Edge of the Ravine

18

Chapter Eighteen

I was dreaming. Of that, I was certain. Everything was too bright and blurry around the edges for me to believe otherwise. Yet, it all felt so very real.

It was a gorgeous day with a bright cerulean sky and easily an eighty degree temperature. My eyes closed as I felt the sunlight sink into my skin. A contented smile parted my lips as a very real breeze rushed past me. This was one of those days I waited all year for. Perfect.

Of course, it couldn't be perfect without him. Not to me. So it didn't really surprise me when I heard his dream-voice call my name before the sound became trapped in the air like a web. It repeated over and over like an inexplicable echo as I turned towards my beloved.

Alec slummed into me and we laughingly spun for a moment as we tried to regain our footing, all the while his momentum, threatening to make me fall. When we were at last fully settled on our feet, we embraced each other tightly. And as my face rested in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, I breathed deeply of the heat and sun that perfumed his skin. He was absolutely wonderful.

Just when I had begun to believe I did not wish to leave this dream, that I could stay here forever with this Alec—the one I had fallen in love with those three and a half years ago—he pulled away from me. Not even my fingertips lingered on his skin as he took a step back and then another.

Only in that moment did I realize where we were. It was then that the blur rimless that clung to the edges of my vision pulled away and I recognized my surroundings. We were on the train tracks heading south. Behind Alec was the tunnel the train entered just before the tracks began to hug the ravine's edge. This was the point where Alec and I usually turned north on our daily walks and walked up beside my own drop-off.

But Alec wasn't turning.

"What are you doing?" I called, my dream voice joining his in the lingering web that surrounded us.

He didn't answer. Backing up a few more steps, he began to turn. Taking one last minute, he looked over his shoulder at me and my stomach plummeted into my feet. The only thing visible in those eyes that I so loved was a flood of the deepest remorse.

It was the last expression I'd ever seen on his face and it broke my heart.

Suddenly, Alec turned towards the tunnel and began to run. In my mind. I screamed for him to stop. To come back. That I loved him. Needed him. But none of those words left my lips. And I stood silently by as he left me.

Jerking awake, one hand flew to my chest where my heart was pounding frantically even as the other clapped over my mouth. Tears built in my eyes and I sank my teeth into my trembling bottom lip. My eyes roved through the dark room in which I slept, a hand automatically reaching out to search for him, though I was in my own room instead of his.

The heat of the dream had vanished and ice was forming in my veins. Knots twisted my stomach and I felt at any moment that I would vomit. For a few moments more, I was able to hold back the flow, but the foreboding in my stomach and the vividness of the dream conspired me against me. A sob could be held back no longer and I buried my face into a pillow and cried like I had only when I learned of my mother's death.

It was only a dream, my mind kept saying. If only my heart were as aware of that fact.