“Still mad then?”
“No. I’m not mad. I’m just…confused. And when I get confused, I tend to back away from things.”
He rolled up against me and hitched his head up on his arm. “What are you confused about, sweetie?”
“You. Me. What the hell it is going on in here.”
“What exactly confuses you about us?” he whispered in my ear. Then he began to nibble it, and I felt my strength begin to dissolve, like it always seemed to do in this fantasyland. I swear the air was filled with some type of drug-induced aphrodisiac. It was so hard to fight his advances when I liked the way his lips traveled down my neck the same time his hand worked its way up my shirt. And it didn’t help that my fingers plunged themselves deep into his hair no matter how many times I told them to stop.
His nibbles paused just long enough to whisper that he loved me. “Do you really mean that?” I asked breathlessly.
I felt a puff of air on my neck before he released a weak chuckle. “Do you really doubt that?”
“No, it’s just…” He lips moved down to where his hand was and my back began to arch towards him, making it extremely difficult to keep my thoughts on track. “Stop. Please, stop,” I begged, but he didn’t take it seriously and my body continued to lightly spasm from the love bites. It took an insurmountable amount of strength to push on his chest as I begged him again to stop. I inhaled a cleansing breath, hoping it would calm the fire burning wildly within. “I need to tell you something and you’re really not gonna like me for saying it.”
He looked down on me with narrowing eyes. “How bad is this on a scale of one to ten?”
“Bad.”
He sat up, and silently waited as I pulled my shirt back down and followed him up.
“I need you to promise me something first.”
He groaned and stroked his eyebrows outward.
“You’re gonna be mad and you’re gonna think I’m crazy, but when I’m done telling you all this, you have to promise that you’ll actually try to do what I ask.”
His body stiffened, but after a moment he was able to give me a long, mellow, “O-kaaaaaay.”
“First off, where do you go when you’re not with me?”
Confused, he asked, “Is this a trick question? We’re always together.”
“No, we’re not. I go to school during the day. Sometimes I hang out with other people.” Like Robert. “I only see you at night. When I’m dreaming.”
He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Jenna–”
“Think about it! You just said that we’re always together. But Chance, you’re a senior in high school. When’s the last time you remember being in class? And your family? When’s the last time you sat down to dinner with them?” I could see him contemplating my words, but he still didn’t look like he was gonna believe me. “Don’t you see? You can’t be with me all the time. We’re not together all the time. And you’re not spending your time away from me at school or at home. So where do you go?”
He took a deep breath and opened his mouth, but quickly closed it again. “So you’re saying I’m dreaming?”
“Actually, I think we both are. Only I get up each day and live. You…”
“What?” he asked. “I what?”
“You’re in the hospital. I’ve seen you. You’ve been in a coma for like five months. Your name isn’t even Chance, it’s Evan.”
That did it.
“Alright.” He jumped off the bed. “This is ludicrous. If you want to skip the sex, just tell me flat out. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything you didn’t want to.”
I jumped off the bed too. “Would you stop? Please!” I grabbed him and he let me hold him firmly in place. “A part of me loves you too, and I love that we’ve had this time together. But it’s all just been a fantasy. And I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life in here.”
“Yeah, alright,” he mocked. “So, I’m going to go for the night. Since you’re playing this off as a dream, I’m going to hit the stop button now and let us start fresh tomorrow.”
He pried my hands from his shirt and turned towards the door. For the first time in my life, a surge rose within me and I pushed him hard from behind. “Don’t mock this!” He turned to face me and I slapped my hands into his chest. I didn’t hurt him, but his eyes were widened by my brazen antics. “I’m serious! You have nowhere to go when I’m not here to guide the dream. You’re just this leech of a visitor that jumps in every night cause your soul or mind or whatever is drawn to mine for some reason. Like we’re connected.” I grabbed his collar and yanked him closer. “I don’t want you in here anymore. Do you hear me? I want you out of my dreams and you need to get back to reality.”
I could feel the tears begin to well behind my eyes.
“So, what? You don’t want to see me anymore unless I’m in the ‘real world’?”
“Yeah, that’s right!” I snapped, furious at his use of air quotations. I didn’t have the courage to tell him that I only wanted Robert in the real world. But I let him assume, afraid he’d never try to leave otherwise.
“Jenna, this is crazy and I’m going to stop this fight before it gets any worse.”
“You can’t avoid this. The next dream will just pick up right where we left off. The dreams never reset.”
“Jenna, whatever. I’m leaving.”
Once again he turned his back on me. “Stop!” I shouted, the tears beginning to flow and my throat constricting. “I’m giving you an ultimatum.”
He paused and looked over his shoulder. “You’re giving an ultimatum? You?” He shook his head and added, “Don’t say anything you’ll regret tomorrow, Jenna.”
I couldn’t believe I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I needed him to take this seriously and I was coming off as an emotional teenage girl.
“You promised me when this began that you would do what I asked no matter how crazy you thought I was or how mad you got at me. So here’s what I want, and if you love me at all, you’ll do it.”
He was clearly done with me at that point, but he forced himself to stand firm long enough to hear me out.
“When you leave me tonight and walk out that door, I want you to pay attention to where you go. And when you realize that you’re not actually waking up from this fantasyland, I want you to find your body and realize it’s lying somewhere in a hospital bed. And if you can’t accept what I’m saying right now and you can’t find a way to believe I’m telling the truth, then I don’t wanna ever see you in here again. Ever! You wanna ever speak to me again? Then you do it from your own damn body!”
19
I woke up with tears streaming down my face and my pillow completely saturated. If Sophie heard me, she let me be. And Chance didn’t return once I finally found my way back to sleep again.
