Water In My Lungs

Love Sick

"Will you stay in my room tonight?" Estelle's voice was shy and frightened, eyes heavily rimmed with black eyelashes and tired bags. They scanned their house evenly as the porch light illuminating the front deck.

"Of course I will. We can make it a sleepover." Connor smiled, pulling her purse over her shoulder with ease. "Do you still have suitcases all over your floor?"

Estelle's eyes widened and she laughed, "Well, crap. I guess you'll be sleeping in the bathroom instead" Connor cringed, making a disgusted face and slapping her arm. "I'm just kidding. Let me run upstairs and clean up!"

Estelle was sliding out of the car, unhooking her phone from the radio and keys from the ignition. Connor began to follow her but the small girl had already raced her way inside.

He was crouched low by the water, dark hair a wavy mess on top of his head. His fingers fiddled with the water and the rocky sand underneath. Tan skin was covered by a black léine that cut off at the top of his thighs, held tightly over his already broad shoulders and chest by a brown belt at his waist. His trews were near black, like his shirt, and didn't fit quite right.

"Bedivere..." the grass whispered and he turned to look. His face twisted happily, something resembling a smile crossing over his features.

"Arabella, chaill mé tú." Her voice echoed his, I missed you. Upwards, the sky was a pale pink. She fell, her dress and it's layers flitting into the air. It was a long time before her back brushed against the flowers beneath her.

"Mo chara," he spoke again in her ear, soft hands brushing a curl away from her eyes and she felt her cheeks pull into a smile. My friend...

"Yes, I'm your friend, Bedivere," the wind spoke this time but his eyes affixed to her smile and it grew as she turned to him. "I brought you a flower." Feilistrín Gorm. Her took it in his hand and brought it to his nose.

"Go raibh maith agat, mo chara." His voice was grateful, elated by the thought of her thinking of him; his friend. She couldn't decipher his words, his Gaelic tongue old and natural, but she understood.

"You're welcome." They laid on their stomachs, playing with the grass and laughing at particularly nothing the way older children do. She didn't feel young, but her even more slender figure and almost shrill pitched voice told her she was.

He turned from her and watched the water, a dismal expression clouding his face as a thought coursed through his mind.

"Ba mhaith siad dom," he murmured, eyes focused and troubled like water under a turbulent sky.

"Well, they can't have you," she whispered sitting up and touching his arm in a comforting gesture. "You are your own."

"I am yours," As he spoke, the air around his face dimmed and the details of his features faded away. The light was gone and she could no longer feel the grass under her weight baring hand.

She snapped awake. Connor was laying next to her, arms curled under herself with an elbow bent beneath her head. A thin snore drifted from her loose lips and Estelle smiled, lifting herself to a sitting position.

The dream swam listlessly in her mind. Images began slipping away as her memory grasped for them. She leaned over Connor slowly, as to not wake her up. Estelle snagged the end of a notebook and pen from the floor, beginning to scribble.

Bedivere's sweetness in the dream frightened her, the vast comparison to his waking self too much to comprehend. What's it mean?

Estelle pulled her knees under her to prop the notebook and Connor stirred with wide, blinking eyes.