The Second Chapter

5:23 am- June 15, 2019

I dreamt of you again.

A beautifully elaborate dream full of touches and kisses, smiles and your laugh.

My god, your laugh. It's still ringing in my ears. I kept my eyes closed long after I had woken up in hopes that I might be able to hold onto the dream a little while longer.

We were broken up in this one too, but you talked to me like we were still best friends. Talked like you still loved me, despite what you were doing. Spoke to me as if you too knew in your heart that what you wanted now would not last.

I woke up feeling at ease. We had touched and kissed and hugged and at one point my mom consoled me that her and my dad had done this at one point too, "it's annoying now, I know. He needs to do this. But it's just like a more relaxed version of dating- I mean look at you two, you already are starting to sound like yourselves again, like how you sounded when you first started out. This won't take long."

I turned to look at you, beautiful even in my dreams, and hopes she was right as the scene became murky and I floated up through unconsciousness into reality.

God how I wish that dream was true.

And even though I know it isn't, I'm such a masochist for seeing you in my dreams anyways. As much as it hurts waking up and realizing it isn't real, I do it over and over again because at least there I can touch you and love you in public, unrelentingly.

At least there, my love and hope for you is renewed.

I miss you.

I'm ready to wake up from this nightmare now.

~

I dreamed about you another three times.

Once, we were forced to sleep in the same bed together when you came to visit OSU- still broken up, of course- but you pulled me against you into a spoon as if nothing ever happened. Held my hand, played with my hair and wrapped me as tightly as you did when we were together. Even in that dream I remember thinking that if that was the most I could get from you, I would take it.

Then, in the second, we were at a friend's party- it was very swanky and took place somewhere in southern Georgia. In this one, we were together, but it was obvious you wanted another girl as you stood and flirted with her while holding my hand. I pulled you aside and confronted you and you said things between us just didn't feel the same- it wasn't exciting anymore. I kissed you passionately and promised it could be again. You started to argue but I kissed you again and again, each time promising something more exciting between breaths...I even groveled by admitting that I would swallow every time if you took me back. You threw you head back and laughed at that, then pulled me in for another kiss. When we'd finished, I looked at you more seriously and said that if at the end of the summer you still weren't feeling the excitement, we could have the conversation again, do the rebreaking one last time and then go our separate ways.

"I'll go back to school," I said, "And you'll go back home. It'll be much easier to move on from each other when we're an ocean apart. Right now, it hurts so bad because you're here, so close but just out of reach."

Then finally, the plot changed, but we were still in the south. Annie or Georgia stood beside me as we walked down Bourbon Street towards a bar we had heard everyone was at- she walked in front of us with a few others. I asked everyone that if anything happened that night with you, if they would please not tell me.