Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,111

was the doctor part of the movie Taylor began to watch most closely. Doctoring had always sounded happy and somewhat glamorous. She hadn’t thought of those she wouldn’t save, only those she would help.

Dragging in a long breath, she closed her eyes as the haze of the dreamlike state flooded back over her. Doctoring. Being a doctor. Becoming a doctor. Somehow, it had always been ‘out there,’ way off in the distant future. But that future suddenly seemed very near and very, very… not her. She opened her eyes and watched even more closely. Could she really do that? Did she really want to go in, fighting the unseen for people’s lives every day?

The air around her suddenly filled with a heaviness, a gravity. Was this really what she wanted for her life? Could she really handle a day-to-day struggle between life-and-death? Was it really her life’s calling, or just something she had chosen because it sounded good and noble? Like something others would laud her for and approve of her for?

She tried to remember where the idea had come from, and although she couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, what she did remember was the pride in her father’s voice when he told his cousin that though he had come from nothing, he was raising a doctor. Oh, how heavy that memory now felt in her heart. Had she traded her own dreams for his love, for a shot at him being proud of her?

Her mind wove even deeper into the memories, and she remembered the myriad of times he had been vocally frustrated by her insatiable reading habit. She remembered the Christmas he had given her the medical encyclopedia that she had put under her bookshelf rather than on it. He’d been so proud of it and her, sure she was going to show his whole family that he had done the impossible. And better still, she could finally put all that reading to good use. Closing her eyes, the jab of disappointing him knifed into her heart.

Chem II was fast becoming the hill that dream would die on.

Could she really do that… to him? Could she really tell them all that she had failed? Could she admit it? Out loud? Could she really say that she was giving up on ever being the only thing they had ever valued her for—even if it was only a dream in her future?

The idea of confessing it all felt like death itself.

And then, on the screen, Seth made the ultimate sacrifice for love, for Maggie’s love, for a chance at being human as he fell to what otherwise would have killed a mere mortal. Taylor winced and grabbed up the blanket to block the view when he landed. She didn’t even watch at first because she was too afraid of what she might see. What she saw instead was the leap he had taken, an act of free will that would make him fully alive. It was the same one they had been talking about all day. He wanted the chance to live, not to merely exist.

Letting the blanket down, Taylor’s gaze fell to it. Was that what she was doing? Merely existing? Was she living, not her dreams, but only to fulfill someone else’s? And if she quit doing that, what would she do then?

Art? She laughed softly at that. She had always admired Lily for taking that leap, but from here, it just looked impossible, ill-advised, and downright stupid. She wasn’t Lily. She didn’t have Lily’s talent or drive.

What then? Business?

Her spirit cringed at that thought even as Seth tried to figure out how to get to Tahoe before Maggie got married. Nursing? Pharmacy school? Engineering? It was like her mind had slipped into gear and refused to slow down.

Had she never really even thought about what else she might do? Had she never even given herself any other option?

Dentistry? Physical therapy?

What were the other options?

She squiggled herself down further into the couch and wrapped the blanket around her. That other road suddenly didn’t look exciting. In fact, it was starting to look downright dangerous.

They only sang three songs, two with Paige, and the one Paige and Nelson had written back in high school. Of course, Nelson and Paige sang that one, and Greg managed to make it sound all right on the guitar. Usually Nelson played it on the piano and Paige played the violin, so this rendition with only guitars sounded odd, not bad, just very, very different.

When