As soon as the surgery is over, I leave the operating room and head to the locker room.
I need to get out of here.
I don’t realize it until I reach to unlock my locker, but I’m shaking. I’m having a hard time with the combination when I hear, “Charlotte.”
Closing my eyes, I breathe a few times, grab my hair cap, and pull it off. I don’t know why I pull it off right then, but I do.
I turn to Xander, blinking back the tears I wish weren’t there.
2
Xander
She seems familiar.Something about her seems familiar.
I’m watching her interact with the other surgeons when Dr. Croy says her name.
Charlotte.
But it can’t be. I know Piper and her friends are from Chicago, but surely it’s not her?
When I woke in the hospital, Noah told me Billie wasn’t in the accident with me. He said a girl named Charlotte, who was Piper’s friend, was in the car and that we had spent the night together a few times.
She came to see me in the hospital after I had been awake a few days, but I was on a lot of medication, and it was foggy.
The encounter is still a blur because I don’t remember much about it. And I don’t remember the face of the woman named Charlotte who came to see me.
I can’t see this woman’s face, but the way she tries to avoid looking at me gives me the impression she knows me. My gut is telling me I’ve hurt her.
Throughout the surgery, I instruct myself to stay focused, not to try to figure out who she is or what our relationship could have been. Besides, I could be misjudging everything.
At one point, I could trust my brain, but since the accident, so much of my life is unclear, I don’t have the same faith in it I used to.
But then she stands right near me, and I know our pasts are somehow connected. She smells like flowers after the rain.
As soon as the surgery is through, she excuses herself and bolts out of the operating room. I try not to run after her so I don’t cause a scene.
I scan the locker room when I walk through the door. No one is there except Charlotte. She’s trying to get her locker open, and her hand is shaking.
“Charlotte,” I say, and she pauses then rips off her surgical cap, revealing her blonde hair. My heart stops.
She turns, gripping her cap tight and blinking back tears in her blue eyes. Her plump red lips are slightly shaking. My heart swells, and I don’t understand it, because I don’t remember her, but I know it’s her. It’s the woman who’s been haunting my dreams.
A strange combination of guilt and excitement fills me, and I’m paralyzed for a moment. She isn’t Billie. She is another woman.But I have all these emotions toward her I shouldn’t be feeling for anyone besides Billie. And they are flying at me hard.
She’s beyond gorgeous. Everything about her is perfect. But I’ve hurt her. It’s clear to me I have, but I don’t know what I’ve done.
She turns away from me, staring at her locker, and wipes a tear off her cheek.
My heart feels like it’s ripping out of my chest.
“Charlotte?”
She puts her hand on her locker, as if to steady herself, then faces me. “Xander.”
Xander.The only word she ever says in my dream. It’s her. There is no doubt about it. No matter how mushed up my brain might be, I’d know that voice saying my name anywhere. It lives in my head all day long.
“I’ve hurt you.” I say it as a statement and not a question.
