Текст книги "The Lost"

Автор книги: Sarah Beth Durst

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

I dry myself with the rough and not-big-enough towel. My hair is still dripping when I finish, but I do my best to mop up the puddles so that no one will slip and fall. I pull on a hospital gown and wish I had a bra and my own underwear instead of this knit hospital underwear. Maybe I can call someone—coworker? neighbor?—and ask them to fetch me clothes from home. I don’t know that I’ve stayed close enough to anyone to ask a favor like that. Combing my hair with my fingers, I wonder who has been taking care of our apartment with both of us here. Mom must have made arrangements to pay the rent and other bills. She’s the consummate worrier; I’m sure she thought of it. I’ll ask her when she wakes. In the meantime, I have a project.

I slip out of the room.

The nurse at the nurses’ station glances up at me as I pad across the hallway. There’s a doctor filling out a form. His back is to me, but I recognize his hair immediately. “Dr. Barrett?”

He turns. “Ms. Chase. Is everything all right?”

“Fine. She’s sleeping.”

His shoulders relax. I’m surprised I can tell under his doctor’s coat. “Are you all right?” he asks. “You should be resting. Do you need assistance back to your room? I’m on call so I can’t—”

“No, thanks. I’m fine. I’m actually looking for a pencil and paper.”

“That I can arrange.” He leans over the nurses’ station and tears off a few sheets from a pad of paper and then he plucks a no. 2 pencil out of a cup. He hands them to me. “Anything else?”

I shake my head, but then I think of something. “Can I look in your lost-and-found bin? For unclaimed clothes? It might be a while before I’m back in my apartment.”

“Of course.” He addresses the nurse. “Paula, would you mind?”

“Go ahead. It’s in supply closet 308.” She waves her hand. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things people leave behind and never claim.”

I think of the stuffed puffer fish and smile, a tight sad smile but the best that I have right now. “I’m sure it’s quite interesting.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I meet Dr. Barrett in the hospital cafeteria at noon. I’m surprised to see him, though I suppose doctors have to eat, too. In line for the pasta Alfredo, I ask, “Isn’t there a doctors-only cafeteria where you don’t have to mix with us riffraff?”

“Yes, there is,” he says. “But this one has cupcakes.” He points to a red velvet cupcake with a mass of ivory frosting, and for an instant, I can’t breathe. Claire would have loved it.

I try to keep my voice light and normal. “Can’t argue with cupcakes.”

“Indeed,” he says gravely.

We reach the cashier, and I pay with my mom’s credit card. I sign her name and hope that Dr. Barrett doesn’t notice, or doesn’t mind. My purse was lost in the crash. The credit card company has issued me a new card, but it’s being mailed to my apartment and I haven’t been home yet. Happily, home does still exist. Mom said she arranged for automatic payment of rent through the end of the year. And in thanks, I steal her credit card. Okay, I asked her first, but still I feel a twinge of guilt. Trapped in a hospital bed and Mom still finds ways to take care of me. I wonder if there will ever be a point when I’m not so damned needy and selfish, when I can be the one taking care of someone else. You’d think this would be my opportunity, but the credit card belies that.

“Wait,” he says. He snags a second red velvet cupcake, and he pays. Once past the cashier, he drops the second cupcake on my tray. “You can’t pass up the only good thing about being in the hospital.”

“It’s good that I can stay with my mom,” I say. “Thanks for arranging that.” After my first visit, he’d added a formal note to Mom’s chart that I didn’t have to leave when visitor hours ended. Mom no longer had to plead with each shift’s nurse. “I should have bought you a cupcake in thanks.”

“Next time.” He points, one hand holding his tray, to a table by the window. “Join me?”

“Sure.” I feel my heart beat a little faster, though I don’t know why. He’s already delivered all the bad news about Mom that there could possibly be... I shouldn’t tempt fate by thinking like that. I sit across from him.

There’s a fake daisy in a pink vase in the center of the table, as well as a condiment carrier with an array of ketchup, soy sauce, jelly, and syrup. I can’t imagine what meal would require all of those, but I eye the packets of jelly for a second. Claire loved strawberry... No, Claire’s not real. She was never real. The doctors had made that abundantly clear. I don’t know how I keep forgetting, or why I can’t get her out of my mind.

