Tori's Short Stories

Attraction

My therapist told me that when I feel an anxiety attack coming on, I should use the 5-4-3-2-1 method. Five things I can see. Four things I can feel. Three things I can hear. Two things I can smell. One thing I can taste. The idea is that you can release yourself from the maze of your mind and ground yourself in what is real. I have spent too much time in my mind.

What do I see? I can see the moon through the open window, its bright fullness saturating the landscape. I can see stars, only a handful compared to the sky in the country where I grew up, twinkling in the distant reaches of the universe. I can see my diamond ring, glittering in the moonlight. I can see him sleeping in the bed beside me, oblivious to the world's troubles in his slumber. I can see her; she watches me with her icy eyes from the chair in the corner.

He looks exactly as I have always imagined he would. From the very first dream he has never changed. He remains ageless, a god among mere mortals as he passes through the strands of time. When he walks through my dreams he is always smiling, beaming at me and all my dreamscape has to offer. The only time his smile ever faded was at the end of the dream: that point at which everything crumbed away. Then he did not smile and he did not laugh and he did not breathe. He choked to death, mere inches from me. A bullet pierced his smooth chest. A knife slid across his porcelain throat. It happened every single night in a million different but equally devastating ways. I was never able to save him.

I would save him tonight. I would throw myself in front of any bullet before I let it disturb him. She would not do the same. I know she would not. She is never in the dreams and that is how I know she is inexplicably wrong. She is evil and she refuses to relinquish him to me. She does not understand how selfish she is being because of her mundane simplicity. Even now, as she gazes at me wordlessly, I seethe with hatred for her. She is incapable of understanding. She is driven by primal instinct, evidenced by her obsession with children of all things. She was willing to ruin the purity of her relationship, her illegitimate relationship, with the burden of messy, fussing children. How selfish of her.

In any case, I have won. Destiny has prevailed. I believe she is beginning to show a glimmer of defeat. She slumps forward slightly, her hair falling forward. That is right. I move my arm across his chest as a final blow. She can only watch. He is mine. He stays quiet through all of this, lost in his own dreams. Does he dream of me? He must.

I don't know when the dreams started. It feels now like they have always been, a structure as ingrained into me as my skeleton, directing me and showing the light. I cannot believe I almost dismissed them. They seemed odd but meaningless in the beginning, mystical and romantic visions of a lover I had never known, always ending in comparable tragedy. They are vivid enough to be life. They are life. I understand that now. I didn't at first. That's why I asked the therapist. I wanted to make sense of them. She did not understand. She dismissed them and urged me to dismiss them. She was hardly a doctor. She was a machine to pump pills and chemical emotions into any who sought guidance; I shudder at the thought. As he lays before me, as perfect and whole as the plump peaches on the kitchen table, I clench my fist at the very idea. I had toed the edge of the void and almost jumped. I held the pills in my hand before I flushed them down the toilet. I needed my dreams, where I felt whole and loved and worthy. But still, I almost relinquished all of this. I feel the anxiety squeeze me again.

What do I feel? I can feel his soft hair as I run my hands through the auburn strands. I can feel my heart beating in my chest. I can feel something hard and cold under the sheet; a single touch electrifies me. I can feel the slick nylon of the gym shorts he uses as pajamas.

Everything changed when I saw him standing before me as real as the pavement under my feet and the beating sun above my head. I had stopped in the middle of the crosswalk with goosebumps crawling up my body. The honk of a waiting car put me back into action. I followed him to the door of a local gym and watched him slip inside. I remember the feeling very well. Imagine starving until there is barely a breath between your skin and your bones and then being presented with a feast. I was filled with energy. Once you realize the true purpose of your life, any other pursuit seems incredibly meaningless. What is the point of spending precious energy on such menial work? I had finally seen the light. He was what I needed as dearly as oxygen.