Fable
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“I don’t know you.”
I’m sitting up now, which was a mistake, because the room is doing a fun carnival-ride thing where everything tilts fifteen degrees to the left and then slowly tilts back.
But I need to be vertical for this conversation.
I need to feel like I’m on something resembling equal footing, even though “equal footing” is laughable when he’s approximately the size of a small building and I’m approximately the size of a very confused chipmunk.
“I wrote my best friend’s number.” My voice comes out sharper than I intended, which is either the concussion talking or the fear or the lingering mortification of having called a complete stranger pretty while bleeding on him.
“Millie Vance. Five-foot-two. Hates mornings with a passion usually reserved for sworn enemies. Would absolutely not be…”
I gesture at all of him. All six-foot-whatever of him, standing at the foot of my hospital bed like he has every right to be there, like this is somehow normal, like people show up at strangers’ hospital rooms all the time.
“…this.”
He doesn’t flinch at the gesture. Doesn’t fidget, doesn’t shift his weight, doesn’t do any of the normal things people do when they’re being openly scrutinized by a suspicious woman in a hospital gown.
He just stands there, impossibly still, impossibly calm, watching me with a steadiness I’m trying very hard not to think about.
“You’re very tall,” I add, because apparently I’ve lost control of my mouth entirely. “That seems relevant. Millie is not tall. Millie has to ask me to reach things off high shelves, and I’m only five-five. You are clearly not Millie.”
“I’m clearly not Millie,” he agrees, and his voice warms at the edges, amusement, maybe, or patience, or some combination of the two, that makes my stomach do an annoying little flip.
Stop that. Stomachs don’t flip. That’s not a real thing that happens. You’re just confused and concussed and he’s very symmetrical. That’s all this is.
He reaches into his pocket, slowly, deliberately, like he’s afraid of startling me, and pulls out his phone. It’s a newer model than mine, sleek and black and probably costs more than a month of my rent.
“You wrote my number,” he says, turning the screen toward me. “On the intake form.”
The photo shows my own handwriting, captured by the nurse’s phone and presumably texted to him for… verification purposes? Is that a thing hospitals do? I don’t know. I’ve never accidentally given my emergency contact information to a stranger before. This is new territory.
MILLIE VANCE, I wrote, clear as day.
And underneath it, a phone number.
A phone number that’s almost, but not quite, the one I’ve had memorized since freshman year of college.
Two digits. I transposed two digits. The four and the nine, swapped places like they were playing musical chairs, and suddenly instead of reaching my best friend, I’d summoned…
“You,” I say flatly. “I summoned you.”
“You did.”
“By accident.”
“So it would seem.”
“And you just… came?”
His expression tightens, a small change around the eyes and jaw, barely perceptible. His voice stays level, but there’s weight underneath it, something that isn’t quite audible but I can feel anyway, the low vibration of bass in a song.
“The hospital said you were alone,” he says. “That you’d been in an accident, and you’d listed me as your contact, and there was no one else coming.”
“There was supposed to be someone else coming! I just wrote the number wrong!”
“I know.” He’s still so calm. How is he so calm? “I knew it was probably a mistake. But I wasn’t going to ignore it.”
“Why not?”
The question comes out harder than I intended. More suspicious. More scared.
Normal people don’t do this. Normal people get a random call from a hospital about a stranger and they say “wrong number” and they hang up and they go about their lives. Normal people don’t drive two hours and sit in waiting rooms and show up at bedsides like knights in really nice sweaters.
“What kind of person would that make me?” He says it simply, like it’s obvious. Like the answer is self-evident. “To ignore someone who was hurt and alone?”
The normal kind. The regular kind. The kind that understands boundaries and doesn’t show up at strangers’ hospital beds.
I don’t say that. I don’t say anything. I just stare at him, trying to make his existence make sense, trying to fit him into a category I understand.
Rich guy with a savior complex? Possible. Serial killer with a very long game? Also possible. Romance novel hero who somehow escaped into real life? Unlikely but would explain the jawline.
“I’m Orion Halloran,” he says, party-introduction smooth, in a hospital room where I’m doing my best impression of a raccoon that lost a fight with a windshield. “I live up on the mountain. I don’t come into town much.”
“The rich recluse.” The words come out before I can stop them, before I can decide if it’s rude to call someone a recluse to their face. “I know who you are. I’ve heard about you.”
