Page 10 of Parallel

I roll my eyes. “Idon’twant that. You know I was just joking. And you’re in my wedding in seven weeks,remember?”

“But the job,” Caroline says. “You’re only twenty-eight. You could still go back toschool.”

I wrap an arm around each of them and pull them close for a moment as we walk down the street. “I appreciate your concern, guys, but I don’t need Lindsay’s life. The one I have is just fine withme.”

I force myself not to think of Nick as I say these words. But inside, it sort of feels like alie.

* * *

When I finally get intobed, I’m exhausted and a tiny bit buzzed, which I hope means there will be no dreams of Nick. I want to have nonsensical, boring dreams—the kind where the toilet floods and I have to fix it using a car engine, or where my boss is at my wedding demanding I return to work to correct something, although the latter seems completely within the realm of possibility. But even as my eyes shut, I already feel Nick calling to me, as if he’s been waiting for me to find him again, somewhere inside myhead.

Nick stands on the dock, shirtless and surrounded by sunlight, like some kind of mythical figure. Watching me floataway.

“Hey!” I call, just a hint of panic in my voice. “I don’t know how to sail thisthing.”

I don’t know how to sail anything, not even the tiny Sunfish that the current took as soon as he untied it from thedock.

“It’s okay,” he calls out. “Just pull the sail to theleft.”

I do what he says, but that seems to send me farther. I stand, balancing in the center and waving to him. “SOS!”

He smiles, sweet and sheepish in the same moment, and that dimple appears. God, I love that dimple. It makes me feel as if my heart has swelled until it is pushing against my sternum—my ribs stretched to the point of pain. I watch him dive in, all lean muscle and easy grace, the sunlight glinting off his back. His strokes as he swims toward me are long and even. He reaches the boat in no time at all, which amazes me, though it shouldn’t. He got a full scholarship based on that particular ability ofhis.

He pulls himself up and over the side of the boat in a single fluid move. We lean toward each other, and when he kisses me, I forget we’re on a boat, in the middle of a lake. All I know is him, warm and sweet and whole beside me. The past few months have been hard, for both of us, but I know in this moment we will be fine. There is something about the two of us that seems to survive all things. Tragedy strikes and we wobble like bowling pins but return to our places, upright and beside eachother.

“Thank you for swimming out to get me,” Iwhisper.

His words are low and warm against my ear, his voice serious and perhaps a little sad. “I’ll never just let you float away,” hereplies.

* * *

WhenI wake,Jeff is asleep, draped heavily around my back like a blanket, and for the first time in all the years I’ve known him, the feel of him against me brings with it a deep swell of panic. While I refuse to feel guilty about dreams I have no control over, the fact that I can’t stand my fiancé touching me afterward? Yes, I canand shouldfeel guilty aboutthat.

I quietly extricate myself, as my head starts to throb, and go to the living room. It’s still dark out, and in the dim light the room feels sort of foreign to me. Nothing has changed, yet it just isn’t mine somehow. I look around the room and try to remember why I chose this stuff—the staid furniture, heavy wood, dark colors. But then, I guess I didn’t reallychooseany of it. I just didn’t argue againstit.

A traitorous voice in my head asks, for the first time, if that’s how Jeff and I ended up together too. It’s a ridiculous question, of course, because Jeff and I were bound to end up together eventually—our parents were best friends and he was our rock after my father died. But at the same time, it seems like part of a pattern: my life consists entirely of things that occurred by default or were chosen by someone elsefirst.

I lie on the couch but remain awake until it’s light out, wanting only to be rid of this unsettled feeling, this sudden discontentment with everything. Jeff emerges from the bedroom just as I’m rising and regards me through half-lidded eyes, scratching hisstomach.

“You having another headache?” heasks.

I am, actually. I’ve gotten so accustomed to them I barely noticed. “Yeah, they’re pretty much a constant at thispoint.”

He wraps his arms around my waist and I lay my head against his chest. His skin is clammy. Wiry chest hairs poke at mycheek.

“What’s going on, babe?” he asks. “Is it thewedding?”

I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t. “Maybe. It’s been a stressful couple ofweeks.”

“Not having second thoughts, are you?” he asks, laughing. Of course he would laugh. Because it’s unthinkable. We are not the kind of people who have second thoughts. But we also aren’t the kind of people who fantasize about others. And now, it appears, Iam.

5

QUINN

On Monday, it is Caroline who drives me out to the inn to finalize wedding plans, since Jeff was busy and I was nervous about driving alone, given what happened the other day. Caroline is able to take off work without a ration of shit since she’s her own boss, and not for the first time, I wonder what my life might be like if I hadn’t left school to take care of my dad. Would I have a job I love? Would I be able to set my own hours? If he hadn’t gotten sick, if my mother hadn’t fallen apart so completely…but what’s done is done. You can’t change thepast.

“I love Trevor,” she says, “but his ideas for your bachelorette party leave much to bedesired.”

---