Pieces of Hope (25 page)

It was
sweet, but utterly impossible. Still, I didn’t correct him. If Ethan wanted to
spoil me rotten in any realm, so be it.

Aside
from the petals, the bottom of the boat was strewn with what appeared to be
hand-made quilts. As I settled into their bedlike softness, Ethan explained
that they were his great grandmother’s and that she’d given him one each year
on his birthday, right up until the year she died. Altogether, he had fifteen
of them.

As he
pushed the boat away from the dock, gathering the rough oars in his hands, I
thought my happiness was so great it might swallow me whole. From my seat
opposite him, I smiled with mixed emotions—secretly pinching myself for being
so lucky, and totally terrified of losing him to something unknown.

I dipped
my finger in the chilly water, watching the trail that lingered in its wake.
Without meaning to, I looked at him, and a single thought slipped out. “Would
you care to tell me what I’ve done to deserve this?”

“I already
told you,” he said quietly. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

As Ethan
busied himself with the oars, I had a moment to think. Now and then, a breeze
would lift and it would start raining flowers again.

“I wish
I could be as certain as you are,” I admitted. “I mean, about
before
. I don’t understand how you know
it’s true. How can you be certain it’s me?” And what I wanted to ask, but couldn’t
was,
Would you like me as much if I
turned out I wasn’t?
 

He
smiled now, ceasing his rowing to gaze at me intently, and making me wonder if
he’d heard my thoughts. Thankfully, that could happen only at the Station, but
knowing Ethan’s strong intuition, I wondered if it were possible. At the very
least, he often sensed my emotions, which coincidentally, I was presently
fighting to get my head above—very much a lopsided battle of late.

I’d
stretched my legs across his lap, and Ethan was lazily running his fingertips
up and down them as if I hadn’t said a word. After a few moments, I saw
something flash in his eyes, and his hand stopped moving. It took several
seconds for the tingling to stop.

“Maybe
we’re looking at this backwards,” he said. I felt my eyebrows knit together. “I
mean—have you ever, in the absence of any proof, been certain of something?”

Nonchalantly,
I said, “I’ve suspected at times, I suppose.” Wishful thinking was one thing.
Certainty, quite another.

“So
you’re not one hundred percent sure,” he said agreeably.

I shook
my head, baffled by his unwavering optimism.

He
thought again, and then continued, “Has anyone else ever told you that they
were certain of something, and without question you believed them?”

I was
surprised at how quickly it popped into my head.

“My
mother told me that from the first moment she kissed my father, she knew he was
the one. She said that one day I would know it, too. One kiss would tell me
everything I needed to know.”

“And you
believed her?” I listened for it, but there was no judgment in his tone.

“Yes.” I
felt my face flush. Once again, I asked myself if he could hear my thoughts.
Did he know how I felt when he kissed me?

“
Mmmm
. . . so you believe in fairytales?” he mused.

It took
a second to respond. I was remembering the way I used to cringe when Mom
brought up
Cinderella.
And then I
thought of my description of Ethan . . . part melancholy, part mystery, my
dark-haired fairy tale come to life.

“I
didn’t used to,” I admitted, skipping over any explanation. “But I saw how
happy my mom and dad were, and if she knew that he was the one from their very
first kiss, maybe there’s something to it.”

“And maybe
your day isn’t too far off.” He was so sure of himself it defied common
sense.
  

“Maybe,”
I admitted, his persistence wearing on me.

The boat
had drifted into the middle of the pond, and the sun peeked in and out of the
trees. The shifting light reflected off of his skin, making him appear golden
and then dappled. My heart ached as I watched him, the way it did when you were
scared to death of losing something extraordinary.

“Does
this visit seem a lot longer to you?” I dipped my finger in the water again,
watching the ripples left in its wake.

“Bored
with me already?”
  

I looked
up. “Bite your tongue.”
 

He gave
a short laugh. “I did it on purpose. For once, I don’t feel like I’m running
off the minute I get here. But any length of time with you feels like too
little time,” he confessed.

