Hello Stranger

She carried on before I could find my response.

“And not just that, but you help SO MANY people! So many people on that ward! You inspire so many families, and doctors, and nurses, and ME, Logan. You inspire ME!”

“I will still be helping people while I can. I’m not going to give up my job until I have to.”

“What then? Huh?” Her eyes were sparkling with hurt. “You just come home one day and wipe yourself out with an overdose?”

I hated just how pathetic my plan sounded when spoken aloud.

“That isn’t quite how I was seeing it…”

She shook her head. “Don’t do this. Just don’t do it.” She held her hands up in some kind of shrug. “How about you get some treatment? At least see what they have to say. At least see what they can do.”

I sighed. “I’ve been here before. I know the story. My genetics are an utter shit pile, uncles, aunts, grandparents… Mum… Me. We all get wiped out by it, sweetheart, it’s always just a matter of time.”

She was still shaking her head. “You don’t know that!”

I let out a sad little chuckle. “I do, Chloe. I’m a realist, I know it well enough.”

“You’re not a realist,” she told me, and her voice was strong enough to make me shiver, her eyes shining bright with her truth. “You’re not a realist, Logan, I swear to God, you’re not. You’re a fatalist.”

“And you believe in unicorns and fairytales and the power of the etheric.”

She didn’t flinch, not even for a heartbeat. “So do you,” she said. “Somewhere deep down inside, you believe in something too.”

I laughed. “You think?”

She nodded. “I know.”

“Then I guess you don’t know me at all.”

It was her turn to laugh. “Maybe I just know you better than you know yourself.”

I laughed right back at her. “Then these past few weeks have been pretty insightful.”

“Yeah,” she said. “They have.”

I felt a pounding of negativity right down in my ribs. Not wanting to buy into any of this floaty bullshit.

“Tell me, sweetheart,” I said, shuffling closer. “Tell me where this incredible insight of yours comes from.”

I didn’t sound like an asshole, and I didn’t mean to be. My voice was calm and shuttered, detached from my feelings like a train carriage, unclipped.

She pointed to the stack of books behind the insulin bottle. “There,” she said. “It comes from there.”

I couldn’t help raise an eyebrow. “From novels?”

She nodded. “Yep. From novels. From Mythago Wood and Lavondyss and Dion Fortune novels. From Master and Margarita and the Initiate and Stonehenge.”

“That has nothing to do with my belief in anything. It’s a hobby, nothing more.”

“Not true,” she said. “I can feel it. Even if you can’t, I can see that little spark in you when you talk about the stories. I can imagine you as a little boy, running along with those characters through their journeys, and knowing, just knowing there was something there.”

I could remember that. I could remember my imagination running wild as a little boy, spiralling around my head as I thought about the otherworld, and magic, and fate, and all the crazy shit that might be behind the surface of the cold, hard world we lived in every day. But I was wrong. Watching so many people die had rubbished it away, more and more over time.

She didn’t give up speaking.

“You think there wasn’t even a little tiny hint of fate in how we met, Logan? Do you?” Her eyes were so alive. “How we met on a random train reading random stories, and how we found out we worked in the same place, in the same ward?” I felt the strength in her belief as she paused. “You think it wasn’t crazy as all hell when we found out we both had Moon Magic as a favourite, of all of the novels in the world?”

“Coincidences,” I replied. “Reality is full of them.”

“BULLSHIT!” she snapped.

“TRUTH!” I snapped back, and then I got to my feet, grabbing my dressing gown and slinging it on. “And you know what else is truth, Chloe? The truth is, that this is not your fucking problem. You’re a ridiculously inspirational young woman with an incredible life to lead. You have a whole ocean of love and happiness ahead of you, and I’m not a part of that. I can’t be a part of that. And now you know why.”

“I want that ocean of love and happiness to be with you,” she said, and she was calm. So fucking calm.

“You’ll need a sailboat to cross it then, unfortunately, not an ocean liner.”

“I don’t care.” She shrugged. “I want to cross it with you.”

Her truth was intoxicating in its simplicity. So pure in her words.

“And this is why I didn’t tell you,” I said. “I knew you wouldn’t make the choice to walk away, especially not once you’d had all those fluffy conversations with my mother. I know you promised her you were all in for all time.”