Dr. Barrett picks up a bit of rope tied into a noose that was tucked behind the ketchup. “Cute, gallows humor. Different people cope in different ways.” He tosses it onto the next table, and I think of Tiffany. I am about to reach for the noose, but then Dr. Barrett says, “Nurses tell me you haven’t left the hospital yet. Are you getting enough sleep?”

He’s been checking up on me? I don’t know how I feel about that. Flattered? Comforted? Unsettled? “You know I’m not your patient, right? I’m fine.”

“Sometimes this is hard, and a night’s sleep at home can help.” He eats his pasta, swirling the noodles expertly on his fork.

“Mom sleeps better when I’m here.”

“You have to look out for yourself, too.”

I don’t want to explain how I don’t want to go home, don’t want to see the life I built, don’t want to resume it. I haven’t called in to work. I don’t know if they even know I’m out of the coma. I don’t know if I still have a job. There’s probably some policy about not firing people in comas, kind of like maternity leave minus the cute baby photos. I try to deflect the conversation. “How do you look out for yourself? All of this...so much loss. It must be hard sometimes.” I think of Peter and all the people he’s lost.

Not real. Dr. Barrett is real. I force myself to focus on him.

“Sometimes, not always.” He makes a face. “I have bad days. When I fail.”

“Perfectionist?”

He nods. “And control freak. Bad combination.” He leans forward as if about to tell me a secret. “I alphabetize nearly everything.”

“Must be nice. Bet you never lose anything.”

“Not if I can help it.”

I think of the junk piles in Lost, the treasure troves of everything that people failed to alphabetize and control and put in its perfect place. I feel as though I should say something profound, like “sometimes you need to lose in order to find” or “there’s beauty in being lost.” But I don’t. Instead I take a bite of the cupcake. It’s sweet and rich and pretty much perfect.

He’s grinning at me. “Good, right?”

Mouth full, I nod.

He reaches over with a napkin and wipes my upper lip. “Bit of frosting.” For an instant, I freeze. His proximity, the warmth of his eyes... I think of Peter. Not real. Not real! But this man is. And he’s kind and smart. I want to seize him as if he’s an anchor in a storm, but I barely know him. “How did my mom help you? You said that when...” I trail off, not certain how to broach the topic of his father.

His smile fades, and for an instant, pain crosses his face.

I wish I hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it...”

“No, it’s okay.” The smile is back. He really has the nicest smile I’ve ever seen. I notice that others in the cafeteria, women in particular, are sneaking looks in our direction—at him admiringly and at me curiously. I realize I must be sitting with the catch of the hospital, and I don’t understand why he is being so overly kind to me. With Peter, his motivations were clear... Not real, I tell myself yet again. Dr. Barrett is talking, and I tell myself to listen. “My father’s death was unexpected. Seemed healthy. Went to the gym daily. No trace of heart problems. But he went out for a jog one day and collapsed. The paramedics were unable to revive him. Your mother helped me with the aftermath. My father was a...he would have said ‘collector,’ but he was a hoarder. I wanted to pitch it all immediately. She helped me sort through it. Came daily for about two months.”

How did I not know this? I was at work. She was partially retired.

“She talked about you all the time.” He smiles at me in a lopsided way that reminds me so strongly of Peter that my heart does a flip-flop inside my rib cage. “I know several of your embarrassing childhood stories, and you don’t know even one of mine. It’s distinctly unfair. But that’s why the cupcake. I feel like I already know you.” He falls silent, and he’s looking intensely into my eyes, seriously, as if he’s seeing straight to the core of me. I feel as though the world has sucked in to a bubble around us. All other sound fades. I am acutely aware of everything about him, from the way his scrubs hang on his shoulders, to the curve of his cheekbones, to the breath in his throat, to his grip on his coffee cup, but all I think is Peter, Peter, Peter. He runs his fingers through his hair nervously. He is real; Peter is not. “I apologize if all of this comes off as creepy. It’s just...I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

“I think...I’m flattered?”

“Good.” He seems relieved. He leans back in his chair, tipping it a few inches backward. “Let me take you to dinner tonight. Someplace not here. Give you a break. Tell you a few of my embarrassing childhood stories.”

I should say yes. Mom would want me to say yes. It would be healthy. Help me forget about Peter and ground me in reality. But I shake my head. “My mom needs me right now. Probably shouldn’t even be here now.”

