Bad Things

11. Relinquish

  A drop in the ocean
A change in the weather
I was praying that you and me might end up together
It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert
But I'm holding you closer than most 'cause you are my heaven

- Ron Pope. 

____________________________________________

For the fourth time in two weeks, Camila woke with her heart pounding and her body covered in sweat. She wished she could say the dreams were nightmares, that she was running from some huge, mucous covered monster with a spiked tail and ten inch fangs. She wished she could say that was what it was. But she couldn't.

Her dreams were not about fear—at least not that kind, anyway. They were about want. A want so powerful that even when she woke up, she could still feel it. That flutter in her stomach and the ache in her chest. The yearning in her muscles to just get out of bed and do something about it. For two weeks, since the day at the fountain, since the day he'd told her he'd wait for her, she'd been fighting it.

Camila groaned and rolled over, her hand swiping over the nightstand until it found her cell phone. She picked it up and turned it on, squinting against the bright screen. Two in the morning.

No messages received.

With a groan, she dropped the phone onto the table and lay back on her pillow. She thrust her hand into her hair and stared up at the ceiling. Two weeks. It had only been two weeks since they'd really been talking, since they'd really even attempted to get to know one another. That wasn't long enough, right? Not long enough to feel the way she was feeling, to feel the way—if she allowed herself to admit it—she'd felt from the moment she'd really even laid eyes on him at the game. That spark had ignited immediately, the one in her stomach that made her sick and excited and scared all at the same time.

The dreams just made it worse.

All day long she told herself to hold back, to keep him at an arm's length until she knew for sure. Until she knew what he said was the truth. But how would she know if it was actually her believing him, or if she just wanted it so much she let herself think she did?

Camila clamped her eyes shut and tried to push the thoughts away. It was exhausting, wondering all the time. Second guessing everything and everyone. She wanted to let go. She wanted to just stop. But even as they talked, as he made her laugh, as he made her comfortable, as the sound of his voice murmured in her ear night after night, or the feeling she got when "new text message" popped up with his name next to it, her mind told her to be cautious, to be distant.

And she hated it.

She was so confused, so irritated, so tired. But no matter how much she tried to clear her mind of her fears, at night they came back. Sometimes in the form of the nightmare she'd had before—of being pregnant and Shawn leaving her alone. And sometimes the fear she felt wasn't of him leaving, but of wanting him to stay.