Page 15 of The Fate Factor

“Uh, you’re bleeding from the head,” I say, cutting him off. “Maybe try not to talk so much.”

At that, he presses his fingers to his forehead, inspecting a gash that seems to have opened back up. His eyes go comically wide, then roll backward.

“Woah. Jeez.” I barely catch his head, lowering it into my lap. “What the hell is this? Are you stalking me?”

“Are you stalkingme?” he asks.

“Of course not. I’m on sabbatical!”

He looks like he’s going to question that but quickly clamps his mouth shut. After a thick swallow, he says, “I think I need to go to the hospital.”

“Um, yeah. I think you do.”

“Could you please call me an Uber… or an ambulance?” His head flops to the side and he makes the most pathetic sound.

I sigh, regretting immensely what I’m about to do. “I have a car.”

The ER is a slog of hurry up and wait, which gives me plenty of time to continue my spiral into madness. They put Jamie in a curtained area but there’s little privacy. He’s sitting up on thebed, an ice pack strapped to his bare torso which, incidentally, is as well-defined as I remember from The Dream.

That’s what I’ve taken to calling it, the thing that happened between me and Jamie that night. Whatever I saw at that party was some weird lucid dream brought on by an ill-advised shot of Jäger,nota glimpse into the future.

The drunken dream theory is something I can explain—sort of—and for two years, I haven’t been able to bring myself to consider any alternative.

Until Jamie’s pain meds started to kick in and his questions had intensified.Where have you been all this time?How can you not remember me?Did you know I was going to show up tonight?

I’ve been dodging them as best I can in between nurse visits, but I want to throw that last one back in his face. If I had known Jamie Bishop was going to pass out on my porch, I surely wouldn’t have taken Kate’s suggestion to come here.

I’m not a psychic or fortune teller or whatever he thinks. That night was one bizarre moment in time, and it’snotsomething I’m looking to repeat.

Of course, having that argument means admitting I remember him, which is a non-starter, so instead I’ve been gaslighting him by reminding him he’s concussed and not thinking clearly.

I might have convinced myself if not for the fact that, sitting this close to him, I have to admit there’s some things I can’t explain. At the top of the list of my problems: he looks exactly like he did in the dream.

When we arrived, a nurse secured a bandage to the cut on his forehead, and the wrap made his hair stick up like an anime character. It’s because of the haircut. The same as I saw that night: short on the sides, sexy floppy thing on top.

Haircuts I can rationalize. A coincidence. Current trends and all that. But then the same nurse had taken a pair of surgicalscissors to his bloody T-shirt, and when the fabric fell away, I saw them—the freckles across his chest and stomach. I knew they’d be there. Then there’s his belly button. An outie. I saw that too. In the dream.

I googled what percentage of the population has an outie belly button, and it’s ten. Ten measly percent. There’s no way I could have guessed this. I can’t explain that away no matter how hard I try, and oh, am I trying.

The curtain swings open, and a new nurse steps in.

“Good evening,” she says. “Oh, that looks painful.”

Jamie gives her anaw shuckslook and pink paints her round cheeks. She checks the oxygen monitor on his finger just as his phone buzzes in his lap.

He lunges for it without thinking, whimpering in pain as he connects the call. “Kelly,” he rasps. “Hey. Listen, babe—”babe? “—I took a pretty hard hit at hockey and I’m at the ER. Can you come get me?”

Whatever he hears on the other end of this call is not what he expected because his ears flush red and he flicks a glance at me. I pretend to read the juice box they gave him on hour one.

“Uh, no… I can’t come over… My knee’s fucked and I have three broken—” He runs a hand over his face, sighing the rest of his sentence. “—ribs. I’m not even sure how I’m going to work tomorr—”

A shriek rings from the phone and he winces.

The nurse clucks her tongue and shakes her head in my direction likecan you believe this woman, but as much as I’m inclined to agree, I don’t feel like joining in.

I do, however, mentally add a check to theDifferentcolumn. Jamie is currently sleeping with someone named Kelly. Not the girl from that night—Becca, I think her name was—or you know,me.

“Look, do you think you could pick me up? I can’t drive.” His jaw twitches and his voice drops an octave. I don’t have to know him in some other dimension to know he’s pissed. “Seriously? Just drop me off and you can go back—Okay… yeah… thanks for nothing, Kel.” He ends the call with a growl, tossing the phone on the bed.

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