If he’s disappointed, he hides it well. He nods understandingly. “I have lousy timing, don’t I? You need a friend right now, not some guy stalking you in an awkward fashion.” He stands up. “I’ve never been very good with women.”

I half laugh. “I find that difficult to believe.”

He shrugs. “I don’t have time for building relationships. I’m married to this hospital. Which is why you’re ideal. I already know you.”

“Yeah, that does border on a little creepy.”

“Ask your mother for my embarrassing stories. She knows them.” He winks at me, and then he picks up my tray, as well as his own, and heads for the trash can.

“Thanks for the cupcake,” I call after him. I then look over at the table next to us. I pick up the small noose and wind it around my fingers as if it’s a talisman.

I take it with me as I go to visit my mother.

* * *

I slip into Mom’s hospital room quietly. She’s asleep. She looks so fragile when she sleeps, as if at any moment, she could be blown apart like dried leaves in autumn. I sink into the chair by the window and look out at the palm trees.

I twist the noose around my fingers and then untwist it. Twist. Untwist. Twist. Untwist. I think about Dr. Barrett. About Peter. About Mom. About Claire. Real. Not real. Real. Not real.

“Did you have a nice lunch?” Mom’s voice is soft and wavers. I scoot the chair closer so she doesn’t have to raise her voice.

“Dr. Barrett joined me.”

She starts to nod and then she coughs. The coughs shudder through her entire body, and I drop the little noose and reach for her. She holds up her hand to stop me. “Fine. I’m fine. William’s a nice boy, isn’t he?”

“He said you helped him sort through his father’s things.”

“I did.” A ghost of a smile drifts across her face. “His father and I were close once.”

“Close close?”

She tries to cackle, but again she’s caught in a cough. She smiles weakly at me. “You were a teenager. I didn’t want to tell you until I was certain it would last. You were looking so fiercely for a father figure. I didn’t want to disappoint you if the relationship fell apart. And it did fall apart. My fault, mostly. I kept comparing him to my memories of your father. At any rate, there was no reason to tell you. But we remained friends.”

“You’re certain it was when I was a teenager? I’m not going to discover that his father is my father, and my life is suddenly a British soap opera.”

“I swear you can date him without any fear of creating three-headed children or violating any laws.” Her eyes gleam. This is the most alert I’ve seen her. “Did he ask you out?”

I shouldn’t admit it. But I don’t want to lie to her. “Dinner. I said no.”

“Why?” she screeches. I didn’t know she could still get that kind of volume out of her lungs. I’m impressed. And pleased. She levels a finger at me. “You are to go out to dinner with him tonight. Someplace nice. Order wine. Pinot noir. You’ll like it. Then you are to have him go back with you to the apartment since you’re obviously too scared to go by yourself. Water my plants. Take in whatever fast-food ads have accumulated outside the door. Let air in. And then you can come back. If you choose to sleep with him, just don’t do it in my bed.”

“Mom!”

Mom presses the nurse call button. A few minutes later, the nurse appears. Mom smiles at her. “Would you please page Dr. Barrett? Tell him it isn’t an emergency, but when he has a free moment, I’d like to speak with him.”

“Sure thing.” The nurse checks her IVs, makes sure Mom is comfortable, and waggles her finger over the dinner tray. “You need to eat.” Mom obediently opens the soup and spoons some into her mouth. Her hand shakes, and drops spill on her hospital gown, but a tiny mouthful of broth makes it past her lips. She closes the lid when the nurse leaves.

“I’ll go if you eat everything on that tray,” I say.

She pulls the tray closer.

“And breakfast tomorrow, too,” I quickly add.

“Done,” she says with satisfaction.

“Well played, Mom. Well played.” Leaning over, I pick up the noose. It’s just a ratty piece of string. I should toss it in the trash.

She gestures at me with the fork. “What do you have there?” She points to the noose.

“Just a thing I found.” Firmly, I put it down. I pick up the pad of paper and pencil that I’d gotten from the nurses’ station. As she eats, I doodle, using the menu as support for the paper. I draw the motel as I remember it with the desiccated saguaro by the sign, and I draw the diner with all the tacky kitsch in the windows. I then sketch in the rest of the street, the post office with the eagle, the darkened alleys. When I finish, I tape it to the wall.

