All This Time(66)

The only thing there is a book lying open, facedown on one of the green chairs. I walk over and pick it up, studying the intricate, flowery cover before flipping through a few pages.

It’s a love story, two people hell-bent on ending up together. And it starts with “Once upon a time…”

I go to put it down, but something about the cover is familiar. Images from the night of the accident pop into my head. The fluorescent lights flashing as I’m wheeled down the hallway, my eyes flicking down to see a doctor carrying a child, tears streaming down the little boy’s face. An elderly woman dragging a green oxygen tank behind her. A girl with long brown hair reading a book. This book.

I look over to the door, and that’s when I come face-to-face with those same hazel eyes from that night. The ones I’ve been dreaming of for weeks.

But this time they’re real.

It’s her.

Marley.

“It’s you,” I say, taking her in and moving toward her as quick as my crutches will let me. “I didn’t make you up.”

Something about her looks different. She’s paler. Thinner. Dark circles ring her eyes, dulling the usually vibrant color to almost brown. Her shoulders are hunched, bent forward, like she’s shielding something she doesn’t want anyone to see.

And on top of all that, she’s dressed head to toe in all dark colors, from the charcoal gray of her hoodie to her scuffed black shoes.

There’s not a single trace of yellow. What’s happened?

“Marley,” I say, reaching out. “It’s me. Kyle.”

When I move toward her, though, she hurries from the room, disappearing around the corner. I adjust my crutches under my arms to follow her, but when I get out to the hall, I can’t tell which way she went. She’s gone.

I freeze when I see her mom at the end of the hall, and I know I have to call it and get back to my room, so I crutch out of Cardiology and back through my wing of the hospital. When I get there, I collapse onto my bed and let out a long exhale.

I saw her. She saw me. She’s real… but she ran. My stomach sinks for the thousandth time. That can’t be a good thing. To have a girl literally run away from you.

Now that I can place her from before my coma, does that mean my brain just created a whole persona for her?

Do I even know her?

Does she know me?



* * *




Exactly twenty-four hours later, I limp back to the same Cardiology waiting room, hoping she’ll be there again. I round the corner to see her sitting in one of the green leather chairs.

It’s still as shocking as it was two days ago. To see her after I gave her up. To see her looking so different.

Her long hair hangs around her face, and she’s focused on a book open in her lap. In the chair next to her sits a book bag, unzipped.

She must feel my presence because her head snaps up, and when she sees me, she flinches. I take a small step toward her, but she shakes her head, jumping up and darting into the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind her.

“Marley!” I call to her. “You know me.”

But then I hesitate. “Don’t you?”

Slowly, I approach the bathroom door, knocking lightly and resting my forehead against the wood.

“I don’t want to scare you. I’m sorry if I did. I just need to know if you’re the Marley I think you are, or if I just saw your face and then made up everything else about you.” Actually hearing myself say it sounds even crazier than I expected.

I stop talking and hold my breath, hoping that doesn’t sound stalkerish. When she doesn’t say anything, I continue. “Just please can you tell me if you know me? Tell me if you’re… you.”

I wait for an answer, but minutes pass and it doesn’t come.

I think of the girl at the house. The wrong Marley and how scared she looked. I’m doing it again. I’m an idiot for thinking she actually knows me and that I actually know her. I mean, I was asleep the whole time.

Why is it I never considered that if she was real, she wouldn’t love me?

“I’m sorry. I—shit.” I take a step away from the door, shaking my head. “I’m sorry. I’m leaving now.”

I curse at myself. When the hell am I going to learn? In my rush to get out of there, the bottom of my left crutch tangles on something, and as I struggle to right myself, there’s a loud thud behind me. I look down to see the strap of her book bag wrapped around the crutch, her bag lying open on the floor.

Great. Now she’ll think I was going through her stuff.

I grab for it, picking up a few loose pencils that have tumbled out onto the floor.

But as I slip them back inside, I see the corner of a bright-yellow notebook.

I glance back at the closed door, before carefully picking it up. On the front, handwritten in familiar neat calligraphy, is her name: Marley Phelps.

“You do have a last name,” I murmur. Take that, Sam.

Before I can think better of it, I flip to a random page, my eyes widening when I see what’s written on it.

It’s the story of the two of us at Halloween, all of it exactly the same as it happened. Or how I dreamed it, I guess. My zombie football player costume, me tossing the entire bowl of candy to the kids, her hands reaching up to unclip her shell.

I keep searching, seeing tiny glimpses as I skim, memories I had. The Winter Festival, getting Georgia, eating hot dogs by the pond.