Page 34 of Parallel

He is silent for a moment. “Yes,” he finally says. He squeezes my hand and I squeeze his back, not letting go as I turn my head away from him. A tear trickles over the bridge of my nose and onto the pillow. I was ready for this last week. Maybe notready,but braced for it at least. Now I can only lie here feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. “So how long do Ihave?”

He reaches out to touch my chin, forcing me to meet his eye. “It’s not a death sentence, Quinn. Surgery isn’t the only option. There’s chemo and radiation. I need to refer you out to anoncologist.”

I think of Darcy, tiny Darcy who is not going to be around for long. None of that worked for her, obviously. I think of my father. They told us he probably had five years. He was dead in six months. “And if those things aren’t possible, or just don’t work forme?”

He exhales. “If it were to stop growing…there are people who are okay. They just sit with it, and we monitor and hope for thebest.”

He’s doing what all doctors do, pretending my one wispy tendril of hope is something far more solid and stable than it is. Except I don’t want the best-case scenario. I want the likely one. “But mineisgrowing. So how long if it continues at the currentrate?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Let’s hold off on making predictions just yet. I’ve got a call in to the best oncologist in the city. He’s on vacation but I should hear back by Monday.” I just look at him, waiting, and he relents. “If it keeps growing at the current rate, you might have a fewyears.”

A few years, and he’s probably still giving me a best-case scenario. It’s just as likely to mean oneyear.

My whole life, I wanted two things—to become an architect and to become a mother, and now neither of them will happen. I brush at the tears streaming down my face. It takes me a minute or two before I get it undercontrol.

“You don’t have to stay,” I tell him once I’ve pulled myself together. “I’m sure you have things todo.”

He squeezes my hand. “I’m not leaving unless you force meto.”

We are silent for a moment. The truth is, no matter how badly I don’t want to be dreaming about him, don’t want to persuade myself I feel something for him…there is no one else in the world I want here in hisplace.

I glance out the window, at the dwindling light, and brace myself as I ask a question I’ve avoided all this time. “You don’t have to be home tosomeone?”

“I madearrangements.”

Ouch. “You’remarried?”

His eyes shift away. “No, but I have a girlfriend, Meg. She’s a pulmonologist here, actually. I told her I was workinglate.”

My heart sinks. He’s got a girlfriend and she’s a doctor too. It leaves an extremely bitter taste in my mouth, jealousy and also panic. In a few years I’ll be gone and she’ll still be here with him. “You should go home to her then,” I tell him, the words grating in my throat on the way out. “I’ll befine.”

“Quinn,” he says quietly, staring between clasped hands at the floor, “I want tostay.”

I hear need in his voice, and torment, and the sound of it opens this Pandora’s box inside me. My eyes close. I want to soothe his torment and my own. I want to forget the entire world exists aside from him. But the world does exist, and in it I’ve made certainpromises.

“I’ll have to invite both of you to the wedding,” I reply. “Two doctors would come in handy, given the odds the bride is going to passout.”

My forced cheerfulness fools no one. “Maybe—” he starts. “Nevermind.”

“No, come on. You started, so finishit.”

His lashes lower, shuttering his expression. “Maybe you should postpone it,” he says. “The stress of a wedding…I’m not sure it’s what you need rightnow.”

“People have already bought plane tickets. We’d lose all ourdeposits.”

“You’re not even sure you want to marry the guy,” Nick says. His hands are clenched so tightly on the top railing of my bed that they are nearly bloodless. “A few lost deposits should be the least of yourconcerns.”

I stiffen. “I never said I didn’t want to marryhim.”

“You didn’t have to say it,” he replies, glaring at me. “I told you he couldn’t get here until tomorrow and you didn’t even blink. And every time you’ve mentioned him, it’s like you’re talking about a work friend, or a cousin. You don’t feel the way you should abouthim.”

“Oh, but you do with Meg?” I lash out and regret the words immediately. I don’t sound like a patient, or even a friend—I sound like a very,veryjealousgirlfriend.

“No,” he says, his eyes nearly translucent in the dim room. “Because if I felt the right way about her, I probably wouldn’t be in here withyou.”

Relief washes over me, sweeps beneath me and raises me high. I allow myself to float there, on its surface. It will all come to nothing, but just for this one night, I’m going to pretend he ismine.

17

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