On a fresh piece of paper, I start to draw Victoria, the harsh lines of her jaw and the severity of her hair. I sketch in her waitress uniform. Taking another sheet, I begin on Tiffany.

Mom finishes every bite of her food.

Chapter Twenty-Five

He chooses a Greek restaurant, which is fine with me. He says he didn’t want to choose Italian because it screams “first date” and “trying too hard.”

“Anything that isn’t a diner,” I tell him. I don’t explain why.

He drives carefully. He’s a safe driver, another reason for my mother to like him. I picture Peter riding the top of the train, wind flapping through his coat, and suddenly I miss him so much that it shocks the breath out of me. Mom is right that a date with William is a good idea. I need to reconnect with reality.

Inside, the restaurant is nice. Very Greece-centric. It’s decorated with murals of pastoral Greek isles on the walls and a stone tile floor with a flower mosaic. The hostess leads us to a table against the wall, near a vase that overflows with lilies. I think the lilies are real. I touch one of the petals to check. Yes, real. The waitress hands us menus. William’s menu has a photo of a Greek island with white plaster houses and brilliant teal-blue water. Mine has a crescent moon. I open it and see the eclipse éclair, the solar flare flounder, the meteor meatloaf...

The waitress plucks the menu out of my hands. “Not sure where that came from.” She tucks it under her elbow, and she hands me a fresh menu with a photo of Greece on the front. “Sorry about that.”

“Wait,” I say. “What was...”

But the waitress whisks away and is at another table across the restaurant, pad and pen in hand. The menu with the moon, if that was indeed what I saw, is tucked between other menus.

William is talking. “...falafel is surprisingly spicy, but their lamb is excellent.” He waves to one of the cooks through a window to the kitchen. “I come here a lot. I’m a lousy cook.”

I watch the waitress stuff the menus under the hostess station, and then I force myself to smile at William. “I would have thought you’d be good at it with the perfectionism and the control thing. It’s usually us artsy types that burn everything in sight.”

The waitress pours water. She sloshes some on my place mat. “Can I get you anything to drink?” Slouching with one hip jutting out, she retrieves a pen from the nest of hair tied behind her head. She’s staring at William as if he’s tasty.

It couldn’t have been the Moonlight Diner menu, I tell myself. I need to stop thinking about it.

William uses his napkin to dab the water spill on my place mat. “Glass of Chardonnay for me. What would you like, Lauren?”

“Iced tea?” Then I remember I promised my mother I’d drink wine. “Scratch that. I’ll have a Chardonnay, too.” I think of Mom and wonder if any of the nurses made her eat dinner. I should be there with her, never mind that she told me to come.

As if he can read my thoughts, he says gently, “She needs time to herself, too. I don’t think this is entirely about matchmaking.”

I nod. That makes sense. She probably does need a break from me. To rest. To collect her thoughts. To... I don’t know. Prepare herself. I swallow hard and look down at the place mat. Its woven fibers, like strips of bamboo. I pick at it, and then I stop myself and take the napkin and lay it on my lap. The waitress delivers a dish of hummus with a wrinkled olive in the middle. She puts a wire bowl of pita bread next to it.

“So...youngest of four,” I prompt.

“They liked to see what they could get me to do.” He dips a pita bread in the hummus, swirls it with a practiced twist, and then curves it up so none drips off. “Once, they convinced me that my Halloween costume granted actual flying powers. My father caught me leaping off the roof of the garage. Another time, they used me as a human basketball. They rationalized that they’d placed pillows underneath the net so it was all safe and good. Plus I’d agreed since it was the only way they’d play with me. I had one brother who was seven years older than me and two that were five years older. I learned to walk at a very young age so that I could flee when necessary. Kind of survival of the fittest at my house.”

“I’m an only child. Always wanted a little sister.” Like Claire.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts away. William wouldn’t want to be on a date with me if he knew how mentally unhinged I am, dwelling on people that my subconscious summoned up while I was in a coma.

The waitress smiles at William as she takes our order, and then she swishes across the restaurant. My eyes drift to the hostess station, where the diner menu may or may not be.

“How was Mom while I was in that coma?” I am derailing whatever it is he’s talking about—Greece, I think. He’d been there. I review the piece of the conversation that my brain must have been listening to. He likes to travel, but he doesn’t have much time for it. “I like to travel, too. But I haven’t done it much. That is, I think I’d like to travel, if I did it.”

