“It’s so strange… I have this feeling, you know, like I must have been inside a hospital at least once, aside from being born in one, but I don’t think I ever have. No one in my family has ever been sick and I’ve never broken a bone or anything… Knock wood,” she says, bringing her knuckles to the chair’s wooden arm. Then she shudders. “This place gives me the creeps.”
I never saw Emma after the accident, but Anna told me everything. It’s impossible to look at her right now without picturing her in that sterile hospital room, scratched up and stitched together on the outside, broken and still bleeding out on the inside. Emma will never know what I did for her and I’ll never want her to.
Emma’s eyes dart around the room again and she leans in close. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
She comes in even closer, resting her forearms on my chair. “Do you think Justin has a thing for Anna?”
“Anna?” I don’t mean it to come out in such a “my Anna” tone of voice, but I think it does. “No. I mean, they’re friends. They’ve known each other all their lives. Anna thinks of him like a brother.”
“Oh, yeah…of course. I’m not talking about Anna’s feelings for him—it’s all you in that department—I’m just referring to his feelings for her.” She looks around the waiting room. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have even mentioned anything. I’ve just been curious about your opinion and we’re here, just the two of us, stuck in this crappy hospital.” She taps her bright pink painted fingernails on her jeans. “It was just the way he hugged her a few minutes ago looked a little bit ‘more than friends.’” She says the last part with air quotes. “That, you know, combined with the whole near-kiss thing…”
My head falls to the side and I look at her. “What ‘near-kiss thing’?”
Her eyebrows furrow as she chooses her words more carefully now. “You know. After you left town last spring.” She must be able to tell from the look on my face that I’m hearing this for the first time, because she covers her mouth with her hand and pulls away from me fast. “Anna told me you knew. She made it seem like it was no big deal.”
She never told me. And it might not have been a big deal. If this conversation were happening yesterday, I might have just laughed it off, but coming in on the heels of what I saw last night, I might be feeling a little too raw for this.
“Justin got a little bit drunk at my birthday party, and I might have been taking advantage of the situation, because I finally decided to come right out and ask him how he felt about her, you know? Just to see what he’d say.” I’m not sure I want to hear this, but she keeps talking and I don’t stop her. “At first he swore they were just friends, but then he told me that after you left last spring, they were hanging out at the record store together one day and they almost kissed.” She shrugs, as if that will make it seem like she isn’t bothered by the whole incident, but I can tell by the look on her face that she is.
“But don’t get mad. It wasn’t Anna at all. Justin tried to kiss her—he made that part crystal clear. I mean, if you weren’t in the picture, who knows, but…”
I flash back on what I saw last night when I went to 1997. How Justin met Anna at her house, and the two of them walked to school together. And then I think about the guy I saw her with eight years later. The guy she kissed in her driveway. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that it could have been Justin, but now I can’t get the idea out of my mind. I don’t think the guy had red hair, but I never got a very good look either. I remember how Mr. Greene wrapped him up in a fatherly hug and led him into the house.
“The whole thing is totally one-sided…” She stops and lets out a cynical laugh. “Which should have been my first clue, right?” She matches my posture, her head against the wall, her legs kicked out in front of her. “I’m not quite sure why I’m waiting around as if I’m perfectly content with being his consolation prize.”
She starts to say more. I wish she wouldn’t. I don’t have the energy to think about any of this right now and I have much bigger things on my mind. Before Emma can speak again, Anna and her mom return to the waiting room and sit down in the chairs across from us.
“Nothing new, I’m afraid,” Anna’s mom says as she twists her hair around her finger and lets out a heavy breath. Then, without prompting, she launches into a story about a stroke patient she worked with a few years ago. I pretend to listen before I shoot Anna a look and thankfully, she understands.
“We’ll be right back, Mom,” she says, and she grabs my hand and leads me down the hall toward the vending machines. She digs around in her jeans pocket for change. “Want to split a bag of Doritos?”
She’s about to slip a quarter into the slot but I stop her. “Wait. There’s a coffee shop across the street.”
“Yeah?” She covers her mouth as she yawns. “Actually, that sounds good.” She tells me to wait by the elevator while she tells her mom where she’s going, and she comes back holding her coat. I help her into it.
The coffeehouse is nothing like the one we’re used to, far more institutional than cozy, with metal tables and matching chairs. Anna finds a spot in the corner window while I go to the counter to order. A few minutes later, I return with a bowl of soup, a chunk of bread, and a latte.
Anna picks up the bread and turns it over in her hands. “This reminds me of Paris,” she says. She gives me a tired smile before she takes a bite. “Sadly, this tastes nothing like that baguette.” She stares down at the bread, looking disappointed. “I’m convinced I’ll never taste anything that delicious again.”
I don’t respond. In fact, I hardly say a word as she finishes off her soup. But as she’s balling her napkin up and stuffing it into the empty soup container, I can’t hold it in any longer.
“I have to tell you something,” I practically blurt out, and she looks up at me. I probably should have planned out what I was going to say, but I didn’t. Now I’m just making it up as I go along and hoping it will make sense. “Remember last night, when we were sitting outside and you told me I couldn’t fix this?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I thought of something else I could do.”
She takes a sip of her coffee and waits for me.
“I went forward.”
She yawns again. Then she says, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I went forward…into your future. To see what happens to him.”
Her head springs up and she goes to set her coffee cup on the table but she loses her grip and it crashes to the table. Some of the coffee splashes over the side, and Anna reaches for her napkin to wipe up the mess. She suddenly stops and stares at me.
“I don’t want to know, do I?”
I nod my head. “You do. It’s good news. He’s going to be okay.”
She lets the napkin drop as she puts her elbows on the table and buries her face in her hands. I can’t tell if she’s crying or laughing or so overwhelmed, she’s doing a combination of the two.
“It will take a while. In a couple of years, he’ll still walk with a limp and he won’t have full use of his right hand, but eventually, he’ll be fine.”
“Eventually when?”
I look at her. “I’m sorry, Anna. I wish I could tell you that, but I can’t.”
“No, of course you can’t. Okay.” She shakes her head hard, like she’s scolding herself for asking in the first place. She comes in even closer. “I still can’t believe you did this,” she says excitedly. “What else will you tell me?”