Beautiful Lies (2 page)

We leave the gallery a little while later.

“Stop it,” I chuckle as I watch Rick starting up the car.

“Stop what?” He laughs.

“You’ve got that
look.”

“What look?” He laughs again.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Oh, the ‘I just made love to my beautiful girlfriend’ look?” He asks feigning confusion.

“Yeah, something like that,” I shake my head.

“Hey,” he says touching my hand as he drives. “Tonight was...”

“Yeah, it was,” I say, knowing exactly what he meant.

“I just need to stop off at the store and pick us up a bottle of wine,” he says, pulling the car over slowly.

“I’ll go,” I smile.

“No, you stay in here and keep warm, it’s cold out.”

“I kind of need the air,” I say, my cheeks warming up.

He laughs. “Ok.”

“Red or white?”

“Surprise me,” he chuckles. I roll my eyes.

“Be back in five,” I say jumping out of the car.

“Make it two, I’m really in a hurry to get you home,” he raises his eyebrows at me and I smile.

I close the door behind me. It is pretty cold but the air has taken the edge off of what I was feeling sat next to Rick. Tonight was amazing. It’s definitely a night that I’ll never forget.

I turn my head to look at Rick and smile. His expression is strange and he looks petrified. He screams something but I don’t hear what it is. I turn to look in the direction that he is pointing and everything goes black.

* * *

My eyes flutter open. Confusion sets in just before the panic.

“She’s awake,” I hear a voice. It’s not familiar. Unfamiliar faces are surrounding my bed and it’s overwhelming. My eyes are being widened by hands that have never touched me, and lights are being shone directly into my pupils. I am being asked to blink and try to move body parts, but it’s like an out of body experience. I hear it, I respond, but it feels like it’s not really happening. Foreign hands are stretching, pulling and moving different parts of my body and I feel like a science experiment. My body is stiff and I struggle to move it by myself. Slowly the hands leave my body, the voices get quieter before completely dying out, and I feel alone. Tears burn my eyes. I search for something that I recognize but I see nothing. No one. Then I remember. I remember...
him
.

“Taylor?” My voice is hoarse and it hurts to speak but I don’t care. I call him again because I need some normality...some familiarity. “Taylor?”

“It’s ok,” her voice is kind but direct. My eyes try to focus on her face but I have to blink a few times to clear my vision. I don’t even realize that she is standing there. She is staring down at me. She’s at least in her mid fifties. She is wearing a blue overall of some kind. Her dark blonde hair is pinned up on her head and her blue eyes are watching me cautiously. I try to look around the room but my head is stiff and my neck hurts. I can hear other voices but I’m too tired to seek them out. My eyes fall on the lady again. She is wearing a badge.

Nurse Bandcock.

I try to keep up with her as she reels off a list of questions.
Do you remember your name? How old are you? What year is it? Do you remember where you live?
I know the answers, of course, until she asks her final question.

“Do you remember what happened?”

What happened? What did happen...
I look up into her eyes and can tell from the sympathetic look that I should have been able to answer the question, but my mind is blank. I deter from answering her question and instead ask something more important.

I squint. “Where am I?” I whisper.

“You’re in the hospital. You were involved in an accident.”

“Accident?” I feel sick. Her eyes flicker to someone else’s uncertainly. I close my eyes. I search my brain till it hurts.
Nothing.
Where is the information that I am looking for? I don’t remember an accident. I don’t remember anything except...
him.

“Taylor.”

“Who?”

“Taylor,” I repeat a little louder.

“Is that your boyfriend?” Nurse Bandcock asks gently. I don’t realize that I have spoken until she asks me.

“No...he’s my...” What is he? I don’t know. We’ve been seeing each other for--I don’t even know how long it’s been.
Long.
It’s been three--no--four months. Maybe longer...I don’t know. It’s been long enough that I can feel myself
falling
. We’re just in a pattern of speaking to one another every day, seeing each other every day but we’ve never discussed a status. Perhaps we are an
us.
I want to smile at that thought but my head hurts too much. The images of last night suddenly flash in my mind...he was taking me to a fancy Italian restaurant but I don’t remember anything after that. I remember the smell of his cologne. I remember that he was wearing a black suit and a white shirt that was buttoned down at the collar. I remember him taking me by the hand and helping me out of the car as he has done every night that he’s taken me out. I remember him telling me that I looked beautiful and how lucky he was to be the man seen with me tonight. I remember how it made my stomach feel.
Butterflies.
I remember blushing and smiling. I remember trying not to get caught up in his eyes. His eyes...

I remember his midnight black eyes. His dark hair that I pictured running my fingers through on several occasions. That I
have
run my fingers through on many occasions. His smile. Damn that smile if it doesn’t make me feel things that should be made illegal in every single state within the USA. I remember his lips and what it felt like the first time that he kissed me. I remember it like yesterday...losing myself to that kiss and every single one that has followed since. And his touch...his finger tips set me on fire whenever they touch any part of my skin. Everywhere he touches leaves behind a pleasurable burn.

I remember everything except an accident...

“Do you know where he is?” I ask suddenly. Did he wait around to see how I was? We had only been seeing each other for a few months, I guess, but I
felt
something...a connection. Something told me that he felt it, too, but what if he wasn’t interested? Is a matter of months enough time to want to sit at the bedside of a woman that has been involved in an accident? Wait...how bad had the accident left me? My mind instantly sends a signal to my toes.
They move. My legs feel stiff but they move. I can walk. Thank God.
My hands slip up to my face and I feel for any changes...any disfigurements. My heart is beating at a hundred miles an hour as I lift my hands slowly.