“You should try traveling, and your mother was worried, of course. She hated that she couldn’t be with you to talk to you. She wanted you to hear the sound of a familiar voice.” He pauses, looks uncomfortable. He’s wearing a button-down shirt, and it looks stiff after the scrubs. I guess that he’s most comfortable in scrubs with a clipboard in his hand. His pager sounds. He glances at it and then puts it back at his waist. “I talked to you sometimes between shifts.”

I stare at him. “You did?”

“Creepy or nice?” he asks.

I think of the man hunting for pennies in the gutter and the woman planting dead flowers in front of the post office. I’ve seen my fair share of creepy, albeit only in my own imagination. “Nice,” I say firmly.

He relaxes. “Good. You know, you aren’t exactly what I expected.”

I know I haven’t been a spectacular date. I haven’t wowed him with either my intellect or charm. In fact, I’ve been rather distracted. “Is that good or bad?”

“It’s... You’re slightly easier to talk to when you’re in a coma.” He winces again. “And that completely didn’t come out right. I mean, I can’t tell what you’re thinking, what you think of me. Usually I can tell, especially with women. And that sounded obnoxious, too. I’m blowing this.”

I can’t help but smile. “You’re not. I think you’re charming.”

He wipes his forehead in exaggerated relief. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Entirely my fault. My mind is elsewhere.” I’m the one botching this date, which is not going to make my mother happy. She’ll want a full report.

“Completely understandable.” He takes a deep breath. “I know you need a friend now more than you need further complications, even if they come with parental approval.”

He intends me to smile at that, and I do. He is charming. He’s...safe. He won’t leap up on top of the table or take me running over rooftops or talk in cryptic riddles. And that’s a good thing. I need safe and stable and good. Also, he seems to inexplicably like me, as distracted and moody as I’ve been. He’s perfect. Almost too perfect. He could be the fantasy man in a coma-induced world, and Peter could be real and waiting for me to wake up in Lost...except that Mom is here.

I do my best to hold up my end of the conversation for the rest of the dinner. The falafel is spicy, but I choke it down with lots of water. I stick to only the one glass of Chardonnay.

He pays, and I don’t object. I have no idea if I’m still employed, and he is. Plus this was his idea. His and my mother’s, oddly.

I stand and pick up my purse. It isn’t truly mine. I found it in the hospital’s lost-and-found. Mine was lost in the car wreck. I’m also wearing clothes from the lost-and-found. “About the second part of the date...the apartment is bound to be a disaster zone. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”

“I have experience transforming disasters. As I told you, I’m excellent at alphabetizing. Probably should have been a librarian. I’m told the hours are much better.” He folds his used napkin as he stands and tucks it under the rim of his plate.

“I think you’re exactly where you should be. You seem good at it.”

“I am.” He opens the door to the restaurant for me, and the bell above it rings as we exit. “I don’t mean that as conceited as it sounds. Part of why I chose medicine is that I am good at it. Trust me, I’m terrible at lots of things.”

“Like what? Tell me one of your flaws. So far, I don’t think you have any.”

William smiles. “In that case, I don’t want to shatter your illusions of me.”

“Given that you are so perfect, why aren’t you dating anyone?” I imagine my mother concocting him in her kitchen, adding all the ingredients to make the perfect man. Even his imperfections are perfect. He should be able to erase Peter from my mind.

“You seriously want my dating history this early into knowing me?”

“Or your flaws. Your choice.”

He heaves an exaggerated sigh as he unlocks his car door and ushers me inside. “You’re not asking the easy questions. How about where I come from or which sports team I like? Can’t we start there?” He gets in and starts the car.

I laugh. “Okay. Fine.”

I guide him to our apartment, obscurely relieved that he doesn’t know where it is. At least he doesn’t know everything about me already.

As he parks in front of the building, I look up at the darkened windows. Mom was right. I don’t want to do this myself. The falafel rolls inside my stomach, and I wish I hadn’t eaten it. I want to ask him to take me back to the hospital to be with Mom. Instead, I step out of the car. So does William.

“Do you want me to go first?” he asks.

I shake my head and walk toward the apartment building. I stop. Turning, I hold out my hand toward him. “Can we go in at the same time?” I know I sound like a child, but I feel like a child, as if I’m returning home with a bad report card.

