Eye Contact Read online

  “When they hit me with the bat, they fractured a bunch of ribs and two of my vertebrae. I was millimeters away from a severe spinal cord injury. My facial bones were shattered and my skull was fractured. If I had tried to stand—if you hadn’t come to help me—”

  “Your brain could’ve hemorrhaged,” she interrupted.

  “That’s what they said. If you hadn’t been there, I probably would’ve died.”

  She handed me the photo album and walked away, circling the room but not heading toward the door to leave.

  “This is a lot to process.”

  “I know. I’ve wanted to tell you a hundred times, but it’s not exactly an easy thing to say. There was never a good time.”

  “So you getting into an accident, coming into my hospital that night—that was just…fate?”

  “I guess. I don’t know. All I know is that when I woke up and saw your eyes, I knew.”

  Her gaze rose to meet mine.

  “I know those eyes,” I went on, moving closer to her. “I couldn’t remember your whole face, but your eyes…I memorized them, and they’ve been all I can see for the longest time.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  “You don’t have to say anything, just don’t hate me. Don’t be afraid of this,” I pleaded. “I’m just a boy—a man—looking for the girl who saved his life two decades ago, looking for the eyes that kept me going all this time, never dreaming in a million years that I would find them again, especially not staring back at me as I woke up from a coma in the hospital.”

  Andie let her mouth fall open but remained silent, looking at me in awe.

  “I’m sorry, Andie. I never thought this was possible either. Please, don’t be weirded out.”

  “But this is the weirdest thing to ever happen in the history of weird things.”

  We both laughed a little and she tried to relax.

  “I didn’t know what you would look like or be like as an adult. I’ve looked for you forever to say thank you. I need you to know how much that day meant to me and how important you were.” Her lips trembled slightly and I knew I had to tread carefully. “The fact that you were on shift that night is crazy, and you saved my life again—that’s got to mean something.”

  “What if it doesn’t though? I can’t continue any kind of relationship with you, romantic or not, with that kind of pressure.”

  “I don’t want that either. I don’t want either of us to be pressured.” Her shoulders shrugged. “But this is the best date I’ve ever had. I know you feel a connection too.” Her eyes closed and she tilted her head in a nod of agreement. “Please…give it a chance. Give me a chance.”

  I moved to attempt to hug her but she quickly backed away, rejecting my advance.

  “I have to go,” she announced as she walked toward the door. “I’m sorry. This is just…it’s too much.”

  “Andie, wait,” I pleaded, trying to keep up with her hasty exit but held back by my crutches. “Please don’t leave like this.”

  She turned to look back just before leaving my shop. “I need some time.”

  Her eyes fell, and just like that, she was gone.

  Chapter 26

  Andie

  “I got you a coffee, but you’re not getting a bagel today,” Rowan announced as she stormed into my kitchen. “There was an incident.” I didn’t even care enough to ask her to explain. Once she set down the drink carrier and the box she was toting, she turned to me. “You look like shit.”

  “Please, tell me how you really feel.”

  “No, seriously, are you sick?”

  “No, I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Aww yeah—bow chicka wow wow! Late night with Mr. Hotstuff Bennett huh?” she teased. “I want details!”

  “No,” I answered flatly.

  “No? No what? No late night or no you’re not giving me details?”

  “No, it wasn’t a late night, and no, I’m not giving you details.” She looked wounded. “Don’t, Rowan. I’m not ready to talk about it.”

  “Wait, did he hurt you?” she snapped, misinterpreting my non-disclosure as something altogether different. “That son of a bitch!”

  “No, nothing like that. Cool your jets. It was…well, just a weird night. That’s all.”

  “Weird like how? I’m so confused. Did it go well or not?”

  I sipped from my coffee, relishing the smooth warmth sliding down my throat, and stilled myself to tell her about Vaughn and our apparent history. Where do I even begin?

  “It went really well actually—almost too well. I can’t believe how good it was, until it wasn’t.”

  “And…? What does that mean?” She barked impatiently. “Just word-vomit it all out, Andie. Stop thinking about it so much and tell me what the hell happened.”

  “Okay! Stop yelling at me.” Her raised voice was doing nothing to help the pounding in my head from lack of sleep. “You’ll need to sit down. This will take a minute.”

  We moved to my living room sofa, Rowan mumbling under her breath that she would neuter him with her bare hands if he’d done something to hurt me. I smiled at her immediate instinct to protect me and settled into the couch, getting nice and comfortable. The next hour and a half was spent telling her all about my date from start to finish, everything I could remember: what he was wearing, what he said, how he made me feel, the food we ordered, the drinks we consumed, even the car ride. She quietly absorbed all the information and while she smiled and gave sounds of approval here and there, she was careful not to interrupt me. Recounting the night made me feel even more confused about the situation, and my stomach was twisted in knots.

  “So what was so bad? I haven’t heard anything that’s anywhere close to being a deal breaker yet. What gives?”

  “We got to his place at the end of the night and he invited me back inside. I didn’t want it to end yet so I said yes, and then all hell broke loose.”

  Rowan leaned forward, setting her latte down on the side table and bringing her hands together to crack her knuckles. Her ready-to-kick-some-ass face was intimidating, and for a brief moment, I contemplated not telling her about his studio.

