t seem to be doing a damn bit ofgood.

I thought I was happy with Meg. Maybe it wasn’t everything I’d ever wanted from a relationship, but it felt like enough…certainly far more than my brother will ever get to experience. Except spending a morning with Quinn was like being exposed to sunlight after an entire lifetime beneath fluorescent lights. I’m not sure, now, that I can be happy withless.

* * *

I hustle backto the hospital with my hair still wet, stopping by Darcy’s room on the way. I never see her without thinking about what could have been. If her mother had brought her in when Darcy’s headaches first started, we could have saved her. As much as this bothers me, it’s her mom who’s being destroyed by the knowledge, and it wasn’t even her fault. When the pediatrician dismissed her concerns, she listened to him. God, I wish she hadn’t. Doctors know a lot less than they want you to believe. Especially thatone.

Darcy is in bed when I get to the room, with her mom curled up beside her. She smiles wide, more animated than usual, and lifts a massive cupcake in the air. “Look what Quinn sent me!” shesays.

Darcy’s mother reaches behind her to a massive box from Sprinkles, where ten of twelve cupcakes remain. “Want one?” she asks. “Darcy’s new friend sent six for Darcy and six for Raven, so I feel like we may have more than weneed.”

Something expands inside my chest. Who learns she has a brain tumor and manages to think about a little girl she just met instead? I decline and head straight to radiology, ready to unleash hell if the results aren’t in. Fortunately, that’s not necessary. I rip the radiologist’s report from the envelope before I’ve even gotten to myoffice.

* * *

She answerson the firstring.

“It’s Nick.” I pause. “NickReilly.”

“Hi Ni— Dr.Reilly.”

“You’ve gone on a honeymoon with me, so I feel like we ought to at least be on a first-namebasis.”

She laughs. The sound is husky, intimate. I have to reach down and adjust myself, which is not exactly typical when calling a patient about her brain tumor. “I’m going to assume,” she says, “that you wouldn’t be making jokes if I only had a month tolive.”

This is true, although since I appear to be incapable of behaving normally around her I couldn’t say for sure. “It’s all good news. We don’t see signs of increased blood flow to the area, which indicates it is not growing. It’s possible it’s been there forever.” I’ve never been so relieved by a scan in mylife.

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