Mud Vein

“I took out three lymph nodes. We had them tested to see how far the cancer spread.” He paused. “You made the right call, Senna.”

My chest felt tight. How did he get the results that soon? I wanted to reach up and touch the bandages, but it hurt too much. “You just need to rest for now. Can I get you anything?”

I nodded. When I spoke my voice sounded charred. “There is a book on my nightstand, next to my bed. Can you get it for me next time you—”

“I’ll bring it tomorrow,” he said. “Your cell phone is there.” He pointed to the table next to my bed. I had no need for a cell phone, so I didn’t look. “I have to do rounds. Call me if you need anything.” I nodded, half wishing he’d leave a business card like the old days.

True to his word, the next day Isaac brought me Nick’s book. I held it in my hands for a long time before I had a nurse put it on my hospital nightstand. Old habits die hard.

Isaac came to check on me after his shift ended. He was out of his scrubs and wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. The nurses twittered when he walked in dressed that way. He looked closer to a drummer than a doctor. He sat on my bed. But he was not a doctor this time. He was a drummer. I wondered if drummer Isaac was very different than doctor Isaac. He reached for the book and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. My eyes followed the tattoos on his forearm. It felt strange to see Nick’s book in Isaac’s hands. He studied it for a while, then he said, “Do you want me to read it to you?”

I didn’t answer him, so he opened it to the first chapter. He breezed right past the dedication page without even looking. Bravo, I thought. Good for you.

When he started reading, I wanted to scream at him to stop. I was tempted to cover my ears. To refuse the assault of a book written to make me hurt. But I did neither. I listened, instead, to Isaac Asterholder read the words that the love of my life wrote to me. And they went like this…

Nick's Book: Chapter One

Nick’s Book

You don’t have to be alone. We are mostly born that way, though. We grow up being nurtured to believe that the other half of our soul is somewhere out there. And since there are six billion people inhabiting our planet, chances are one of them is for you. To find that person, to find your soul-piece, or your great love, we must count on our paths diverging, the tangling of lives, the soft whispering of one soul recognizing another.

I found my piece. She wasn’t what I was expecting. If you formed a woman’s soul out of black graphite, bathed it in blood, and then rolled it around in the softest rose petals, you still wouldn’t have touched on the complication that was my match.

I met her on the last day of summer. It felt appropriate that I would meet a daughter of winter as the last of the Washington sunshine sieved through the sky. Next week there would be rain, rain and more rain. But today, there was sun, and she stood underneath it, squinting even beneath her sunglasses as if she were allergic to the light. I was walking my dog through a busy park on Lake Washington. We’d just turned around to head home when I stopped to look at her. She was lean—a runner, probably. And she was wearing one of those things that’s longer than a sweater and shorter than a dress. A sweater dress? I followed the line of her legs to camo boots. You could tell she loved those shoes by the worn creases and the way she stood so comfortably in them. I loved those boots for her. And on her. I wanted to be in her. A rough manly thought I’d be too ashamed to admit out loud. The straps of a messenger bag crossed over her chest and hung at her left thigh. Now, I consider myself a bold man, but not quite bold enough to approach a woman whose every body movement said she wanted to be left alone. I did that day. And the closer I got, the stranger she became.

She didn’t see me; she was too busy looking at the water. Lost in it a little. How can a man be jealous of water? That’s exactly what I wanted to explore.

“Hi,” I said, when I was standing in front of her. She didn’t raise her eyes right away. When she did, her look was a little indolent. I jumped right in. “I’m a writer, and when I saw you standing here, I was compelled to start putting words down on paper. Which makes me think you’re my muse. Which makes me think I need to talk to you.”

She smiled at me. It looked like it took effort, that perhaps maybe she didn’t smile very often and her facial muscles were stiff.

“That’s the best pickup line I’ve ever heard,” she mused.

I wasn’t sure if it was a pickup line. It was embarrassingly truthful. Just saying it made my lips pucker like I was holding in a mouthful of lemon pulp.

I eyed the worn leather messenger bag at her hip.

“What’s in the bag?” I asked. I was starting to get a feeling about her. Like I knew what she was before she told me.

“A computer.”

I didn’t peg her as a college student. She had too much attitude to be a professional. Self-employed, I was guessing.

“You’re a writer, too,” I said.

She nodded.

“So we speak the same language,” I offered. She had a strip of silver running through her brown hair. More proof, it seemed, that she was born for winter.

“You’re John Karde,” she said. “I’ve seen your picture. In Barnes and Noble.”

“Well, that’s embarrassing.”

“Only if I don’t like sappy women’s fiction,” she said. “Which I do.”

“Do you write it?”

She shook her head, and I swear that sliver of silver glimmered in the dying sun. My nerdy writer mind immediately said mithril.

“I’m working on my first real novel. It feels pretty angry.”

“Let’s talk about it over dinner,” I offered. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I mean, sure she was stunning—but it was more than that. She was a house with no windows. You could go crazy in one of those. I wanted in. She eyed my dog.

“I can drop him off, my house is on the way to town.”

She paused only to check her watch before nodding. We walked in silence for a few blocks. She kept her head down, choosing the sidewalk over the rest of the world. I wondered if she liked the cracks, or if she just didn’t want to meet the eyes of the people we passed. It might have felt uncomfortable, our quiet walking, but it didn’t. I suspected her to be a woman of few words. Muses often spoke with their eyes and their bodies. The power they supply is electrifying in itself. They set fire to your synapses.