Page 3 of The Restoration Program

As he zipped the blouse, he pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. They nearly ended up tangled together again, but they managed to break apart with a promise to pick up where they left off when they got home.

Clouds gathered densely overhead as they parted ways to their cars. By now, Ryan had no trouble navigating to the office,Callahan & Associates. Rain pattered his windshield as he pulled into his parking space. He hurried inside to avoid the strengthening shower.

His morning was a flurry of meetings. Between the clients, financial research, and mulling over where to propose, he managed to text Nicole here and there. She unwittingly broadened his choices for locations by sending links to local bars, museums, and parks she wanted to check out this weekend.

“What if we just wanna stay in bed all day?”he messaged teasingly.

“Guess we’ll have to start getting that out of our system tonight.”

Smiling to himself, he glanced out his office window as lunchtime approached. With the rain too heavy to think about going anywhere, it would be a desk lunch today.

After his last client of the morning left, he sent Nicole a picture of the plants she had given him on his first day.“Three compliments on these things again today. You sure you don’t wanna get into interior decorating? You’d make bank. I could retire early.”

“It’s a couple of plants, Ry. Not exactly groundbreaking.”

“Around here it is.”

When she didn’t respond after five minutes, he went to the vending machine in the lounge and was roped into sitting with some of his coworkers. They chatted and cut up, sharing ridiculous stories about clients. Before Ryan knew it, an hour had passed.

On his way back to his office, while he still chuckled to himself, his phone buzzed. The number that lit up the screen was unfamiliar, but given all the important new contacts that came with the move, he didn’t dare ignore it.

“Hello?”

“Ryan Northe?” said a woman’s voice at the other end.

He didn’t recognize her voice. Normally he would have hung up, assuming it was a scam, but her tone made him pause.

“Yes, that’s me,” he said. “Who is this?”

“You’re listed as Nicole Zhou’s emergency contact at her place of work. I’m sorry to inform you that there’s been an accident.”

“What? W-what the hell do you mean—”

“Sir, please remain calm. Nicole was involved in a car accident. She is being transported to the emergency room at St. Mark’s Hospital uptown.”

Breathing heavily, Ryan glanced at the deluge outside and bolted for the elevator. Several coworkers flinched and looked on with concern as he tore past them.

“Will she be okay?” he demanded into his phone.

The voice at the other end was silent for a few seconds. “They’re doing everything they can to get her into stable condition. Get here as soon and as safely as you can, Mr. Northe.”

The tiles blurred as Ryan paced along the hallway. Everything became patterns, people merely obstacles on their own paths of hurry or mourning.

Paintings of serene landscapes hung on the wall seemed designed to mock him. He’d passed theSunrise on the Eastern Pondpiece a hundred times by now, and the vivid hues of pink and green made him nauseous. Anything so colorful had no right to exist when all he could see when he closed his eyes was Nicole’s mangled body.

Just this morning, she had been warm and solid in his arms. Now she was in a medically-induced coma with plaster and slings barely holding her broken body together.

He was alone.

Ryan explained to hospital personnel that no one else would storm the waiting room for her. There was no one to share news of the accident with. They were too new to the area to have close friends. She had no family left. Single child. Her mother died young. Nicole’s father lost his battle with a brain tumor just last year.

The sterile surroundings made an image flash through his mind over and over: Nicole sobbing in his arms after the doctors said her dad’s lucid days were in the single digits. She’d pulled herself together long enough to sit at her dad’s bedside and promise him grandkids. She went on about how she hoped they would have all the very best parts of him. His humor, his strength, his love.

Now a single downpour was about to make it as if she and her family had never existed.

The doctors assigned to Nicole’s case claimed to be some of the best in the ICU, but they said her chances of waking up were slim to none, so how good could they really be? Were they really doing the best they could offer, or was his girlfriend just another car accident tragedy to them?

He had been instructed to prepare for her death. Whether it be tonight or in the coming weeks, her stability was weakening every minute.