  “Get on with it, girl. I can almost smell the gears burning up in your brain.”

  “He had given me a tour of his place when I first arrived, because he lives in the same building where he works, ya know? When I followed him in, I noticed a door to a room I hadn’t seen before we left for dinner.”

  Rowan widened her eyes and jutted her chin forward, egging me on.

  “It was the door leading to his studio.”

  “His studio?” she questioned.

  “He’s an artist, professionally and recreationally.”

  “Okay, and…?”

  “Ro, the entire room is a shrine.”

  “A shrine to what?” Her brows furrowed and the puzzled look on her face was irritated.

  “To me!” I hollered. “The room was full of me.”

  “Huh?” she grunted. “I don’t get it.”

  “Sketches of me, portraits of me, paintings of ME everywhere!”

  “Oh.” She sat back in her seat, being hit with a wave of understanding. She still looked slightly confused so I elaborated.

  “Not just me, now, but me as a child, too.”

  “Wait, what? What do you mean?” If her ears could have literally perked up like a dog’s, they would have.

  I exhaled in frustration. “Apparently, we’ve met before…years ago, as children.”

  “When? How?” She was shocked.

  I told her the whole story, about when I was about eight or so and I was checking our mailbox for my mom when I saw a boy who lived a few houses down walking down the sidewalk.

  “I remember thinking he didn’t look much older than me and I was excited about maybe having a new friend in the neighborhood, then he was suddenly jumped by three other boys. I saw the whole thing.” Rowan listened intently, allowing me space to continue. “They hit
him with a bat, over and over. I hid behind the bushes in our yard but I saw the whole fight. I could almost hear his bones breaking.”

  “What did you do?”

  “They eventually left, once they were done with him, and I ran over. I thought he was dead at first.”

  “Jesus, Andie.”

  “But he was breathing. I screamed for someone to help us and a neighbor, Mr. Zapcic, came outside. He called 911 and I stayed with the boy—with Vaughn.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “I know. I was terrified.” My voice cracked at the memory. “A few minutes later, they arrived and he got taken away. I never saw him again, never even learned his name.”

  “What did your parents say? They didn’t help you try to find him?”

  “When I went back inside, my mom saw the blood on my clothes and screamed at me to go get cleaned up. She didn’t even care where it had come from.”

  “Classic Kathy,” Rowan snapped, rolling her eyes. “What about your dad?”

  “I told him about it later when he got home and he said he would try to call the local hospitals and inquire but didn’t think he was going to get very much information. He was right. Staff members were pretty hush-hush about private patient information, even back then, especially with minors.”

  “So, nothing? You never heard anything? What about when he came home? I mean, he obviously survived, so why didn’t you see him again in the neighborhood?”

  “I don’t know, but I never did. It was like he vanished into thin air.” I pushed my loose wispy hairs back from my face in frustration. “I had to forget about him.”

  We sat in the silence for a few minutes as she digested the story. Reliving it was painful, and my heart ached for Vaughn as a boy. What an awful thing to have had to go through, and to find out that he was a foster kid with a seemingly not very pleasant upbringing made it worse.

  “How did he remember you?” she asked faintly. “All these years, he remembered you—or your face, rather?”

  “I guess, yeah. He told me I saved his life and he could only picture certain parts of the incident. He only remembered bits and pieces, but what was always constant to him were my eyes.”

  “Wow. That’s kind of romantic.”

  “Is it though?” I groaned. “It was pretty creepy walking into a room full of images of my eyes. There were portraits everywhere of parts of my face, like he couldn’t quite piece the whole thing together.”

  “Yeah, I can see how that would be off-putting, but…”

  “Off-putting? More like disturbing. I felt violated, like I had just walked into the cave of my stalker or something.” I shuddered at how unnerving it had been. He could’ve very well directed me to rub the lotion on my skin and it would’ve fit the circumstance.

  “Yeah, but once he explained, you didn’t find it endearing? It’s like, poetic or something, like something out of Shakespeare.”

  “Umm, no. It was nothing like that.”

  “All these years, he was haunted by that memory and wasn’t able to ever find closure, and now he has it.” She abruptly sat up straight and her lips parted in a realization. “Wait, how did he finally find you?”

  “He didn’t. He happened to get brought into our hospital after his car accident, and I happened to be the trauma surgeon on call that night.”

  “Oh my God, it’s like fate.” Her singsong voice was getting under my skin.

  “No, it’s not,” I declared, recalling him saying the exact same thing just a few hours before.

  “What is it then? How else do you explain this serendipitous reunion?” Her face was excited and her voice giddy.

  “It’s a coincidence, nothing more.”

  “How do you explain him knowing it was you, that you were the same girl?”

  “He recognized my eyes.”

  She responded with a swoony “Awww” and batted her eyes.

  “Okay, really? This isn’t a Disney movie.”

  “But it is, Andie! This is some dreamy fairy-tale shit if I’ve ever heard any.”

