Title: Did It All Before
Author: Cynthia Hamill
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 06/28/2021
Length: 115800
Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, gay, British, doctor, photojournalist, healing, hurt/comfort, PTSD/Post Traumatic Stress, angst, slow burn, friends to lovers, soulmates
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Description
Award-winning photojournalist Scott Rowe is struggling with the physical injuries and emotional scars caused by the terrorist attack that killed his interpreter, Omran Saleh. A long succession of doctors and surgeons have put his body back together, but to Scott, his mind seems beyond repair. Panic attacks ambush his days, and nightmares haunt his fitful sleep. He can’t bring himself to touch his broken camera, let alone consider returning to work. His only sanctuary is the darkroom, where he can escape the secret he carries surrounding Omran’s death.
Dr Jason Andrews is determined to bring Scott back from the brink. His alternative healing methods are like nothing Scott has ever seen, and at first, Scott feels foolish lying on Jason’s table with hot rocks in his hands or acupuncture needles in his skin. But one thing keeps Scott coming back: the detailed visions that appear like movies in his mind, of himself in other times, cultures, and continents, and Jason himself, whose relentless hope steers them through the storms of Scott’s recovery.
As his health improves, Scott begins to wonder what his visions mean. Are they vivid daydreams, figments of his exhausted mind? And why does he only have these visions when he is with Jason?
Scott hopes the answers will give him a reason to make peace with Omran’s death and begin to truly live again, instead of merely surviving. But what if they also give him a reason to love?
Did It All Before
Cynthia Hamill © 2021
All Rights Reserved
It’s half eight before Scott steps away from his desk, unable to ignore the rumbling in his stomach. As he heads for the kitchen, he makes a list of things to get when he goes out tomorrow: coloured pencils, printer ink, glue, and a new pair of scissors.
He leaves behind his new black sketchbook. He’d arranged it like a diary, writing his appointment date at the top of each page so he can organise his lives, as he now refers to them. He is rusty at note-taking and sketching, but for his first try, it isn’t terrible. He managed to capture the rustic feel of the two-storey farmhouse with its steeply pitched roof and fat bushes dropping their leaves by the front door. He remembered the chicken coop and the crumbling stone fence along the edge of the garden, and he’d sketched those roughly as well. Words are scattered on the pages too; he wrote “calendar day,” “promise,” and “Lèni,” as well as “morphine,” “hands,” and “brave.”
The first page was titled “Monday, 23 May 2016,” and under it, he’d written what he can remember about the fortress by the sea. There was a man there, standing by the window, who had a kind voice and a ship pin. Scott was to sign something, like a contract, or a deed. He can still feel the terrible weight of responsibility that rested in that signet ring, and his position at the head of that dark, heavy table. But the man who had felt like his brother had reassured him, even in the face of all his crippling doubt. The words Scott wrote on this page were “allies,” “ocean,” “stone,” and “trust.”
“Monday, 30 May 2016” will be a collage. Scott bookmarked a photograph of a Native girl with a cradleboard on her back that he’d found on the American Museum of Natural History’s web archives. He also searched for “falcon” and “fox” and bookmarked several pictures of both. He even found some photographs of the wild prairie grasses from the field where she’d been caught. Their names are soothing, and he listed them as he read them aloud: “Green needlegrass, big bluestem, switchgrass, and giant wildrye.” This had been the day of his fight with Jason, the day of the fire in the sink. He wrote “horses” in scrawling letters at the bottom of the page and drew a triangle next to it, to remind him of the mark on the child’s chin. He also wrote “fear” and “mistake.” Tomorrow, he will print out the pictures and paste them here, to fill out the world of the girl he has come to know as Wings-on-the-Wind.
The next one, “Thursday, 2 June 2016,” started out as a stream of consciousness poem but quickly turned into a letter to Lorenzo. In the margin, he drew a looping L intertwined with an elaborate italic M, as best he could remember from the canvas he’d painted. He is curious about the paints Matti might have used, and he might try to learn a bit about the plague. But that is for another day; for now, the lost love makes him sad, and he wants to leave it as it is. Eventually, he’ll try to find a painted portrait of a young man in a black, slit-sleeved waistcoat, as well as a photograph of an Italian palazzo, perhaps with a terracotta tiled roof. Words on this page are: secrets, love, comfort, and risk.
