When I was nine years old I almost died. It was a Saturday, my mother had decided to take me to a hill all the local kids liked to sled on. I'd only been once or twice before; we didn't get out much.

My sled was different from the other kids', made of wood and metal instead of plastic. I remember my mom telling me it was my dad's when he was my age. I liked that it was different, it made me brave. I put it down on the top of the hill and got in so that I was laying on my stomach. My fingers clenched the wooden handles, the hill even more daunting from the lower level. I took a moment to steel my resolve and then pushed off.

The wind was harsh and cold against my face while I went down, down, down. The path I'd chosen was the longest one, and I zipped past where the other kids stopped. I clutched the old wood in my hands so tightly in nervous excitement that it snapped. I remember panicking, feeling helpless at the loss of control. Then I looked up and saw the tree. I froze. I had no idea what to do, no idea how I could make myself turn away from it or stop. So I just watched in terror as I got closer and closer.

I could just barely register my mother yelling out to me. Jump out, Ruby! Jump out! But I didn't, I couldn't, and then everything went black.

I think it was only after then that the muscle spasms, as I've come to call them, started. They come at random, one second I'm fine and the next I feel like I'm being punched in the gut. Even more unexplainable are the feelings. As frequently as the spasms, if not more, emotions that I know are not mine wash over me, consume me until I can feel nothing but them.

The spasms I can try to explain away, but I don't tell people about the feelings. They'd say I was crazy.

I am not crazy.

xXx

This time when it happens I'm at a dinner party, an important dinner party being thrown for my husband's hospital. Even two of its big trustees are here. Be yourself, he told me before we came, and a little charming too. Chat with the other wives, he smirked, gossip behind our backs.

Truth be told I don't much like the other wives. I'm years younger than any of them, only twenty-five. They speak of things like children and world travels and it's all I can do to nod along. I do not fit in, but they don't seem to notice.

Earlier tonight, Cate Childs, whom I get along with best, tried to tell me my husband is having an affair. "It's not a rumor, sweetie, it's an undeniable truth."

Jammie Martin and Lisa Bracken joined the conversation then. "What's truth?" Jammie asked.

Lisa leaned in close to her side, voice conspiratorial. "Chief Gray is having a thing, he's taking on lovers."

"Nicole Green," Cate added.

"Is that, is she-"

"The woman who runs the café," Lisa interrupted with a nod.

I know to take what they say with a grain of salt, but the thought bothered me. Would he really do that to me? He'd never given me reason to question his faithfulness before.

When a passing waiter offered to refill my glass of wine I eagerly accepted, but a hand reached out and stopped him before he could even lift the bottle.

"She's good," my husband had said. He smiled at me and it took everything I had in me to bite my tongue, to hold in my protest. I forced a smile back.

With a steadying breath, I turned my attention back to the wives. Cate was telling Jammie that I had a right to know if my husband was cheating on me. I started to tune the party out at that point, stopped being Ruby and started being Mrs. Gray.

I now sit on an elegant couch next to my husband and listen as Cate talks about the drawing class she's taken up. I laugh at all of the right moments and smile demurely. In the three years that we have been married I have perfected the role of being Dr. Clancy Gray's wife, of being Mrs. Gray.

With our husbands around conversation goes back to lighter things. We pretend as if our earlier exchange had never happened.

Instead of dishing to me about my husband's supposed affair, Lisa now asks me if I ever think about taking classes.

"I've thought about taking painting classes," I admit, but then I remember my role and humbly add, "I'm really no good, though." But I know I could be. In high school my teachers told me that I showed a lot of promise, they said I had vision.

Cate reaches out and places a hand on my knee, "You're not out to make a living, sweetie! You should join my class, it'd be good for you. It really clears your mind and makes you look at the world in-"

Suddenly her words cut off and I'm not even at the dinner party anymore, but in some dimly lit room-a bar, maybe?-and something slams into my shoulder. I let out a pained shout and fall to the ground.

"Ruby!" Clancy's voice and his hands on my arms bring me back to reality. I stare at him helplessly.