Now I
was more than curious. “How’d you do it?”

“I went
to bed early and I don’t have to work tomorrow—though I’ll definitely have to
check up on you—so that gave us more than our usual amount of time together.”
His gaze flicked away. He stared blankly at the oars.

Something
didn’t feel right. The hair on my arms stood up.

“What
aren’t you saying, Ethan?”

“I’m not
keeping secrets,” he insisted. “I just don’t want you to worry.”

“Why are
sentences like that always followed by a
but
?”
I asked.

He
continued to avert his gaze, eventually looking guiltily back at me.

“I
experimented a few days ago by taking a couple of sleeping pills, thinking they
might knock me out longer. I don’t usually sleep longer than five hours a
night,” he explained, as though this justified his behavior. “But, well,
something . . . happened.”

“What?”
I grabbed his hands, recalling
Creesie’s
words about
harm and Ethan and soul-to-soul visits. “
What
happened
?”

“You
never showed up. Or I never dreamt. Or . . .” He scowled. “Maybe the pills put
me in too deep of a sleep to find you.”

I wanted
to be angry with him for behaving so irresponsibly, but I kept seeing the image
of my body lying back in the ICU, the one that Ethan cared for every day . . .
the one rapping not-so-softly on death’s door.

“Please
don’t do that again,” I urged quietly, as my heart slowed to a normal beat.
“I’m sure that can’t be good for you.”

“Unless
you’re setting the example, I’m going to have a hard time following your
advice.” He was trying to keep his voice level, but his irritation was obvious.

 
I swallowed hard, unsure of what to say yet
unwilling to discuss it further. It took a while to find my voice. “Please
don’t be angry with me, Ethan. I’m not sure my heart can take it.”

“I’m not
angry, Hope, I’m—” But instead of finishing his thought, he scooped me up and,
in one swift movement sat me down gently on his lap. I tucked my head into his
neck. He smelled like the woodsy scent at his apartment. Then he began again,
though I wasn’t convinced it was the same thought he had started a moment ago.
“I—I was thinking about what you told me,” he said. “About your mother . . .”

“Yes?” I
responded, secretly hoping there wasn’t a difficult question coming—one I might
have to dance around or ignore, and risk upsetting him again.

“I know,
too,” he announced, probably assuming I knew what he meant. But I was too busy
getting lost in the sound of his voice. It vibrated pleasantly on my cheek
where I’d pressed it against his throat.

“You
know what?” I asked.

“You’re
my one.” His voice was suddenly hoarse. “There’ll never be another.”

“Never
is a very long time,” I teased, ignoring the pleasant tingles that ran down my
spine, “and you haven’t met all the people in the world yet. Honestly, there
could be another someone somewhere—”

Ethan
abruptly lifted my chin, startling me. I could see the misery in his eyes, a
sadness that seemed to seep into his soul. I longed to make that misery go
away, and I knew what would do it, but the words refused to form.

I’m coming back, Ethan—I am!—I’m coming
back!
 

“I’ll
never love another, Hope. I’ve know it since you—”

I was
staring at him wide-eyed, and it must have dawned on him how shocked I was. It
had nothing to do with his heartfelt confession. But given my missing backbone,
he would probably think that was the reason why. I scrambled to explain, but
his tortured expression suddenly disappeared into a tenuous grin.

“I knew
it long before I kissed you,” he began. “For the record, I’d say it was—”

Before
he’d finished his thought, I grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled him to me,
and pressed my mouth to his. He was definitely surprised, his mouth still
slightly open from speaking, but that faded within seconds, replaced with an
utter disregard for reason that I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried. The twin
sound of our hearts thrummed in my ears and, for once, Ethan’s ragged breathing
matched mine. There was a sense of urgency radiating between us, as though this
opportunity might never come again. Though I tried to ignore it, a nagging
voice whispered repeatedly in the back of my mind that time itself . . . that
endless, indefinable entity . . . was . . . running . . . out.

