clocks

3

Dream

I think I'm dreaming when I see him stood in my garden. He looks almost nothing like himself— and I could've sworn on my own life that at any moment I was going to wake up and realize it was just another dream, like the piles of them I've had before, that start exactly like this.

But no, he walks right up to my porch and just stares at me. Part of me wants to punch him, to throttle him, to ask him who the hell he does he think he is, just showing up here like this. He has no right, none at all. Another part of me wants to take him in my arms and never let him go.

Then, as if he is reading my mind, he starts apologizing, saying he shouldn't of came. I want to agree, but he sounds devastated, he looks like a wreck— and he has a long pink scar just above the top of his right eye, one that he never had whilst we were together.

Though here is, standing in front of my house. For how long have I dreamed of this moment?

So I invite him in. At first, I have no idea as to why he's here, I even suspect bad news, or something like that. When we get over the first break of awkward conversation, I finally bring it up to him.

"For your book," he answers, his eyes unwillingly meeting mine. He looks as though he might be sick, or that the idea of being sat so close to me might make him sick, I have no idea what's running through his head.

For my book, I think. It takes everything in me not to start shouting. When he continues to talk, I leave the table, because I know that if I don't then I'll say things I'll regret having said later on. I tell him to stay put.

I regroup my thoughts. He's here to help, he's come all the way out here just to help you, he could be risking his entire career to be here. Of course, I'm still a little upset. After everything we were put through together, it still hurts. It hurts.

I suppose it may always hurt, but it hurts even more seeing him here, seeing his face that is so different but so much the same right in front of me, seeing the sweet and kind boy I once loved so, so much.

He's here to help, I think. So let him help.

When I've calmed, I head back to the kitchen- and I explain to him that this isn't something that can be done in an afternoon. It could take a week, it could take a month. I make that clear to him.

I tell him this is either something he has to be fully set on doing, or something he has to walk away from now.

He tells me he is all in- and so it begins, I think. I don't know what he's really here for, whether it's closure, or to try and relight something that he suddenly misses, but either way, I vow that I wont initiate anything first. He came to me, not the other way around. He has to figure out what he really wants, alone.

I try to help him settle in. I show him the house, I take him out to the lake with Gracie. He seems to like her, I can tell she loves him.

Once Gracie tires out, we all head back to the house. I tell him I have some things that I have to do, that he can stay here if he wants. He finally takes me up on the offer, asking me if its alright for him to take a nap.

I chuckle to myself as I take up my keys. I tell him he doesn't have to ask, to which he doesn't answer back to, though I can hear him pulling his stuff up the stairs and shuffling down to his room.

"I won't be long!" I call, standing at the bottom of the stairs. All I get is a very tired sounding 'mhm,' in response, which makes me laugh again. Gracie bounds out to the car once I open the front door.

***

When I get home, its just gone about four in the afternoon, and the house is quiet. I take in the shopping and put it away as quietly as I can. I dish Gracie up her dinner, which keeps her downstairs whilst I creep upstairs when there's nothing else for me to do.