Coffee and Cockpits (34 page)

Alea shook her head. “We don’t know how time works in the mind. You could have spent an afternoon together, and it might’ve been three months in real life.” Clasping her hands on the desk, she added, “The answer to your question: why did you wake up together? The joint signal was fading.”

My heart lurched, leaving my chest and flapping against the sterile floor. Fading? As in fading like Samantha and Anderson? One of us was
dying?

Liam shifted anxiously beside me. “What do you mean? Fading?”

Chills shot down my backless gown. I clutched Liam’s arm. God help me if we hadn’t been through enough. I wanted to scream at her not to tell us, or punch her so she couldn’t.

Liam held onto me with a death-grip. He cleared his throat. “Elaborate.”

Alea hung her head, opening another folder, one that filled me with dread.

“We discussed Nina’s injuries sustained from the crash. But we didn’t discuss yours, Liam.” She straightened. “As a doctor I have the amazing privilege of being part of miracles, but I also have the burden of sharing bad news.”

No. No.
No.
Please no.

“You suffered a severe brain injury. I was the doctor who operated on you. When you arrived from the crash, a piece of shrapnel had penetrated the cockpit window and lodged in your skull.” Her enjoyment at sharing our mind-link faded, professional decorum replaced it. “We had to operate on your cerebral cortex to stem internal bleeding and relieve pressure on your brain. The operation was a success, but we couldn’t know the extent of your injury until you awoke.”

My eyes catapulted to the doctor’s as I clamped a hand over my mouth. I couldn’t look at Liam. Beneath the swaps of bandages did he have hair, or had they shorn him and left him with stitches from tampering with his brain? Would he be the same person? Had their tampering changed him? What did all of this
mean?
So he
wasn’t
dying?

Liam grew unmoving beside me. I was a shaking, but he never stopped holding my hand. Finally, he said, “But I feel fine. How am I to know how the operation affected me?”

Alea clasped her hands. “We’ll have to put you through a series of tests to determine what areas, if any, are affected. You have to understand, Liam. You were in a pretty bad way. The operation was to save your life. You almost died the night following the crash. We underestimated how bad your internal bleeding was.”

Liam stiffened at the same time I did. My mind flew back to the headache he’d had by the waterfall. Was that when he suffered? Almost died in reality?

The doctor asked, “There is one significant moment in your brain waves where you almost slipped away. Do you recall it?”

Liam nodded slowly. I expected him to mention the waterfall, but he said, “I was in a restaurant one night. We’d had a rather stressful conversation, and Nina left.”

My heart raced. The night him and Nikolai told me about Charlotte. My God. Where was Nikolai? Why was he in our dream?

“The pain was excruciating. I remember drifting, just wanting to leave it all behind and let go.” His eyes met mine. “But Nina came back and grounded me. I stayed where I was. Thanks to her.”

The doctor sucked in a breath. “I don’t know how to work out timelines, but you flat lined in the operation. I wonder if it translated to that moment.” She looked at me with the overwhelming wonderment again. “Nina, your feelings for Liam brought him back. We tried to resuscitate him on the table, but he didn’t respond. We had given up, when all of a sudden, his heart started beating again on its own.”

Liam looked at me. I couldn’t look away. Even in a coma we’d been so connected. Maybe more connected than in a normal relationship. Everything was bared. No lies. No half-truths or games. Everything was amplified and pure.

“So, he’ll be fine then?” I asked, not looking away from Liam. His arctic eyes were the same knowing and loving ones I knew in my dream world.

“Concessions will have to be made, I’m afraid.” Doctor Ali’tasi ‘s tense voice prickled my ears.

Liam and I both stared at her. “What concessions?” he asked.

“The swelling affected part of your brain that holds long term memory. Most of the time, only one or two things are affected. Such as how to tie a shoelace or other mundane things like that. Sometimes, it’s more serious like forgetting how to drive.”

There was a brief pause before Liam stumbled to his feet, panic scrawled all over his face. I looked up at him, terrified.

“No. My God. No!” He clutched his head, trying to claw through the bandages. “It can’t be true. I remembered in my coma. It’s not true.”

My heart shattered at his pain. I struggled to my feet, wobbling, knees buckling. “Liam. Tell me. What’s wrong?” I kept my voice low and caressed his cheek. Trying to calm him. I was dimly aware of Alea calling for help.

“I can’t remember, Nina. None of it.”

Fear closed my throat, but I forced it back. “Remember what?”

He looked at me, his soul bared in agony. “I can’t remember how to fly.”

A
ll of it.

Every flight I’d ever steered, every lesson I ever took.

Gone.

As if I’d never known.

My employment was down the shitter along with my dream of owning my own airline. It didn’t matter that everything in the coma was real. Nina
loved
me. We spent some incredible moments together, but they never actually happened. All I had to show for the most perfect few days of my life was a brain scan hinting at some medical miracle. I groaned, piecing more and more of the discrepancies together. The island didn’t have clocks… because my mind couldn’t rationalize time. Nikolai didn’t really happen as he wasn’t injured—I just conjured him so I’d be forced to talk about Charlotte, and deal with my insecurities. The voices I heard? Most likely reality seeping through to my subconscious.

Hell, I loved Nina, but did she
really
love me? After all, it was a figment of minds. Warped with pain and healing… did we really experience such a soul-altering experience? We had no proof. No photographs, mementos, or even a bloody tan.

What classified anything as real?

And now I awake from the most incredible place to find catastrophe waiting for me.

I couldn’t remember!

My livelihood had been stolen by a piece of wayward shrapnel. My dream of flying in paradise decimated just as I met the one woman I wanted to share it with.

I tried to stop panic from consuming me, to stay rational, but all logical thoughts imploded, leaving me terrified and lost.

