Page 18 of Maybe in Another Life

“Yeah,” he says. “You always smelled like Orange Ginger.” He comes ever so close to my neck. “Still do.”

He is close enough that I can smell him, too, the mixture of laundry detergent and sweat.

I can feel the skin of my cheeks start to burn, my pulse start to speed up.

“You smell good, too,” I say. I don’t move away.

“Thank you,” he says.

“In high school, you smelled like Tide.”

“I think that’s what my mom used,” he says.

“When you left, I smelled your old T-shirts,” I say. “I used to sleep in them.”

He listens to me. He takes my words, my feelings, and he spits them back out into facts. “You loved me,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. “I did. I loved you so much it sometimes burned in my chest.”

He leans forward ever so slightly. “I want to kiss you,” he says.

I breathe in. “OK,” I say.

“But I don’t want to do this if... I don’t want this to be a one-time thing.”

“I don’t know what it is,” I say. “But it’s not a one-time thing.”

He smiles and leans in.

It’s gentle at first, the touch of lip to lip, but I lean into it, and when I do, it overtakes us.

We back up to the closed front door behind us, my shoulders just grazing the door frame.

His lips move just like they used to, and his body feels just like it used to, and as much as two people can rewind the clock, as much as they can erase time, we do.

By the time we’re in his bed, it feels as if we never left each other. It feels as if we never broke up, my parents never moved, I never started dating Chris Rodriguez, and Ethan never met Alicia Foster. It feels as if I never felt the chill of Boston in my hands or the wind of D.C. in my hair. As if I never felt the rain of Portland and Seattle on my shoulders or the heat of Austin on my skin. It’s as if New York City, and all of its disappointments, never entered my heart.

It feels as if I finally made a good decision for once.

THREE DAYS LATER

Iopen my eyes.

My head feels heavy. The world feels hazy. My eyes adjust slowly.

I’m in a hospital bed. My legs are stretched out in front of me, a blanket covering them. My arms are by my sides. There is a blond woman in front of me with a stoic but kind look on her face. She’s about forty. I can’t be sure, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in my life.

She is wearing a white coat and holding a folder.

“Hannah?” she says. “Nod if you can hear me, Hannah. Don’t try to talk just yet. Just nod.”

I nod. It hurts, just that little nod. I can feel it down my back. I can feel a dull ache all over my body, and it seems to be increasing exponentially.

“Hannah, my name is Dr. Winters. You’re at Angeles Presbyterian. You’ve been in a car accident.”

I nod again. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to. But I do.

“We can get into the details later, but I want to go over the big news now, OK?”

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