“It’s ok, by some miracle, you just have a few bruises,” she says as if she can read my mind. “It may take a little while to get you back on your feet but you’ll be ok. There’s definitely someone watching over you up there,” she continues, gesturing toward the ceiling.

“Yeah,” I breathe in relief. “How long...how long have I been here?”

I see the expression on her face drop. My heart beat speeds up.

“It’s been a month.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m so sorry sweetheart but the accident left you in a coma. This is the first time that you have woken up in a month.”

“A month?” My brain struggles to process her words.

“Yes,” she confirms gently. “Shall I get that young man of yours then?” She says with a smile.

My eyes snap back up to her face. “He’s still here?” I ask in shock. Taylor stayed...maybe he did feel something.

“He has visited you every single day.”

“He did?” I can’t hide the smile even though my head is hurting from the slight movement.

She nods her head. “Would you like me to go and find him?”

“I would like that very much.” She smiles again, before leaving the room. Whoever was in there with her, follows, and I am left in silence.

He visited me every day for a month?
That had to mean something, right? Maybe how I was feeling wasn’t misplaced. Maybe it was ok to feel something for him...something deeper. Maybe he understood. Maybe the months that we’d spent together meant just as much to him as they did to me. My stomach churns in excitement and I feel like squirming. I quickly run my fingers through my hair, squinting at the pain as I do. I gently pinch my cheeks to give them a little color. I probably look a mess, but he stayed. I giggle at the thought...he stayed...for
me.
He wanted to see me again, to know that I was ok.

I try to sit up a little but the pain is too much. Instead, I slip a little lower into the bed and try to get comfortable. I close my eyes for a few seconds to ease the dizziness.

“Here we go. She’s been asking for you,” I hear the nurse’s voice and my eyes snap open. My smile is suddenly replaced by shock as my eyes fall on his face. This doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand. I blink a few times to make sure that my eyes are working.
They are.
I just stare at him in silence.

“Paige,” his voice is relieved and full of love. He races over to me, planting gentle kisses all over my face. I don’t feel the pain that his touch is causing me because I am completely numb. My brain is trying to process what is happening. His kisses lack something. They lack
him.
They lack Taylor. He’s not Taylor. I try to make sense of everything but I feel like I am stuck in some sick game. The man that is planting kisses all over my face, the one looking down at me like I am the only woman that exists in the whole world is not the man that I was expecting.

My brain starts scanning like a machine on overload. This doesn’t make sense. I remember this man...I know exactly who he is yet he’s not who I was expecting. I was expecting Taylor, but if the man stood before me is real, then...oh gosh...no. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. This has got to be some sort of a joke, but it’s not. I know it’s not because the memories of the man planting gentle kisses all over my face are flooding back. The first day we met; our first date; the first time we met each others’ parents; the first time we made love; the first time we moved in together; the night of the accident...

“Rick,” finally the word falls from my lips. It feels foreign...wrong. It’s replacing the only word that has been on my lips for the past month...
Taylor
. Wait...
month
. She said that I was unconscious for a
month
. I feel sick. Realization sinks in and reality kicks me straight in the gut.
It
wasn’t real.
He
wasn’t real...
Taylor.
Him...
everything
...every emotion and feeling was fake...it was just a
dream.
But she said that I was in a coma for just a month...it felt like longer...so much longer. If it was just a dream, then Taylor doesn’t exist. He was never real...it was just a dream. My imagination was just playing a cruel trick on my brain...extending a mere month into days, weeks, months of feelings that I can’t ignore. I have
real
feelings for a man that doesn’t exist. I feel sick. I feel physically sick.

I look up into the eyes of the man who is stood before me. I try to understand how my heart could have felt more in a dream than it has in the two years that we have shared together. I never thought that there was more than
this.
More than Rick and I. Why is my heartbeat not the same as it was with Taylor? Where is the extra beat that it had when I was with him? Where has it all gone? I look into Rick’s eyes but my heart is missing Taylor. Did I cheat on him? Was I unfaithful to the man that I love? How could I feel so strongly about someone else when I have him? The guilt ripples through me like a violent storm. What is wrong with me? My eyes flicker to his face again. I feel dirty even looking at him, knowing what I’ve done. Knowing how I feel. Knowing that half of my heart lies with the man from my dreams.

Rick looks so tired and worn out. His beard has grown and his eyes are circled in dark rings. He’s been suffering. Guilt fills my entire body and words escape me. I cry. I cry because I love the man stood before me – I remember that much – but something’s changed. Something has shifted. I cry because I miss Taylor. I cry because he is not
real.

“Paige, don’t cry, baby,” he wipes my eyes softly with his calloused fingertips but it only makes me cry more. He’s crying, too. My heart hurts.

“Why are you crying?” I ask.

“I thought that I had lost you.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, only myself knowing the double meaning to my words.

“It’s not your fault, Paige.” I see guilt flash across his face but it disappears just as quickly as it came.

“What happened?”

“A car hit you as you were crossing the road.” My face shows my lack of understanding. “You were going to get a bottle of wine...it was our two year anniversary.”

Two year anniversary. The bottle of wine...we had just left the gallery. We had made love...everything was so perfect...