The
voice was nearly unshakeable, but suspecting that my guilt was the source of
it, I focused instead on the sound of Ethan’s irregular breathing, the altering
pressure of his lips on mine, the feel of his hands in my hair . . .
 

And
then, inexplicably, the hair on the back of my neck stood up—the way it did
when someone was watching me. My eyes flew open. I watched a shadow flit across
the lake.
Across the lake?
Shadows
didn’t move like that. What, or rather,
who
was here? If they weren’t already dead (and the odds were that they were), I
was going to kill them a second time for interrupting my kiss.

I
loosened my grip on Ethan and leaned back a few inches. He beamed a stunning
smile at me. The hair on my neck settled down. I smiled back, forgetting my
distraction.

“I’ve
always thought of kissing as an art form,” I said, noticing that Ethan wasn’t
breathing nearly as hard as I was. “Given that they recognize great poets and painters
and writers, it’s about time they gave out awards for exemplary kissers.”

“We
should definitely add this to your list of talents,” he said, not sounding the
least bit serious. “Because if someone starts handing out awards, I’ll
certainly nominate you.”
 

“I
didn’t do it all by myself!” I reminded him with a laugh.
  

He
grabbed an oar, turning the boat in the direction of the setting sun. “Maybe
you just worked harder at it than I did,” he said, and I laughed harder. I
could see that he was glowing more than usual, in a deeper shade of violet.
Strong emotions,
Creesie
said, tended to make the
color more visible. In my mind, I high-fived myself.

His
voice turned serious as he brought up the hospital, saying that he wasn’t able
to sense my presence, and that I seemed very far away. He had no idea how right
he was.

I told
him about the Station and the travelers. “I’ve never clocked the mileage, but I
think it’s halfway between the living world and heaven.”
 

I felt
him nodding as though this sounded perfectly reasonable.

“Supposedly,
every person in the world is connected—I mean, in a way that most of us aren’t
accustomed to. People can hear your thoughts there. Technically, they don’t
have to speak, you know, no bodies. But they look just like you or me . . .
well, more like you, actually.” He heaved an exasperated sigh, and I laughed.
“I’ve made several friends, tasted some great food, and travelled to some
exotic locales. And somehow—and this, by the way, was definitely the best
part—managed to land a great boyfriend as well.”

“You’ve
been a very busy girl.” There was a smile in his voice. “Would you care to
elaborate on that? Well, skip the last bit, I’m familiar with that.”

I told
Ethan everything I could remember—when he first spoke at my bedside, my meeting
with
Amora
, my uncanny ability to understand other
languages, the elevators in
Amora’s
room, my trips to
the Station, the beauty of the place, and the food at the café. I told him
about
Creesie
,
Rin
,
Charlotte, and Gus. I described them in great detail, told him how weird it was
that
Creesie
was really seventy-seven and looked no
older than us. Then I told him how much love I felt from everyone, and how much
they seemed to care about me. That last part didn’t surprise him at all, he’d
said.

I failed
to mention that the living realm was quickly becoming a stranger to me. I felt
more at home here—halfway to everywhere. Without a body, the living realm often
made me feel like I wasn’t alive.
   

 
“Oh, and
Creesie
was
in the accident with me! She tells me it was part of the grand plan, that I
needed a wake-up call, of sorts.” I was going to leave out the rest of the
story. Not bother to mention Daniel. After all, it didn’t really seem
necessary.

But
Ethan was thinking. I could tell he was putting it together.

“Hope, there’s
been a cop hanging around the ICU the last couple of days. Checking up on you,
he says. But he’s been looking around another patient’s room—Daniel
Hartlein’s
. Know him?”

He’d
asked the question casually—too much so. Instinctively, I knew better than to
lie to him. He probably already knew the answer. After all, Brody had a very
big mouth. I leaned back a little, watching his face.
   

“I do,”
I said.
  

“And he
was in the accident with you?” Again, too casual.

“He
was.” I let it hang there for a minute, then I said, “And if you’re wondering
if I went back to the hospital to see him, the answer is yes.”