November Dreams (M.C.)

Chapter Sixty-Eight

               

The night slowly faded away as we lay on the floor, never leaving each other's grip. This was the ultimate bliss, the highest form of serendipity. My soul felt like it had been reaching out forever and now it had finally caught hold of what it had been searching for. We spent the entirety of the hours before morning tangled up in each other's embrace, our shallow breaths mixing as our foreheads touched lightly. His scent was so familiar, yet so different. Every now and then, I caught tiny whiffs of the hospital and was sent spiraling back. I would writhe in my sleep, but only for a moment. He wrapped his arms tighter and pressed his finger tips into my skin as he lifted his head to kiss me gently between the eyes.

It felt unreal in moments; the feeling that this couldn't actually be happening to me crept up every now and then. I felt like this was some sick, twisted dream my psyche had conjured up in order to keep me from going insane. But every time he twitched beneath my fingers or brushed across my skin, I was reminded that he was physical, that he was really here. Whatever miracle it was that lead him back to me again, I wasn't ready to question it.

The room began to lighten through my closed eyelids, the sun no doubt beginning to stir in its place between the clouds.  Michael too began to stir as we lay silently on his floor. I could feel him shift beneath me as he slipped his arm from behind my back and propped himself up on his elbow to look at me. I could pick out the little dashes of happiness dancing in his eyes as he held my gaze before leaning in and pecking a soft kiss on the tip of my nose.

"Come on," he climbed to his feet and pulled me up with him. He grabbed a jacket out of his closet and zipped it around me and led me from the room.

"Michael, where are we—"

He pressed his finger to my lips, letting it linger there gently as he caught my eyes in his. A smirk twitched onto his red lips as he dragged his finger away teasingly.

"Shhh, you'll see love."

He tapped the tip of my nose before lacing his fingers with mine, the spaces between my fingers welcoming his like old friends from long ago. My hand was warmed instantly, the sensation traveling up my arm and striking me in the heart. That's where that warmth would stay; that's where he would stay. It was funny, really. These pockets of time we were swimming in together felt so unreal, so dreamlike that to an outsider they may have even seemed like a tall tale. But to us, these spaces between memories were where we thrived.

Michael pushed open the sliding glass door and brought me to the edge of the grass, his grip in my hand never loosening. We sat in the damp green blanket that spanned the back half of the backyard, the sky above us mixing in an ocean of peaches and reds as the sun touched the city. Michael maneuvered me in between his legs, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind as he guided me back onto his. He pressed his lips to the top of my head, lingering for a moment before pulling away to glance back at the clouds.

It was a lot to take in. Sunrises were always ours and they always would be. But this time it felt different. This time, it felt like this was a new beginning. As the sun rose, a wave of immense emotion washed over me. Every memory of us watching the sunrise together, before everything happened all the way back to the very first sunrise, came flooding back to me in an instant. Tears welled up in my eyes, a few sweeping down my warm cheeks. But every tear that fell was not caused by sadness. My body tingled with warmth; happiness was radiating through me like the rays of the sun through the sky.

"How?" I breathed, the only sentence my mind could dream up in my state of euphoria.

"How what?"

"How is any of this possible?" I knew he had no answers, that he couldn't possibly know. But I couldn't help but utter my curiosities out loud, to make them known. Truth be told, I was still reeling and in the back of my mind, I guess I wondered if he was too.

He rested his chin on top of my head, his jaw moving against my skull as he opened his mouth to talk.

"I-I don't know, Nove. One minute, I thought I saw you and the next..."

He paused for a moment; I wondered what was going through his mind, if he was reliving it all on a loop like I was.

"I thought you had come to take me away. I honestly didn't think you were real, so it just...succumbed to it..."

"To what?" I asked, hushed.

"It felt like an intense gravitational pull, just tugging at me. I felt like it wanted to pull me backwards. And when...when I saw you, I thought you were there to tell me it was time to let go. That I had to let go. So I did, and that's when I fell."

Listening to him describe this experience to me felt like some sick bedtime story. And the fact that I was the ultimate driving force behind all of this made me sick to my stomach.

"—I just kept falling and falling until I landed in this...I don't even know how to describe it. But I was alone...I was so alone—" I could hear the disconnect and panic in his voice as he recalled the afterlife, my heart breaking as I listened.

"—There was this voice...telling me that I couldn't leave yet..."

"Why couldn't you leave?" I asked, regretting it almost as soon as I felt the words flick from my tongue.

"You. I couldn't leave because you needed me...because we weren't finished. And in my heart, I think I always knew that. I was just too weak to fight for it like I should have—"

"Michael, you fought with everything you had..." I turned to face him, my legs slung over his as I leaned in. "You fought with your life..." I whispered, my eyes trained on the grass.

"Nove..."

He lifted my chin in the palm of his hand until my eyes landed on his, a look of sincerity and concern reflecting back at me in shades of effervescent green.

"Whatever brought me back here knew it wasn't time for this to end. And I don't think it ever will be," and with that, Michael cupped my face gently in his hands and kissed me. But it was unlike any kiss I had ever felt before. This kiss felt new, like it came from a place untouched by the living. This kiss was made by angels, a parting gift passed down from his kin in the sky to grace us in its tenderness.

I fell into him as our lips unlatched and he pulled me back with him, the grass cushioning us on the way down. I never wanted this to end. This moment, this day, this life, him and I. But as my mind began to spin again as it threw around 'what if's', I remembered Michael's words.

It wasn't time for us to end.

And it never would be.

//

Sorry this chapter is so terrible, and I'm also sorry it took so long to update. I have not been wanting to adult lately. But the book is almost over (cries). But I'm excited to focus more on my other Michael fic, "Secrets Game", and I'll eventually be posting a Calum fic that'll be pretty different. But I'll keep y'all posted on all of that.

Anyways, thanks for reading and make sure to like and comment!

xx