Page 33 of Parallel

He slaps a palm to his forehead. “For fuck’s sake, Quinn. I wasnine.”

“Yeah,” I reply. “And I’m 15. So I’m ready for something better.” I turn to walk away and find myself spun back toward him before I’ve even had time to process it. His mouth lands on mine without hesitation or uncertainty, as if I’m a meal he’s been waiting for years toconsume.

And he consumes. With his lips, his tongue, his hands. He burns me alive, taking my oxygen and my common sense and leaving nothing but desire in its wake. Kissing is so much more than I realized. Not just mouths and fumbling, but something that turns my core into a pillar of fire and finds me arching against him, desperate formore.

When he finally breaks away, my back is against a tree, his hands are on my ass, and there’s a bulge pressing into my abdomen—I suspect I know what it is, but this is all new to me, so I wouldn’t swear to it. “Are you going to pretend to vomit now?” Iask.

“No, I’m not going to pretend to vomit.” He sounds winded and gravelly. His hands move up, cradling my face the way they once did a robin’s egg we found. I remember the awe in his eyes as he carried it. It’s how he looks at me now too. “God, Quinn. You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to dothat.”

He’s older, and knows more, but this raw, wanting thing inside me surges and takes charge. I pull him down to me by the collar of his T-shirt. “Do it again,” Icommand.

“Fuck,” he hisses. “Yes.” And then he’s pushing me against the tree again and his mouth is right there, about to land on mine…except my name is being called. Somewhere far away, but it’s coming from inside my head, and the voice is…Nick’s. Older, different, yet still him. Another version of Nick, calling mehome.

I want to ignore him. I want to stay right here against this tree and see what happens next. But that voice I hear has grown desperate and I can’t stand it. I have togo.

I tumble through the darkness, but I am not actually falling, like I thought. I’m moving sideways, slipping through walls that press against me like the narrowest hallway, yet are made of absolutely nothing. And as I’m flying by, in the darkness across from me, I see a face. A girl—with long brown hair and gray eyes like nothing I’ve ever witnessed before—who looks as astonished to see me as I am to seeher.

“Quinn,” says Nick, stern in his panic. “Can you hearme?”

I’m on a stretcher, in an ambulance bouncing so hard over D.C.’s potholes that it feels like an amusement-parkride.

“Hi,” I murmur. The pain is setting in, shearing my brain into pieces, jagged like glass. I want to raise my hands but I can’t. “Head,” Iwhisper.

“I have you,” he says, pushing my hair back from my face. “It’s going to beokay.”

He looks at me the way I remember, from some other life: as if I mean absolutely everything to him and nothing else matters. On the other side of me, the paramedic is doing something. Wrong,apparently.

“Give me that,” Nick demands, and seconds later, I feel the pain being pushed away, cleared, like he’s taken a large broom to the whole area. As everything goes black, I wonder if I’m dying, and my biggest regret is that I won’t have gotten to spend more time with Nick before ithappens.

* * *

When I wake,it’s dusk, and Nick is sitting in the chair beside me. My hand is clasped in his, and that’s as it should be. It belongsthere.

“Hi,” Iwhisper.

His hand slides away. “Hey there. How do youfeel?”

“Okay. A little achy, but that’s it. Whathappened?”

“You passed out in your office while we were on thephone.”

The entire morning is vague to me. I don’t remember waking or getting dressed. But I do remember the dream, and the sound of him begging me to come back. “You came for me,” I say quietly. “Thankyou.”

His mouth opens and closes, his hand reaches for mine and falls away. “The hospital called your fiancé,” he says after a moment, his lip curling into a sneer at that last word. “He couldn’t get a flight out until morning. Is there someone else you’d want me tocall?”

I shake my head. “My mother, but she’s two hours away and she’d justworry.”

He stares at the blankets for a moment before raising bleak eyes to mine. “We got another MRI while you were knockedout.”

My hands clench reflexively, nails biting into the soft skin of my palms. His expression is so grim I barely have to ask if it was bad news. “Oh?”

“The tumor is growing,” he says, his jaw shifting as he utters the words. “Quickly.”

Everything inside me grows still and quiet. I take one deep breath. Another. “But you said it wasn’t metabolically active,” I whisper. “That it wouldn’tgrow.”

“It shouldn’t have. I have no explanation for this. None. I’ve never even heard of a tumor that could grow like yours without additional bloodflow.”

I bite my lip, willing myself not to cry. “And it’s inoperable,” Iadd.

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