Billion Dollar Stranger

I dial Sandrine, stepping out into the hall to quickly inform her that I need an ambulance. She’ll make the arrangements and I can go back in to be there for Nicole.

Sandrine is as efficient as always, but I can hear the genuine concern in her voice. She doesn’t know Nicole, but I’ve come to realize how much she cares about me. I’ve never asked her to get involved in my personal life.

I’m back into the hotel room in less than a minute. Nicole is still in the same place, breathing evenly, but her hand against her heart tells me she still not feeling okay. I sit next to her on the bed and rest my hand over hers. “It’s going to be okay. Everything will be okay.”

She smiles fleetingly. “Are you flying in your private physician?”

“I could,” I say with an equally fleeting smile. In my chest, my heart feels like a trapped bird trying to escape a cage. I’m not good at waiting. I’m not good at worrying. I’m not good at caring for anything made of flesh and blood.

“What’s happening to me?” she asks softly.

I stroke her sweet cheek. Her skin is pallid, her eyes ringed with shadow. “I don’t know, honey. I don’t. But whatever it is, we’ll find out.”

“I’m going to need you to call my parents,” she says. “Not now…I don’t want them to worry. When we know, okay.”

“Don’t worry about anything,” I tell her. “I’ll sort everything.”

Nicole blinks slowly. “Always so in control.”

“No,” I say, bending to kiss her. “If I was in control of this, none of it would be happening.”

“I’m scared,” she says, grasping my sweater.

“It’s going to be okay.” I say it with as much certainty as I can muster but the tightness in my throat burns with fear. I pull Nicole gently into my chest and cradle her against me with as much tenderness as I can. We wait with her head pressed against my heart until there’s a knock at the door, and everything I’d started to hope for begins to unravel.29

AARONRiding with Nicole in the ambulance is a heart wrenching experience. She lays covered with a sheet and blanket as her vitals are monitored. Her heart is still beating irregularly, and she looks grayer than I’ve ever seen her.

I’m holding her purse in my lap, and the promise that I’ll be the one to call her parents as soon as the doctors can tell us what’s going on weighs heavy. What time is it in the UK? Do they know who I am? What kind of news am I going to be delivering about their daughter?

Good news, I silently plead. The universe needs to hear me. Nicole Cristie is a good person. She doesn’t deserve anything bad to happen to her. She’s too young. She’s too important, to her family… and to me.

When we arrive, she’s assessed by the doctor who orders an array of tests. Nicole seems worried. “I need you to call my boss,” she says. “All of this expense…it’s going to have to go through company travel insurance.”

“Okay. I can do that. What’s the contact name?”

She tells me and I retreat to the hallway to have a surreal conversation with a very tired sounding British man. It’s the middle of the night in the U.K. but at least Nicole can rest easy that her treatment will be covered. When he eventually wakes up enough to register the conversation, he asks me who I am. “A friend,” I say.

“A friend,” he repeats with a hint of amusement. Maybe she told her boss about me, although I can’t imagine why. Maybe it’s just the way I’ve spoken about her that’s told him that there is more between us than friends would actually cover.

When I’m done, I take a seat next to Nicole’s bed as she’s hooked up to machines. She starts to thank me again, and even tells me I should leave her and return to the hotel, as though I would even consider leaving her side at such a time. I use a kiss to silence her and urge her to rest. I fear that any conversation could exacerbate her symptoms.

When she’s wheeled away for the tests, I wait, lost in a sense of despair that I haven’t felt for over six years. When Adrianna told me she had cancer, I felt like the ground had been stolen from beneath my feet. For months I existed in a state of despair, praying for her recovery. Here I am again, my chest feeling like it’s been gouged open, fearing that all my small hopes will be shattered.

Nicole has to be okay. This has to be nothing. Maybe she didn’t eat, or maybe it’s the amount of travel she’s been doing. I don’t want to admit that I could have played a part but if I hadn’t walked away, if I hadn’t kept her waiting, maybe none of this would have happened.