How could I expect Nina to still want to be with me when I was broken? I cringed to think how relentlessly I pursued her. No scruples about how I might come across as an obsessed idiot. I
made
her fall in love with me. I forced her to allow me into her subconscious for fucking sake. Who
does
that? And now I’d made her mine, I was useless. A sack of untrained and shattered human. A pilot with no knowledge of how to fly.

I might as well have woken a cripple. My self-pity roared over me as I slowly sank back into my wheel chair, my legs protesting and creaking.

“Liam. It’s okay. We’ll work through this. I’m sure your memory will come back.” Nina stroked my arm, inching as close as she could.

I loved her. She was my other half, but at the same time, I hated myself for not being perfect for her. How could I expect her to love me if I wasn’t the same man I was in our dream world?

A blistering thought caught me. “But, I flew in the coma.” My hand frantically grabbed Nina’s. “Remember…”

Nina bit her lip, confusion racing over her face. “Oh God, Liam. You didn’t fly. I had the controls. You nosedived us, but I was the one who took off and landed.”

My shoulders curved, rolling to protect the emptiness in my chest. She was right. I couldn’t even remember reading the instruments on our descent, or doing any number of things that were so ingrained into my psyche. I couldn’t remember a damn thing.

Nina’s eyes burned into me, bright, glassy with tears and pity. I didn’t want her pity.

I shrivelled inside. My entire life was gone.

Alea interrupted my rapid descent into wallowing. “Liam, your brain is intact. In time your memories might return. There is no reason to suggest you will never remember. Don’t put too much stress on your system. Just like I tell amnesia patients, your brain is working, even as we speak, to remember.” She sucked in a breath. “I must install positivity in you, just as I must warn you there is an eighty percent chance you will never remember. Based on similar cases such as yours, the swelling of the brain tissue can sometimes have permanent results. If, in the case your memory doesn’t return, you can always relearn your skills. There is no weakness in having to take a step back to go forward.”

My eyes blazed with anger. What did she know? Did she find her soul mate in a coma and then wake up to find she could no longer deliver on the promises made? I promised Nina a man who would support and care for her. A man who wanted to whisk her off and open a business together. I’d broken every promise I made the moment my eyes opened. I was worthless and refused to let Nina be dragged into my broken world. 

“I need to be alone,” I mumbled, before lurching upright.

“Liam. No. Let me help you. Calm down, we can figure this out. Together.”

I shuffled to the door. My limbs were zombified, not willing to move after being inert for twenty-two days, but I forced them away from Nina’s sad voice and down the yellow corridor. I didn’t know where I was going. All I wanted was somewhere I could think. Somewhere I could indulge in self-pity and get a handle on my new reality.

Who cared if there was a twenty percent chance my condition wasn’t permanent? My hands curled. They were crap odds. Basically, I was royally screwed.

Charlotte would hate me for being so weak. I had no right to be confused and upset. If I pulled myself up and accepted I was lucky to be alive, I could focus on what I needed to do to fix myself.

Instead, as I shuffled creakily through the cheery yellow hospital, I swiped at the burning sensation in my eyes. I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t that much of a sap.

God, Liam. It’s not the end of the world. 

Guilt crushed me. I wasn’t dead. Anderson and Samantha were. Anderson left behind three kids and a wife of twenty-six years. I didn’t know Samantha’s family, but I knew they’d suffer her loss.

I shouldn’t wallow in something as trivial as lost memories. I was alive. I’d won the woman in my dreams
. I’m a medical miracle
.

The stagnant island air welcomed me as I stumbled out the back door. I couldn’t go any further and slithered down the wall, collapsing in a heap. My pulse was erratic, not used to so much exercise. The uncomfortable concrete bit my naked ass, and only then did I notice I was in a gown with my balls hanging free. I hated these fucking things.

I sat there for who knows how long, staring at the late afternoon sun. The gardens were slightly overgrown. Maybe staff ate lunch here, or brought patients for a walk in the shabby grass oval, sheltered by banana leaves and trees.

I stifled a groan as Joslyn appeared, her neck craned, looking for me. I crunched into a smaller huddle, hoping she’d go away. I couldn’t deal with her right now. I meant what I said—I needed to be alone—to grieve, comprehend, and put myself back together again.

She spotted me. She waved and hobbled over on her crutches.

“Everyone’s looking for you, Liam. You need to come back inside. You need to rest.” She reclined against the wall and slid to puddle awkwardly beside me. One knee bent, with the other straight out in its cast. It was bare plaster, no scribbles or get well wishes. Had she been here on her own for almost a month watching me wither away in a coma? Why didn’t she go home to family? Shit, my family! They must be so anxious to know I was okay.

I flinched as she placed her hand on my forearm. Every extremity was off, as if my skin wasn’t used to being touched. Which I supposed was true. My mind skipped back to touching Nina in my dreams. I knew so much about her…. But had only shared brief caresses since awaking in reality. God, this was so messed up. 

“I’ve called our two sets of parents. They came over when the crash first happened. But they couldn’t stay away from work any longer.” She smiled. “They’re ecstatic to hear you’ve woken up. They wanted to come and see you, but I said we’d catch up when we go home. Hope that’s okay?”

That was more than okay. It wasn’t easy having divorced parents who hated each other, not to mention working such high-powered jobs as airport CEO and aeronautical lawyer. When I was younger, I hated their work stole so much time, but at the same time, they were the ones who stopped me from getting a criminal record for Charlotte’s death. Which I still didn’t deserve. I needed to pay for my sins and they swept it under the runway, never to be mentioned again.

“I’m glad you kept them in the loop. Thanks, Tree.”

Joslyn sighed, watching me with compassion. “Is it true? What Nina told me? That you can’t remember how to fly?”