  I drank my coffee, lukewarm after all the talking I had just done, and got lost in my thoughts. It was impossible not to question the meaning behind our encounter, and under such similar lifesaving circumstances. I couldn’t deny the bizarre connection I’d felt with him the night he came in, and every time I’d seen him afterward. When I touched him, there was a tingle, an energy of some kind. It weirded me out, but maybe it did mean something. Perhaps I needed to get out of my head and go with what I felt for once.

  “So what do I do?” I asked my best friend in earnest.

  “How did you end things last night?”

  “I got weirded out and bailed, told him I needed some time.”

  “Ughh,” she scoffed, obviously not pleased with my response to the situation. “You need to talk to him, tell him how you feel.”

  “I don’t know how I feel!” I yelled, feeling helpless and out of control. “I feel thoroughly creeped out. I feel like it’s only been one date. While I like the guy, this whole thing puts quite a hitch in my giddy-up. I don’t want to begin a relationship with this kind of pressure right off the bat.”

  “I get that, I do,” she insisted. “But this at least deserves a chance.”

  Bringing my knees into my chest, I balled up and closed my eyes, defeated and confused. I felt vulnerable, wanting to close myself off from the potential hurt and anguish this whole debacle could bring me in the end, but what if it brought me happiness instead?

  “What now, then?” I asked. “How do I move forward from here?”

  “You go to him and you talk. Tell him how all this makes you feel and how you’re scared and freaked out.”

  I stared at her face for a few seconds too long before responding. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” She perked up and brought her hands together in front of her chest. “You’re going to give it a chance?”

  “Maybe. I’ll try.” I could barely get the words out before she was lurching forward to hug me. “No promises,” I grunted into her hair.

  ***

  That night, I was plagued by a restless, broken sleep. I tossed and turned for hours and finally woke up in a cold sweat from the memory of my dream. It was like a slideshow on an old projector, just blips of images. Vaughn’s face as a boy, innocent and unmarred. A baseball bat swinging into view. The grunts of three adolescent bullies as they pounded their fists and kicks into him. His head being cradled in my hands, the blood seeping through his hair and pooling around my fingers. His lips moving, trying to tell me something, but the words wouldn’t come. The red flashes of light and blaring sirens as help arrived. The paramedics asking me what had happened as they moved him onto a backboard. His eyes pleading with me to help him. The tears sliding out of the corners of his eyes from his pain. The ambulance as it turned right to exit my neighborhood. The red lights and sirens again, consuming my mind as I ran to the bay. The mangled body of what was supposed to be a handsome man lying before me. Dr. Bowers’ smug arrogant smirk as he tried to take over and command the room. The ten-blade scalpel in my hand as I sank into his abdomen and the pool of blood that immediately filled the field once I entered the peritoneum. The room spinning into a dizzy swirl when my hands were inside his body. Walking into his room in the ICU alone. His bruised and battered face, tubed and helpless. The texture of his skin as I touched his stomach around his dressing and how his muscles tried to contract at the contact. His hand gripping mine for help. His eyes locked onto mine, begging me to take the tube out of his throat. My childish voice telling him to maintain eye contact. His eyes boring into me in his hospital room as he thanked me for saving his life…as he lay on that sidewalk bleeding, memorizing me. Flashes from his face as a child and his face as an adult. Back and forth like a flip book. His expression the same, his features similar, his energy matched.

  The last image I remembered seeing before I jolted awake was a zoomed-in view of my eyes as a child, as they were painted on a canvas
in his studio.

  I sat up in a panic. They were haunting.

  Sweaty, cold, out of breath, my heart racing as a lone tear slid down my right cheek. I took in my surroundings, calming myself as I became aware that it was just a dream. I was safely in my bedroom, alone…and I realized I didn’t want to be.

  Chapter 27

  Andie

  Despite my crappy night of sleep—or lack thereof—I was on shift the following day at ten AM. Twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes to go, and I was already being disturbed with a page from the ER.

  Deep breath, Fine. You’ve got this.

  When I rounded the corner, I wasn’t confronted with an actual emergency, but rather came face to face with Rowan’s boyfriend.

  “Richard, hey. What are you doing here? I don’t think Rowan’s working today.”

  “I know. I’m actually here to see you.”

  “Oh.” I was instantly uncomfortable. I didn’t even know this guy. “What’s up?”

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “Umm, yeah. Sure.” This can’t be good. “Follow me.”

  I led the way down the hall into a consultation room where we would normally pull family members to discuss the poor prognosis of a patient. Opening the door and stepping aside, I gestured for him to enter first, and he took a seat on the small couch.

  “So what’s this all about?” I asked as I closed the door behind me. When I turned around, he was holding out a ring box encasing a blindingly bright diamond ring. To anyone observing the interaction, it would’ve appeared as though I was getting proposed to.

  “Whoa.” It was all I could say.

  “What do you think?” he asked excitedly.

  “About the ring? Uh, it’s really something.” I felt like one of the OB-GYNs who’d just delivered a baby that wasn’t cute but couldn’t be honest about it because you can’t ever tell a new parent their newborn is hideous. Instead, you just say, Wow, she sure is something special, or some such vague remark.

  “Do you think she’ll like it?”

  I thought the ring was ridiculous. It was gigantic, showy, almost gaudy.