"Is she okay?" one of the other wives is asking. "What was that?"

"It was muscle spasm," Clancy answers for me, searching my face with furrowed brows. I've embarrassed him, that much is obvious. This is the most serious incident I've had in months, and at such an inconvenient time. "She'll be fine, won't you dear?"

"Yes," I nod, face flushed, and reseat myself. "I'm alright. Sorry for the disruption."

The conversation picks back up, but Clancy flashes me a look. We'll talk about this later.

And talk about it we do. On the ride home he glances over at me, "Next time you have one of your seizures could you give me a little warning?" His words are carefully strung together and I can't quite gauge his mood. "That was quite the show you put on."

"It was a muscle spam," I remind him with a frown. "It really hurt…almost like somebody hit me." I don't tell him about what I saw, though. That has never been a part of the spasms before. I can't expect him to understand something that I can hardly even comprehend.

Clancy hums and runs his hands down the steering wheel. "The look that was on your face, it was a little much, don't you think? Even for someone with a…muscle spasm."

I don't respond, because honestly he doesn't deserve a response. We've been over this before, I can't control what happens to me. And if I could, of course I'd make it stop. Of course I wouldn't make faces. Of course I wouldn't throw my body around. It embarrasses him but it's not happening to him. He refuses to even try to understand what this is like for me.

After a few moments of silence I hear him sigh beside me. "For a second there I thought, I thought this was the beginning of another-"

"It's not," I cut him off sharply. There's genuine concern in his voice, but I can't believe he would even bring that up. That he'd dismiss what happened tonight as a cry for, for attention or something. "It's not."

"Okay," he concedes, "okay." He looks over to me and sighs, deflating. Good, I hope he's realized he's in the wrong here. Then he offers me one of his little smiles, the kind that never fail to melt my heart. Even when I'm mad at him I can't deny that Clancy is the most attractive man I've ever seen. "How 'bout I give your shoulder a rub when we get home?"

I study his face for a moment, and it's clear that the offer is sincere. Although Clancy might not understand what's going on with me, he loves me, and tonight probably just scared him. He doesn't want to fight, but to make it up to me.

But I can't let him off that easy. "It doesn't hurt anymore," I finally say and turn to the window.

I don't sleep well that night. Around one o'clock I get out of bed, my thoughts racing too much for sleep, and go down to the kitchen.

I stare into our fridge for a while, but I'm not hungry. I don't really know what I am. Confused, drained maybe. The dinner party was definitely draining.

Eventually I move into the living room, curl up in an armchair. I think about what Cate told me and spend a long time trying to decide if I believe her or not. He comes home every night, excluding the rare night shift, and I feel like our sex life is good. Definitely not lacking. But I've also seen those doctor shows, and I know that things can happen during work hours. That on-call rooms aren't just used for sleeping.

After a lot of back and forth I pause and wonder what it says about our relationship that there is even a rumor that he's cheating, let alone that I might believe it. My throat starts to get tighter and I push away the thought.

I move my mind to my muscle spasm, which is only slightly less upsetting. They've been bad like that before, but only once or twice, and not in a long time. And I've never seen…

There's no real medical diagnosis for it. I've looked. Two years ago, after the last bad one, I spent weeks scouring the internet, and then Clancy's old med school books when that gave me nothing, looking for something, anything that would give me a hint as to what was going on with me. I found nothing. Nothing but crazy.

…I'm not crazy. I know that I'm not crazy.

I burry my head in my knees and let out a few shaky breaths. I close my eyes and try to think of good things, of a vacation on the beach I took with my parents when I was fifteen, of my nana, of the ski trip Clancy took me on last year.

I end up crying myself to sleep.

Thank you so much for reading! And a big thanks also goes out to my prereaders for helping me to get this off the ground! Take Me Where You Go is based on the 2014 film In Your Eyes, and will follow a pretty similar plotline with a few TDM twists. I hope you can bare with the Clancy/Ruby relationship, there shouldn't be too much of it in the story. I promise Liam in the next chapter, though, if that provides any consolation!

Feel free to talk to me on tumblr at hanginghope :)