dreamland

forty-one

It had been the toughest couple of months.

There are some days I cannot remember and others I can recall clearly but deny recollection of because they are just that ugly. I have made significant progress that has etched smiles on both my parents and best friend's faces. It's a good thing to see. So many good things to see.

There's a Juneberry tree that my dad planted when I was twelve years old, that, like something magical of a fairytale, has suddenly bloomed. No one had noticed. Not until one day they heard a car drive in. We all stood, expecting no one but still curious, and went to the front door and saw it was only my best friend. She saw what we were looking at and she said nothing. None of us could. I felt as if I had fallen asleep and woken up at someone else's house. I knew it would grow, my dad said with a nod, of affirmation.

And then one night, through the thin doors, I heard my dad tell my mom that he had been feeling like a cloudy day lately but now he was feeling closer to a sunny day.

But today, today I felt that sunny day on the literal sun. My mom had knocked on my door and when I told her to come in, she stood there, unsure. I asked her what it was and she told me there was someone here to see me. I knew why she was unsure or nervous, I understood. And I told her it was alright which felt so odd. She was the mom and I was the daughter. She held my hand and squeezed and I told her that I had to go. She let me go and I went down and the door was already open for me. I stepped out and there was no need for a coat because it was May. The sun was so warm and unfamiliar it awoke goosebumps on my skin. He closed the door to his car and it looked as if he had been undecided on coming here and staying. My heart didn't know how to feel about that. He turned and although there had been so much to think of on these past days, he'd been the undertone of those thoughts. He wore a pale yellow and white striped top and his hair was so much shorter than before and on his shoes there were purples laces, one lace a darker shade of purple than the other. It was true. He made it a trend. Purple and green. Green and purple. I was the one that stared this time while he gawked and struggled to find his words to say. The tables had turned but all I wanted was to move it to the side to feel him. He said, finally breaking the silence, he said that he had come here so many times before and turned around at the last minute. And I know this because there were midnights I awoke and felt something pulling me outside, mornings in which I stared out the window waiting, mid days in which I opened the door and checked and saw that it was all still there and the same. He said that he had turned back because he never knew what to say and that other times it was too soon, for him, for me most the time and every time, for the both of us. I understood that too. He still wasn't done and he said that he thought about me more than he thought of himself and that he wanted to come and take me away but that that was just stupid because this was not a fucking book or movie, there would be people that would miss and worry of us. I nodded my head because I'd had the dream in which he took me away and I no longer saw the same trees and stores and sidewalks that only reminded me of things I did not want to think of. He said that he heard so many rumors, so many but he remembered that that's what had fucked this before it even started so he stopped listening to them until he found out that the truest one was the same one that he'd believed to be so overdramatized. He stepped to me and I wondered if that was the end. He said that there were still so many things he wanted to say but now they were all seeming irrelevant. Yeah, I felt that too. He looked up at me from the ground and touched me cheek with his fingertip and I closed my eyes and knew that this is what a touch was supposed to feel like. He said that he was stupid before and that he'd spun a web with his words the last time we saw each other. So then what did you mean, I asked, speaking for the first time. He stared at me and I stared at him. He said, it means this, and he kissed me. When he kissed me it did not feel like burning my tongue or burning on the hot sun. It felt like burning pages of old stories and burning clothing of a dead person. He touched me and I touched him because all this time I had forgotten what it felt like to live and not just breathe. Breathe truly.

Then I saw it.

The bright light that I sometimes saw before I slept and at random times during the day. It was growing and I was losing sight of him. I was holding him still but it felt like I was holding air, heavy air. There was someone calling me, impatient and hopeless. I unstuck my eyelids and saw my mom. I heard something beeping on my left side and when I turned to see, I saw a hospital room. My mom was crying so hard and I kept saying mom, mom, why are you crying. My dad left the room and my best friend entered followed by him. I started to scream, this was incomprehensible. He was supposed to be in jail. They promised me I would not see him again. My heart monitor spiked up erratically and he stepped back, afraid of me? Of me? I screamed and the nurse kept saying my name, telling me to calm down, calm down. But how could I? Fuck you, I told her. My mom kept crying, my dad still would not return, my best friend just stared, her eyes wide, and he stood there, holding my eyes, so boldly. I pointed at him because they told me to point at who was making me upset. I pointed and said that he was a monster, get him out, get him the fuck out now. He didn't grin devilishly like the bad guy does in a movie or even fake it and beg me to recognize him. He let the escort him out but wouldn't unlock his gaze. So I closed my eyes still screaming, still screaming. Where was he? Where was he? I was just kissing him, I just was touching him, where, where? Where? Then there was real black as they told me one last time to calm down.