I bit my lips closed, his eyes stayed on mine. I didn’t know what to say, he had said enough, everything I had always wanted to hear and more, but I was still unsure of how to feel, I felt limp, numb, a lump rose in my throat and goosebumps on my arms. He took my hand squeezing it.
‘Do you know what’s so amazing about you, Em? You’ve been through more than that. You’ve pushed through more adversity than I have and you still ooze happiness and love in every moment. It’s inspiring, it really is. It’s another reason why I love being around you. The moral of the story is, I know I fucked up. I know I did. But to get the chance to make up for my mistakes is rare. I can’t believe that I’ve run into you again and I’ve been given this moment,’ he said, my heart pounding, Part of me really didn’t want to let him in. I wanted to say no, I wanted to tell him it was too late.
‘Do you think we could be friends?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know if we can be friends, even after all this time. I see you once and I am completely drawn back into you, I don’t want to be, but I can’t help it. I wish I knew why. But I don’t,’ I said, overly honest, I couldn’t hold it any more, it was the truth, since the moment of catching his blue eyes again, it bought all my emotions back up to the surface, and as much as I wanted to deny them, I couldn’t.
‘It’s our connection. It’s real. You can’t fake it,’ he said, leaning into me, squeezing my knee.
‘If we can’t fake it, we can’t be friends,’ I said. Our eyes locked. Lucas leaned in towards me, moving his hand from my knee to my cheek his lips touched mine, ever so softly. My lips didn’t move. He pulled his lips away. Keeping his face close to mine, his hand didn’t move. If his eyes could speak, they said,I’ve got you. I was scared, my hand shaking with my bottom lip, but instead of letting him see me cry, I leaned into him, pressing my lips firmly against his, kissing him. My heart pound harder, to the same rhythm it did years before with his. My lips pulled away, he smiled and moved his hand from my face back to my knee.
‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t see clearly when you needed me to. I’m here now. I promise,’ he said, his eyes, his voice and his touch, sincere.
‘So… setting your wild galactic story aside. What do you really think it is that draws us together?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. But I can’t wait to spend every moment I can with you, trying to find out,’ he said.
Chapter 13 — Her
I don’t know who this man was. He wasn’t the man I had met four years ago. But I wasn’t the young girl he had met years ago either. It was as though we had lived through each other’s chapters. Growing and evolving individually but finding each other again in the moments when we needed to.
It had been weeks since Lucas’s moment of vulnerability with me. We had been inseparable. When Lucas wasn’t travelling, he was staying with me. I loved waking up next to him. I would wake to the sun peeking through the blinds and his arm around me. In the early hours of the morning our bodies would shuffle through the doona, finding each other. He held me close, kissed the back of my neck as we tossed and turned through the white sheets in the early morning light.
‘Good morning, ‘he said., ‘how did you sleep?’ I opened my eyes as my face rested against his chest, he could probably feel the flutter of my left eyelashes tickling his skin. I stretched out, taking up more space in the bed.
‘I had some interesting dreams,’ he said. Lucas was always a wild dreamer. I loved hearing about the adventures he went on within his own mind as he lay still and rested next to me.
‘You were in this one.’
‘Tell me about it.’ I smiled, lifting my head slightly to watch his gorgeous morning face as he began to tell his story.
‘There was an army of people after you.’ I squinted my eyes at Lucas, it didn’t sound like the type of dream I wanted him to be having about me, but he continued. ‘You held something special within you, somewhere hidden in your body which had some secret information that the army wanted to know. My friends and I were helping to hide you so that you could be safe, and they wouldn’t find you. We were running around the streets, covering you up. Until we couldn’t run any more. We decided to keep you hidden forever so that they could never get their hands on you. With your permission, we built a statue around you. So that you could stay safe and keep your special knowledge forever,’ he said.
These dreams weren’t out of the ordinary. His imagination was out of this world. I always wanted to be able to dream like him, I thought it would take my paintings to a whole new level, I envied it and was in awe of it. But listening to his dreams, did always inspire me. It was one of my favourite things about Lucas, how a grown man still never lost his imagination or childlike wonder. I laughed.
‘How would you interpret that dream?’ I asked.
‘Hmmm.’ He smiled, pondering as he stared at me, as I lay beside him. ‘I guess it means your special to me, maybe it’s my subconscious making me realise how lucky I am to have someone as special as you.’
‘I agree, I think your subconscious is so right,’ I said. He laughed with me and placed his first morning kiss on my lips.
‘I wish I could dream like you,’ I said. Lucas smiled at me, kissing my cheek as I lay to rest my head onto his arm.
‘How did you sleep?’ asked Lucas.
‘Amazingly, I don’t even remember falling asleep.’ I yawned, stretching my arms out again.
‘Yeah, you fell asleep so early. I was so happy; I know how much you needed a good sleep,’ he said, ‘You looked so peaceful, deeply asleep. It brings me so much joy to see you that way.’
As he spoke, I felt so exposed. I’d never thought about sleeping in someone else’s presence before until that moment. To see ourselves sleep is something we will never experience. But those who we let into our beds during the dark, vulnerable hours can see the rested beauty we behold as we dream, creating subconscious illustrations of stories we want to bring into our reality.
‘What are your plans today?’ he said, cuddling me in closer.
It was Sunday morning. I didn’t really like to make grand plans on Sundays. I liked them to be filled with white space. For spontaneous moments, creation, or rest. ‘Um… first coffee. Then the possibilities are endless,’ I said, smiling, cuddled into to him with our noses almost touching.
‘I’m craving some nature time, are there any nice walks or waterfalls around here?’ asked Lucas.
‘Yesssss!’ I screamed with excitement, Lucas pulled away laughing but blocking his ears from my over the top enthusiastic reaction. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the day. ‘I know just the place.’ I rolled over on top of him and placed a couple of soft kisses on his lips. I jumped out of bed, making my way towards the kitchen. I was topless, only wearing my black lace G-string and I could feel his eyes on me as I walked. I stopped to turn around in the doorway and smiled. ‘Coffee?’
