“No.” I blinked slowly still staring at the chair. “That’s when the real pain starts.”
“Maybe…maybe she’ll run from you too.”
“She won’t be able to.” It didn’t work that way. I remembered the moment I got the scar over my eye time and time again. For her it was different. She couldn’t remember anything. She’d experience a series of déjà-vus that she’d try to piece together until she found me. Once she did…we’d die and do it all again.
“I’ll get you discharged.” Listening to his voice I really wished he was God, maybe then I could demand we settle this like men…
Smirking at the idea I closed my eyes and whispered, “Make it ten percent, Alfred.”
I didn’t hear what he said in return. I waited for a few seconds before I pushed myself up from the bed and stretched out my neck. Hanging on the back of the bathroom door was a suit bag courtesy of Alfred.
“I have to ask you.” No one was in the room, but I spoke anyway knowing that the same God that could keep returning the memories of my past lives had to be watching, or at the very least listening. “Why bother letting me die?”
Ignoring the physical pain, I reached for the bag and entered the bathroom. “I mean, if I’m going to remember anyway, why not just make me immortal?”
Turning on the faucet, I splashed water onto my face and took a deep breath before glancing up into the mirror. Seeing those blue eyes stare back at me, my eyes, yet they didn’t feel like it… The white skin, the black hair…none of it felt like me with the exception of the scar; the faint line which ran from my cheekbone through my eyelid and stopped right above my eyebrow…not just this face but every face. My face didn’t feel like my face because when I looked in the mirror it sometimes changed to reflect my past lives and it was as if they were all standing right beside me and I could see them clearly, one by one.
There was the shoulder-length brown hair, green eyes, light brown skin, a turban wrapped around my head. Beside that face was my porcelain white skin, brown eyes, my black hair pulled into a topknot with a Sangtugwan to hold it in place. Beside that face, there was me with dark brown skin, brown eyes, my head shaved, and war beads around my neck. Followed by the version of me that had white skin, a thick beard, and blonde hair that was braided at the top of my head and shaved at the sides and stained with the tribal ink. The longer I stared, the more faces I saw—my faces. In different eras, it was never-ending.
Raising my fist—
“Malachi?”
I froze, my fist hovering in front of the glass. Dropping it I stripped down and changed into the jeans and the black long-sleeve shirt he’d gotten me.
“I need to go for a ride to clear my head,” I said as I opened the bathroom. There were two doctors dressed in their white coats who were standing beside him.
“They wanted to check on you before you get discharged,” Alfred said as he tossed the keys to my motorcycle at me. “And before you ask no one else rode it, I had it delivered here on the backs of angels.”
“Perfect and I’m fine,” I said catching the keys before I bent down to put on my boots which were by the door.
“Mr. Lord, when you came in we ran an MRI scan on you—”
“Do I have a tumor?” I asked as I tied my laces.
“No, we—”
“Was my brain bleeding?”
“No—”
Rising I stood looking at the two men who stood in front of me. “So why am I not being discharged?”
“Mr. Lord, if you’d let us explain—”
“My brain lights up like a Christmas tree.”
They looked back at each other than at me. “You know this?” The older of the two of them asked.
“Doctor, I’m sure Mr. Noëlle has given you my full medical history and in so doing you’ll note that I was in and out of hospitals quite frequently as a child. Nothing is wrong with me.” Nothing medicine could help anyway.
“Have you ever thought about trying to figure out why this happens?”
“Nope. And I prefer to not be a lab rat while you and every other doctor try to figure it out,” I replied and nodded at Alfred as I moved to the door.
I needed to get back home. The longer I stayed out like this the greater the chance of running into her became. She could have been anyone. A patient, a doctor…anyone. I’d gone to the grocery store because I wanted steak. Of course it was the primal need for food which had put me in this situation.
“Just because you’ve lived a thousand lives does not mean you get to be rude,” Alfred muttered.