KING'S BAY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
The entire situation feels like a
dream to Andy.
It's a familiar dream, one that has filled his sleeping
hours more times than he can count. The setting has never been the hospital,
as far as he could tell, but then again, the setting isn't always that
distinct. And the setting isn't what counts.
What counts is the one constant:
Danielle.
She is standing there, not ten feet away from him. Her hair is
a little bit lighter now and her skin wears a deeper tan than it used to,
but those things make no difference. It's her.
"Danielle," he says in disbelief.
"Andy." The sudden encounter has
Danielle just as rattled as it does Andy. She notices the way his eyes
have widened, the way his mouth hangs open just a bit, and is sure that
she looks very much the same. Of course she knew that coming back to King's
Bay might mean running into Andy, but this soon? This easily?
He continues to study her, expecting
the image to fade away before his eyes at any moment. "You're here to visit
Brent?"
"Yeah." The word comes out very slowly,
almost cautiously, as if each and every sound is being lured out and isn't
quite sure if it should cave to temptation. "I, uh, I flew in this afternoon.
Sarah called to
tell me that he woke up and I just--I wanted to be here."
"I'm sure he's thrilled to have you
here," Andy says, leaving out the obvious extension. Truthfully, he isn't
sure how he feels about seeing her here. Part of him is hoping that
she will just disappear but another part is trembling with fear at that
possibility.
"How have you been?" he manages.
"Good. The tour is over now, so I'm
back in San Diego. We're working on putting together a new album." She
feels herself slipping into the comfortable groove of standard questions
and answers, and she relaxes a little.
"It must be nice to have some downtime."
"Absolutely. The whole pace of being
on the road is just exhausting."
She waits for the next question to
show her the way through this encounter, but it doesn't come. Andy looks
very uncomfortable to her, more uncomfortable than she feels. The initial
shock of seeing him, the uncertainty of what feeling there would be between
them when they saw one another again, was what was fueling most of her
anxiety. Now that is wearing off for her, but the case seems to be different
for Andy.
"Andy," she says quickly. She finds
herself surprised by the fluidity with which his name comes this time:
It is the first thing she's said since they've come face-to-face that hasn't
felt forced.
She notices how sharp his reaction
is. His gaze stops wandering and he almost freezes, appearing ready to
grab onto whatever she has to say next.
She has wanted to say this for so
long and, thankfully, it spews itself out with relative ease. "There's
something you need to know."
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