The Second Chapter

Soul Time- June 14, 2019

I dreamt of you for the first time last night since you left.

I had gone to sleep wondering what you were going to do this Saturday, wondering if you'd have another party of sleep in the same bed as another girl. If you knew I was coming back Sunday and did whatever you wanted regardless of my feelings or didn't know and realized on Sunday when I arrived that you had to face me again. I wondered, wondered, wondered until I was fast asleep.

Everything I fell asleep imagining then manifested in a dream and there you were, with me, and a handful of other people- camp people, my friends from school- at an AirBNB beach house somewhere. I don't remember the specifics, so I promise I won't bore you with those, but I do remember that we were broken up in the dream too, so I spent the entirety of it watching you from a distance, admiring you, confused and wishing things were different.

Towards the end of the dream, we were all packing up and getting ready to leave and as I rounded the corner separating the bathroom from the hallway, there you stood, as real as ever. You wore your maroon Zara hoodie and joggers, your shoulders filling the small space of the hallway. Your hair was freshly cut and I clutched the things in my arms even tighter to keep from reaching for your beard, running my thumb across your cheekbone.

As if without thought, you opened your arms wide for me and stared down expectantly, welcoming me back into the comfort of your chest. Whatever cleaning supplies I had been holding were completely forgotten as they fell to the floor and I stepped into your warmth. Back home, at last. I pressed my cheek against your chest as I have so many times before and I felt you press your lips to my forehead, soft and gentle, as if you were apologizing for the pain you were putting me through. Then you stepped away and disappeared into a common room where our friends had gathered. I stood there in that hallway for a moment, completely confused. We weren't together, so why were you treating me in private as if the whole thing was an act? Or at least that you were sorry, if anything? My mind raced so erratically that I woke up, confusion still lingering in my mind and the ache restored in my heart.

You were so real. You felt so real. It was a dream but I'm holding on to those moments, that feel of you wrapped around me, tighter than any real memory I have of us. It felt so good to be held by you again. But as good as it felt, I keep wishing it was real. Wishing the hurt in your eyes as you turned away from me was real. Wishing the kiss on my forehead, silently promising me everything would be okay, was real.

It felt real.

So real that a distant part of me is wondering that, despite the distance, despite the break-up, if we just had soul time.