While I Was Away(55)

“What feeling?”

“Like I knew you,” he said. “Like I was seeing an old friend again. It's funny, I used to joke that you were my therapist. I spent a lot of time with a lot of patients, but more with you than anyone else. You were close to my age, and I just felt so bad for you. So I would come in on my breaks and lunches and just hang out with you. Talk to you. Tell you everything. I didn't realize you were listening the whole time, that I was making you dream the things I was talking about.”

Adele smiled sadly and stared at her water.

“You said that to me.”

“What?”

“In my dreams,” she managed a sad little laugh. “You told me I dreamed something so wonderful, I didn't want to wake up. And that's exactly what I did – it was all just ... a dream.”

There was a pause, then Jones' hand slid into view. He patted her on the arm, and while it was nice to feel his skin on hers, the platonic nature of the gesture just depressed her even more.

“I know none of this is easy,” he said. “Jesus, it's probably freaking you out. And I'm sorry I didn't want to listen at first. But I'm listening now. I'm here for you.”

He sounds so much like him, but he's not him. My Jones was never real. It was all just ... a dream.

Her dreams may not have been “real”, but that didn't make her love for him any less true, which was why this whole situation hurt so much. Here she was, amazed she'd found the soulmate from her dreams in real life, thinking they could start their life together for real now.

He just thought it was interesting his long time coma patient had actually heard him when he'd been talking to her, and that was it.

To her, he was her soulmate. To him, she was his ... patient.

If Adele kept allowing those thoughts to creep fully into her brain, she'd start crying, and she was pretty sure she'd never stop. So she forced out another laugh and pulled her arm away from him.

“I guess that pretty much explains everything,” she said, standing up. “I heard your voice and I dreamt that I knew you, and I woke up and still thought I did. I'm sorry, for everything. For getting you in trouble and following you out here.”

“Hey, don't be like that,” he said, trailing behind her when she left the kitchen area. Stupid cabin, there wasn't really any space to escape from each other. He caught up with her in the living room and stood in front of her. “You do know me, in a way. I mean, if you were really listening, then whoever you dreamed up, he was at least partly like me, right?”

She really was going to start crying, any second now. She just wanted Jones, and having this person in front of her who was him, but wasn't, it just made everything worse.

“Yeah, right,” she took a deep breath. “I'm glad we sorted this all out, it was driving me crazy. Literally, ha ha. I'll just head out now.”

She reached for the door knob, but he blocked her by standing in front of the door.

“What, now? At this hour? You can't drive all night.”

“Of course, right,” she sighed. “Maybe there's a hotel ...”

Jones grimaced and rubbed at his jaw.

“There's some big derby at the lake this weekend, I'll be surprised if we can find you anywhere. Look – let's go into town, grab some dinner, and I'll make some calls. Sound good?”

No, it did not sound good. It sounded like torture. But those big green eyes were staring at her, and they had smiles in their depths again, and she couldn't say no to them. Not even when they belonged to the wrong person.

He told you to remember him. He told you to believe.

“Lead the way.”

*





AS SOON AS THEY GOT to the restaurant, Adele locked herself away in the bathroom for a solid five minutes. She would not cry – crying just made everything worse, it never solved anything. Plus, she wouldn't be able to hide it from him. This Jones may not have been the same as hers, but he was just as watchful. Like he was tuned in to her particular wavelengths, she could feel it in the way his eyes followed her.

Once she felt like her emotions were under control, she went back to their table, determined to have a good time. She'd stop thinking of him as the man from her dreams, and maybe he'd stop treating her like his patient, and things could feel somewhat normal.

And surprisingly enough, they did. Once she stopped trying to force him into the mold of the man from her dreams, she discovered she could relax. Relax and just talk to him. Like she'd always talked to him.

It never stops being confusing.

She told him about her crazy brothers, and what life had been like growing up with them. He gave her a few stories about their behavior in the hospital, and she laughed a lot.

They talked about how he was from Reno originally, but he'd gone to nursing school in Denver – he'd followed a girlfriend there. It was a fact Adele didn't particularly like hearing about, but considering he'd met and spent time with her ex-boyfriend – whom she still lived with – she let it slide. After he'd broken up with the girl, he'd spent a couple years there before deciding to transfer to Los Angeles.

“Why L.A.?” she asked, stealing a fry off his plate. “Why not back to Reno? Or somewhere close by, like Tahoe?”

Jones shrugged and looked out over the crowd of people on a nearby dance floor.