One
Reality is just a notion, really.
It’s fluid. It changes and bends, and it isn’t always as it seems.
That is certainly something I’ve learned.
Take my reality right now, for instance.
I stare across the crowded room at her, at Calla. My Calla.
She sits among the disturbed, the truly crazy. Yet she’s utterly graceful, bewitching in her beauty, even while wearing a thin hospital gown. She’s slender and feminine, dainty, yet strong. She’s willowy and ethereal, her dark red hair flowing around her shoulders, her eyes wide and blue and bright. She’s got the curiosity of a child, and possesses that strange ‘something’ that women would pay a million pounds to buy.
She glances up, and sees me looking at her. She smiles shyly and looks away, hiding her face behind the curtain of her hair.
Right now, she doesn’t know she’s mine.
She will, of course. She’ll remember, because she always does, once the pieces all come to her and fit together. But for now, she’s in the dark. And while it should be hard for me, impossible almost, it’s not. Because I have faith that it will always come to pass the way it should.
Right now, however, I must woo her. I must court her. I must allow her to get to know me.
Again.
It all starts with hello.
I walk to her with purpose. I don’t pretend to amble or stroll. She looks up, her eyes wide.
“Is this seat taken?” I ask her, as I always do. My accent is unmistakably British. She’s startled, a deer in the headlights. But she smiles and waves at the chair. Her hospital bracelet encircles her slender wrist. Calla Elizabeth Price, Female, it says.
But she’s so much more than that.
“Go ahead,” she tells me, and her eyes sparkle. She’s chewing her nails again, I see, as I glance at her hand. I want to remind her to stop but I can’t. Not yet. I’m not supposed to know her details.
I smile at her. She flushes. Her cheek-line tinges a pretty red. I love it when they do that.
“I’m Adair DuBray,” I tell her. “But you can call me Dare.”
“I’m Calla,” she tells me. “Like the funeral lily. It’s nice to meet you.” She stares me up and down, bluntly taking my measure. “Why are you here at the hospital? Surely it’s not for the coffee.” She eyes the coffee cup in my hand.
“You know what game I like to play?” I ask casually, sipping the Styrofoam cup. They don’t allow glass in here. I don’t want to lie to her, of course, but I can’t tell her the truth either. So avoidance is key.
“No, what?” her brow furrows.
“Twenty questions. That way, I know at the end of the game that there won’t be any more. Questions, that is.”
Calla startles for just a moment, and then her mouth curves into a grin. “You hate questions, too?” she asks. “I’m so tired of talking about myself in here that I could die.”
“You won’t,” I assure her smoothly. She arches an eyebrow.
“I won’t die?” her mouth twitches. “How can you be so sure?”
“I’ve seen things,” I tell her, waggling my eyebrows. “Dark things.”
I’m serious, but she laughs, because I said it as a joke. I’m not kidding, but she has no way of knowing that.
“Well, good,” she decides. “I’m not ready to die, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid,” I tell her, and I look her directly in the eye. “Don’t ever be afraid.”
She’s uncomfortable now, and I’ve gone too far. I back-track, smiling casually.
“What time is lunch in this place?” I ask, attempting to change the subject. Calla glances at the sterile clock on the sterile wall. She doesn’t belong here, but she isn’t angry about it.
“At eleven,” she answers. “Whatever you do, don’t get the chicken.”
“Do we get a choice?” I’m surprised by that. I assumed we’d be fed one kind of slop on a multi-compartmented plastic tray. She nods.
“Yeah, if you want to call it a choice. You get to choose Bad or Worse.” Her teeth tug at her lip, and her eyes flicker up at me.
“Why are you here?”
I return her gaze without blinking. “Is that an official question?”
She rolls her eyes again, but nods.
“I’m here to visit. I let them think I’m a patient though.”
She grins now, amused. “So you’re undercover?”
I nod, very seriously. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.”
“Well,” she plays along. “What is your undercover diagnosis?”
I arch my eyebrow again. “Question number two, already? Wouldn’t you rather just figure this one out on your own? That would be more fun.”
She laughs now. “Maybe you’ve got Paranoia. You’re definitely secretive.”
I grin. “Secrets. Everybody’s got ‘em, Calla. Even you.”
She’s startled by that and seems to physically draw backward. “It seems like I’ve heard that before,” she says, and her eyes are troubled.
“Don’t you hate déjà vu?” I ask easily.
“Yes,” she answers simply. “I do.”