That has brought him up to the present, “Monday, 6 June 2016,” the French farmhouse. As he leans against the counter sipping his tea, he decides he’ll take a stab at sketching the inside of the little bedroom as well. It makes him think of Hélène wrapped in her quilt, looking up at him with her blue eyes. Brave.
He hears the notification ding on his phone. It’s a text from Olivia.
EastEnders! Tell me you’re watching??
Nope, sorry. Scott lets out an ironic snort and thinks, I’m cataloguing my past lives right now, no time for soaps.
Don’t forget Thomas’s play on Wednesday night. You’re still coming?
Absolutely. What time?
When no response comes, he turns to the croque-monsieur heating on the hob. He figures he might flip through the book Jason gave him while he eats.
His phone chimes again as he slides his sandwich onto a plate, and he picks it up, expecting Olivia. But it’s Jason. His finger shakes a bit as he swipes the phone open.
Still quiet?
Scott chuckles softly and listens.
Hi. Yes, still quiet.
Scott picks at the sandwich crust, poised over the phone.
You’re drinking your water?
Tea. You?
Same. How is your cough tonight?
Nowhere. You do house calls now?
Just curious. Didn’t want to wait till Thursday to find out.
Before Scott can think of what to say next, another text appears.
Also realised I never filled you in on my convo with Dr Wareing.
Scott had forgotten; his appointment with the ear, nose, and throat doctor had been stellar regarding his hearing, inconclusive regarding his cough. But Jason probably already knows that.
You could call. We could have a conversation. Like normal people.
Scott’s heart bumps hotly as he hits the send button.
You’ll answer?
Cheeky, he thinks to himself. The cursor blinks in the response window, counting the seconds as Scott thinks. Only three flash by before he replies.
Yes.
Possibilities crowd Scott’s mind: Maybe he could tell Jason everything he didn’t say today, not about the farmhouse, not yet, but about Brenna, about sleeping, about flying. He could tell him thanks again for the book, and that he’d planned on looking it over at supper. He could ask him how he’s holding up, make sure he’s not taking blame for what he could or couldn’t do for his patient who passed away. Maybe he could ask Jason what he goes floating for, and thank him again for offering to go with him because he thinks something big might happen there.
Scott’s phone rings, and its trill is a gorgeous sound.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me.”
Although Scott has heard Jason’s voice on his answerphone, it’s still a strange sound to get used to. Familiar, but different, close, but far away.
“I know,” Scott says. “Uh, thanks for calling. I had…something I forgot to tell you too.”
“Oh? About what?”
Dreams, somehow, have become a currency between them. Scott smiles, and a tingle buzzes through his hands as he starts to speak.
“Do you remember last week, you told me to have a flying dream? Well, I did. It worked.”
“Yeah? Hey, good on you. How’d it feel?”
“It was…incredible. I just ran to the edge of this cliff and took off over the ocean. And you…” You were there too. Scott stumbles, realising that letting Jason know that isn’t the best idea. The oddness of it strikes Scott suddenly, that Jason is the only one of his doctors he’s dreamt about, and he scrambles to cover his slip. “You, uh, you would’ve been impressed. With my skills.”
Jason laughs. “I bet. You didn’t crash, did you?”
“Nope. Soft landing. Perfect.” Scott leans against the counter and folds his arms, getting comfortable.
“Excellent. So you must be sleeping well if you’re dreaming. Oh wait, does this mean I owe you one?”
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Cynthia’s love of romance began in eighth grade when she chose to read Jane Eyre instead of Huckleberry Finn. Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and Daphne du Maurier shaped her passion for love stories that feature mysterious plots and unforgettable characters. At thirteen, she couldn’t have imagined a world where books appear on screens at the touch of a button, but decades later, romances of all genres fill her (digital) shelves while her dog-eared, well-loved copy of Jane Eyre still lives on her bedside table.
Cynthia’s art history degree landed her a museum job in New York, but she left the Big Apple when her own love story took her to the prairies of the Midwest. She now lives a stone’s throw from the Mississippi River, and you can find her poring over art books, reading tarot cards, taking nature walks with her family, and reading and writing love stories.
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