The next day was a normal volunteer day and I was nervous to see if he took my outburst to heart, but I was disheartened when I got there and Evan was still in a coma.
Still, Chance didn’t come to me at night. Not Tuesday. Not Wednesday. Not even Thursday. Nor did Evan wake up.
I was beginning to convince myself that Sophie was right and I really had made it all up in my head, and that Chance really was gonna stay gone cause I’d finally learned to shut him out. But something inside me missed him. Missed us. And though my heart was more in favor of Robert, a part of me really did want Chance. And it hurt that I was sure I’d lost something I could never get back.
I could almost feel the warmth of his skin pressed up behind me, his breath tickling the hairs on my neck. “Jenna,” I could hear him whisper in that smooth and sultry tone. My body melted as his hand traced the curves of my body and his lips nibbled my neck and ear.
But the love bites felt real – too real. And I felt the heat of his breath when he whispered my name. I opened my eyes and turned to see Chance, his body pressed tight against my back.
He leaned in close, and when I parted my lips he didn’t hesitate to press his upon mine. He’d never kissed me that passionately before. He gripped me tight and flattened his body over mine, like he was afraid I’d disappear right out from underneath him if he didn’t hold me tight.
“I’ve missed you,” I said breathlessly, squeezing the words in between kisses.
He smiled. “Then you really don’t want me to beat it?”
“That’s not what I meant,” I replied, gently pushing him off so we were facing one another on our sides. I brushed my fingers through his hair. “Where’ve you been?”
He sighed and rolled onto his back. “Uh…I’ve been watching over my body.”
I jerked upright, excitement taking over my actions. “You found yourself? Then you believe me?”
He reached up to caress my cheek and I felt heat rise inside it. I could barely see the colors in his eyes but a tiny glint managed to reflect light from the dimness. “Yeah, I believe you. I didn’t at first. But when I realized I couldn’t get out of this world, I began to wonder why I wasn’t waking up. It didn’t take long to feel this pull that led me back to my body. But I couldn’t jump back in.”
“Why not? You can still wake up. I went to the hospital every day this week just to see if you’d done it, cause you certainly weren’t here anymore.”
There was such distance in his eyes. Defeat, maybe. I tried not to succumb to the gentle swirl-like motions his fingertips were drawing on my cheek.
“Why didn’t you try to jump back in?”
“I was about to. But then something occurred to me.” He sat up beside me and grasped one side of my face. “What if I actually do wake up, but I don’t remember you?”
I took his hand into mine and sighed, cause the thought had occurred to me too. “I know. But I still want you to go. This isn’t healthy for either one of us. Eventually, your body’s gonna deteriorate and I’d lose you anyways. This way, at least I’ll know you can go on with a real life.”
“Will you come see me if I do this?”
I nodded softly. “I wouldn’t abandon you like that.”
His eyes softened and his face fell, and I swear the shimmer in his eyes dimmed a little too. I swung my leg over his h*ps and sat myself snug on his lap. Both my hands grasped his shoulder blades and firmly traced his neckline all the way to his ears, where I caressed his jaw and brought my lips gently against his. His lips embraced mine and his hands reached around my waist and locked onto my back.
“One more thing,” he said, pulling his lips out of reach, “Another reason why I was gone so long.” He paused, almost hesitant. “Any chance we both died…around the same time?”
I swallowed hard. I never mentioned that detail once I learned it. I nodded my head, adding, “Within a minute of each other.”
Surprisingly, he smiled and nodded his head at this.
“How’d you know that?”
“Well, I remembered something during our time apart. But you’re going to think I’m crazy when I tell you.”
I threw him a tantalizing stare. “Seriously? Even crazier than having to tell you that you were a frequent flyer to my head every night?”
He rocked his head sideways as he debated. “Mine might require an even greater leap of fate.”
“Alright,” I said, slumping down a bit. “Hit me.”
“While I was wandering around in the void trying to find myself, I got this vision, maybe a memory, of us meeting before the dreams, but it was only for a moment. There was something…surreal about it. But you were ripped away from me. I guess because you were being brought back to life. I tried to follow you out but we were separated and I got lost. The next thing I knew, I was in the city park the day we met and I felt drawn to you. That same connection, I guess you can call it, that I felt every time you must have entered a dream state.”
He watched me cautiously. Like he was ready for me to jump out of his lap and dismiss it. Sorta like what he did to me when I had to share my version of a crazy-ass story. I had to admit, it seemed as good as any other reason for why there seemed to be some kind of connection in our heads. Better in fact.
“I believe you. Mostly because you remembered that without knowing we both died and came back to life at the same time. It would mean our spirits made a connection that day. It’s funny that yours always comes to mine, like something about your state of unconsciousness is what allows your spirit to find mine when I’m asleep.”
“That’s what makes me think it won’t again if I come out of the coma.”
I grabbed his chin and looked directly into his sad puppy dog eyes. Firmly, I said, “Don’t even think about it. You’re not gonna live the rest of your life caged within my dreams just cause you’re afraid you won’t remember me. And it’s okay if you don’t. It doesn’t mean I’m just gonna forget about you.”
“But I might forget about you,” he slowly reiterated.
“But what if you don’t?” He leaned forward and kissed me eagerly, and his hands slipped behind me and pressed me in closer.
God, I loved his touch. His warm, smooth lips. The way his tongue lightly licked my skin. It wasn’t easy to pull myself away and shake my head at him – knowing this could be the last time his mouth ever graced my body.
“Still saying no, huh? This could be our last chance to be together. If I don’t remember you–”