HeyI woke up this morning to Lochlan gasping for air, fighting for breath because I had my arms wrapped tight around his neck, holding on to him for dear life trying to get away from a nightmare I have constantly but it played out longer this time. Hours. Days. Weeks. Years.
How long
Which means they're giving me Ambien again. Nothing fuels a nightmare like that garbage. Instead of bringing me back around it only serves to paralyze me, helpless and uncaring while my brain tears me apart without interruption. Outwardly I look like I'm having a great sleep most of the time. This time I managed to fight it so hard I almost strangled him in the process.
A momentary shout of surprise, a gentle but firm effort to quell my panic and we got all the way through an icy cold breakfast out in the gazebo (twelve degrees and he refused to turn on the heat. There will be no elaborate comforts for you today, freak, I'm sure was his reasoning.)before he asked for an explanation.
Sleep paralysis, I lie. Fuck you, then, if you're going to take it personally. I'm trying to save our lives here.
What's the dream about?
Jacob comes back.
How?
He wasn't dead. He went to a monastery.
Sounds like a film.
Yup.
And?
He wants absolution, wants to pick up where we left off.
Isn't this your most fervent hope?
I smile tightly. God, you can be such an asshole. I woke up with my arms around you because I wanted to be with you and he was trying to pull me away.
That's not going to happen in a million years. You're seeing him everywhere. You conjure him in the clouds, in the water, in your dreams.
I'm afraid he's going to show up and ruin what we just got back.
Wow. And for the second time in less than a week I've driven a grown man to tears. Usually they're immune to my words, my thoughts. But I've got everything freshly sharpened for fall at last and it's cutting deeper than expected.
I'll never forget that you just said that. If nothing else, I know now that none of this was in vain.
Who said it was?
Caleb, among others.
Well, they're wrong. As much as I wish for Jacob to come back, it's so he can pay for what he did like a man instead of a coward, living in the fringes of my peripheral vision and my dreams.