Page 14 of Where Are You Now
“What?” Her mother glanced over at her. They continued to travel with the flow of traffic.
Ava grunted as she forced her stiff body to twist so she could see the man on the street. “Mom, stop!”
“I can’t stop. The traffic is going,” her mom said. “What is it?”
“I swear that’s Lucas Phillips.” She craned her neck, but they were moving away from him, and he was getting lost in the crowd. “Take a right and pull over.”
“I can’t. The traffic’s too thick.” Martha put on her blinker, but there were two full lanes of cars between her and the next right turn. “We’re going to be late for physical therapy.”
“I don’t care. Please. Get over as soon as you can.”
Ava had lost him, but she knew what street he’d gone down.
They continued to drive away from his corner, as her mother waited for a break in the traffic to change lanes. By the time they had, they were blocks away. Ava directed her mom, telling her where to go, and they took the next street in the other direction until they’d made it back to the place whereshe’d seen him. She scanned the faces of everyone on the sidewalk, but none of them were Lucas.
“Can you park here?” She pointed to a loading zone. “I’ll just be a minute.”
Her mom pulled over, and Ava got out. She pushed her sore muscles as she walked, peering into shops and restaurants. She scanned every face, every set of legs, anything that might be him. A few people eyed her, curious, but she ignored their stares. She looked across and down the street. There was no one matching his description.
Lucas was nowhere to be seen.
She blew air through her lips in frustration and climbed back into the car, her limbs shaky from her brisk movements.
“Are yousureyou actually saw him?” her mother asked with a note of skepticism.
“Yes. I’m sure,” she replied.
“So he was in New York with you, and now he’s magically in Nashville?”
She scanned the street again, the preposterousness of such a coincidence settling upon her. “I swear, he was here …” Was her mind playing tricks on her? “Am I going crazy?”
“I don’t know what’s going on.”
Martha put the car in gear, and they drove the short distance to the Vanderbilt parking deck. The rest of the way, Ava kept her eyes on the streets, still searching for Lucas.
“If the doctor is the same person as the boy I knew growing up, it might make sense that he’s in Nashville,” Ava said, trying to get a rational handle on what had just occurred. She climbed out of the car in the parking deck, wincing at the pain. “Dr. Watkins mentioned that Lucas has a fiancée. If he’s getting married, he might be here for the wedding if he still has some family in Tennessee.”
Her mother hit the elevator button to take them up to the street. She didn’t say anything.
“I wonder if they moved here. Maybe they transferred to be closer to his family.” Ava didn’t know of any extended family he might have had in Tennessee, and his immediate family could still be in Charlotte, but him moving back home was a feasible idea, right?
They got into the elevator.
If she did have some sort of time limit on her life without Lucas, this was a major break. She had no idea what she’d do when she found him, but that wasn’t her problem. She’d been told only to find him. And she couldn’t help but feel incredibly hopeful after today.
“This seems like an unnatural obsession, Ava,” her mother said. “And it’s not like you. You’re usually so level-headed.”
The doors opened and they walked out onto the street. Her mom opened the door to the therapy building.
“It isn’t an obsession, Mom. He was in my hospital room in New York. I know how strange it all sounds, but that much is real.”
When they got inside, Ava checked in, and they took a seat in the waiting room. Martha never acknowledged her response. As she sat with her mother’s silence, Ava questioned herself and wondered again if she might have actually lost her mind.
By the timeshe got out of therapy, Ava was beat. The therapist had worked with her on range-of-motion exercises for her neck and shoulders to prevent stiffness, then aligned her neck and focused on flexibility while being cautious of Ava’s broken rib. And after that she’d given Ava a soft tissue massage in an attempt to relieve tension from the injury and travel.
From that alone, Ava was ready to take a nap, but theywent on to assess her core strength and upper-body durability before making her sit for a rundown of her at-home exercises.
“I really wanted to get a coffee and even try to shop for a new laptop, but getting out of the house and then going through an hour of therapy was more taxing than I expected. Do you think we can just go home?” she asked her mom.