He takes my hand. His hand is soft, warm, reassuring. I think of Peter’s hand, rough and hard from climbing and swinging, but also as warm and comforting. I walk up the steps to the apartment, holding William’s hand.

I unlock the door and push it open.

The odor of overripe fruit and rancid milk rolls into the hallway. William takes a step backward. “Coma,” I remind him. “I don’t normally keep the apartment like this.”

“I know.”

“Are you going to faint?” I look at him curiously. I’ve never seen a man faint before. I don’t think I’d be able to catch him effectively if he really swooned. He’s very broad-shouldered, rather muscular. He must work out. Or heft his patients up regularly. For a second, I’m distracted by the image of him bench-pressing patients.

“Just wishing for a hazmat suit. I’ll be fine.”

I switch on the light. It isn’t...terrible. A wave of familiarity sweeps over me, and for an instant, I can’t breathe. Or maybe that’s the stench.

Shutting the door behind me, I walk inside with William. I feel okay. It’s quiet. And it smells. But...I shouldn’t have avoided this. I really am a melodramatic idiot sometimes.

I fetch a few garbage bags from under the sink, and we heave out the fruit that rotted on the counter, three quarters of the contents of the refrigerator, and several desiccated plants. Together, we carry them out to the Dumpster. As William lifts the lid, I automatically glance around for any stray kids or feral dogs. There aren’t any.

Inside again, he fetches cleaning supplies—he must have spotted them under the sink with the trash bags. “You don’t have to do this,” I tell him. “I’m fine now that the initial moment has passed.”

“You shouldn’t have to do it alone.”

I don’t argue with him.

Together, we clean the apartment. It isn’t a big apartment: galley kitchen that is (or was) stuffed with plants, living plus dining room that’s stuffed with artwork (mostly old), my bedroom, Mom’s bedroom, and one bathroom. Lots of books overflow the shelves. I wonder if William is itching to alphabetize them. They’re sorted mostly by...well, I don’t think they’re sorted at all. Books I like tend to be on shelves closer to my room, and books Mom likes tend to be closer to hers. Our personal favorites or current reads are piled up or under our bedside tables. As I finish cleaning the bathroom, I find William studying my paintings over the couch.

“These are beautiful,” he says. “Do you still do art?”

“Yes.” None of the art here was done in the past five years. But yes. That’s my answer.

“You asked me for flaws. I don’t have any hobbies outside of work. Zero. Well, I go to the gym, but that’s a side effect of too much medical school. You can’t constantly order patients to stay in shape and constantly see the side effects of not doing it and then not go yourself.”

My art is not a hobby, I want to say. It’s me. But technically, hobby is the right word. I have...or had...a job that had nothing to do with art. I don’t have a gallery. I don’t sell it. Or even show it. Of course it’s a hobby. “I took a break from it for a while. But I’m starting again.”

He nods. “You did the sketches in your mom’s hospital room. They’re interesting.”

I flinch at the word interesting. That was Peter’s word. Goddammit, I have to stop thinking about a man who doesn’t exist and a place that isn’t real!

“I know zero about art, but you’re talented. Your mother used to talk about how you’d given it up... She must be happy you’re drawing again.”

I nod. Do not think about the art barn.

“Are you going to be okay here tonight?” He winces again. He does that expression a lot, I notice. It’s rather adorable for someone so handsome to be so self-conscious. “I know, I have this massive maternal streak.”

“I would have gone with ‘savior complex.’”

He smiles. “Yeah, that sounds much more manly. Anyway, I had a good time tonight.”

“You scrubbed a kitchen floor and threw out plants that had rotted. I’m guessing that’s not quite what you envisioned.”

“I like surprises.”

“Really?”

“No, not at all. But I liked tonight.” He crosses to me and takes my hands. “I know this is a difficult time for you. I know I have terrible timing.” I like the feel of my hands in his.

“It could be worse timing,” I say. “I could still be in a coma.”

He smiles, and I feel warm inside. He’s real, I remind myself. This is real.

I let him kiss me.

After a few seconds, I kiss him back.

Clinging to him, I kiss him as if he could ground me, anchor me, make this all feel real. I want to erase my false memories and start again.

But when I close my eyes, I think of Peter.