Page 30 of Maybe in Another Life

“Hi,” I say. I love lilies. I wonder if he remembered that or if it’s a coincidence.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is gentle, as if speaking too loudly could hurt me. He hasn’t moved from the door. “Is this...? Am I...?”

“It’s OK,” Gabby says. “Come on in. Have a seat.” She moves to the other side of me.

He comes closer and hands me the flowers. I take them and smell them. He smiles at me as if I’m the only person in the world.

As I look at him, it comes back to me, almost like a dream at first, and then the more I remember, the more it grabs hold.

I remember Gabby handing me her phone. I remember looking down at it. Seeing Katherine’s message.

Going home with Ethan. Is this a terrible idea?

I bury my face in the flowers instead of looking directly at him. In a hospital, where everything is so clinical and unscented, where the air itself is stale, the smell of lilies almost feels as if it could make you high. I breathe in again, stronger, trying to inhale as much of their life and freshness as I can. The irony of the situation isn’t lost on me. These are cut flowers. They are, by their very definition, dying.

“Mmm,” I say.He’s not serious about us. He’s not interested in an “us” if he went home with her. This is Michael all over again. This is me needing to learn that you have to face the truth of a situation head-on. He almost kissed me, and then he went home with another girl.“They smell great.”

“How are you?” he says. He sits down in the chair next to the bed.

“I’m OK,” I say. “Really.”

He stares at me for a moment.

“Can you take these back?” I say, handing the flowers to Gabby. “I don’t have anywhere to really...”

“Oh,” Gabby says. “Let me go find some water and something to put them in. Sound good?” She’s trying to find a reason to leave us alone, and a perfect one just fell into her lap. She slips out the door and smiles at me.

“So,” he says, breathing in hard.

“So,” I say.

We are both quiet, looking at each other. I can tell he’s worried about me. I can tell it’s hard for him to look at me and see me in this hospital bed. I also know that it’s not his fault I’m upset at the memory of him taking Katherine home. We had no claim on each other, made no promises.

And besides, this memory may be fresh for me because I just remembered it, because it was temporarily lost in the haziness of my brain, but it happened days ago. It’s old news to him.

We both speak up at the same time.

“How are you, really?” he asks me.

“How’ve you been?” I ask him.

He laughs. “Did you just ask me how I’ve been? How haveyoubeen? That’s the question. I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“I’m OK,” I say.

“You scared me half to death,” he says. “Do you know that? Do you know how heartbroken I’d be to live in a world you weren’t in?”

I know that I should believe him. I know that he’s telling the truth. But the fact of the matter is that I worry that I’ll believe him too much, that I’ll become too easily swayed into believing what I want to believe about him. I don’t want to do what I would have done before. I don’t want to believe what a person says and ignore what he does. I don’t want to see only what I want to see.

I want to be realistic, for once. I want to be grounded. I want to make smart decisions.

So when Ethan smiles at me and makes me feel as if I invented the world, when he comes close to me and I can feel the warmth of his body and the smell of his laundry detergent just like in high school, I have to ignore it. For my own good.

“I really am OK,” I tell him. “Don’t worry. It’s just some broken bones. But I’m OK.”

He grabs my hand. I flinch. He sees me do it and takes his hand back.

“Have they been treating you well?” he says. “I hear hospital food leaves something to be desired.”

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