His expression sharpens. Interest, maybe, or wariness. It’s hard to tell.
“Good things, I hope.”
“Weird things.” I’m committed now, so I might as well keep going. “People say you own half the mountain. They say you never come to town. They say you’re, what, mid-thirties? Living alone in some giant house in the woods?”
“Thirty-four,” he says smoothly, without hesitation. “So they tell me.”
I pause.
That was a weird way to phrase it. That was a very specific kind of weird phrasing that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Thirty-four. So they tell me.
Not “I’m thirty-four.” Not “yes, mid-thirties.” But “so they tell me,” like thirty-four is something that happens to other people, like it’s a number someone assigned to him rather than something he actually is.
“That was weirdly evasive,” I say.
“Was it.”
“Yes. It was. ‘So they tell me’ is the answer you give when someone asks how old you are and you’re either lying or you genuinely don’t remember.”
“Maybe I don’t count the years very carefully.”
“Everyone counts the years. That’s how time works.”
Another flicker at the corner of his mouth, definitely amusement this time, a slight warming in that grave gray gaze, and I realize I’m arguing with a stranger about his own age while lying in a hospital bed looking every inch the horror movie extra.
Priorities, Fable. You have them. You should use them.
“Okay.” I take a breath. Let it out. Try to find something resembling composure.
“Okay. This is… fine. This is a situation that’s happening, and I’m handling it.
I will just call Millie, the actual Millie, and she’ll come get me, and you can go back to your mountain and your mysterious age and your life of showing up at hospitals for strangers. ”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t argue. Just watches me with that patient, steady gaze while I fumble for my phone on the bedside table, nearly knock over a cup of water, and finally manage to dial the number I should have written in the first place.
It rings.
And rings.
And goes to voicemail.
Millie’s voice, cheerful and apologetic, fills the silence: “Hey, it’s me! I’m on an emergency work trip… no service, super remote, gone a few weeks. Leave a message!”
I hang up.
Stare at the phone.
A few weeks. No service. Emergency work trip that I didn’t even know about because I’ve been so focused on my own stuff, my own anxiety, my own failed attempt at bravery.
She’s gone. Your emergency person is gone. Your person is unreachable. You’re alone in a hospital with a concussion and a stranger who showed up because you can’t write numbers correctly.
“She’s gone,” I say, and my voice comes out smaller than I want it to. “For weeks. And I didn’t even know.”
A stillness comes over him. A thing I can’t see but can feel, a change in the air pressure.
“Then I’ll take you home.”
“You can’t just…” I sputter, grasping for objections. “The hospital won’t let me… they said I need someone to…”
“I spoke with your nurse.” Still calm. Still steady. How is he always so steady? “They’ll release you into my care. I’ll make sure you get home safely.”
“You’re a stranger.”
“I’m your emergency contact.” His mouth does something that might be a twitch, might be the faintest shadow of a smile. “Legally.”
“That’s not how that works!”
“The hospital seems to think it is.”
I open my mouth to argue. Close it. Open it again.
He’s not wrong.
He’s not wrong, and that’s the most infuriating part. I wrote his number. The hospital called him. He showed up. And now, in the eyes of whatever bureaucratic system governs emergency contacts, he’s officially responsible for making sure I don’t die alone in my apartment after a concussion.
“You’re going to kidnap me,” I say, but there’s no heat in it anymore. “You’re going to take me to your murder cabin in the woods and…”
“I’m going to take you to your bookstore,” he interrupts gently. “Fable Tales. On Main Street. The apartment above it is yours, correct?”
“How do you know…”
“Your nurse mentioned it. When she was explaining your situation.”
I file that away. Add it to the growing folder in my brain labeled things about Orion Halloran that don’t quite add up.
“Fine.” I slump back against the pillows, suddenly exhausted. “Fine. You win. Take me home. But if you turn out to be a serial killer, I’m going to haunt you so hard. I will be the most annoying ghost you’ve ever encountered.”
“I’ll consider myself warned.”
The discharge process takes forever.
Paperwork. Signatures. A nurse who explains my concussion symptoms three separate times and makes me repeat them back to demonstrate I was listening.
Instructions for the stitches. Instructions for the headache.
Instructions for what to do if I start seeing double or forgetting my own name or feeling like the world is ending more than usual.
Through all of it, Orion waits.