I need to see him again. I need to feel his touch, just as much as I need oxygen. Without him, I will choke to death. I know I will.
I open my mouth a few times before I manage to find my way through the layers and layers of sadness that have laid heavy over my voice for the past eight months.
“I want to see him,” I croak, the words sounding loud and strange in my ears. “Please tell him. He can kill me… I just want to see him first.”
Exhausted by the effort, I lie back down, noticing, before I close my heavy eyes once more, the shock on the doctor’s face.
“Killher? What the hell is she talking about?”
But I’m too tired to care.
I barely have time to realize that I just spoke for the first time in eight months before I drift off into a dreamless sleep, feeling more at peace than I have in a long time, now that I’ve said the words that have been gnawing at my chest for so long.
__
I don’t know how long I stay unconscious, but the first thing I’m aware of, before I even open my eyes, is the feel of a hand threading its way through my hair. I moan slightly, and it travels from my hair to my cheek, stroking it, passing a thumb over my lower lip, slipping a lock of hair behind my ear.
I know it’s Damien. I’d know his touch anywhere. His scent. I must be dreaming.
I open a glazed eye and see him, but his body is filtered, distorted in my vision. I turn away so that I won’t let myself fall for this mirage, this beautiful illusion.
“Look at me,” his voice growls.
I shake my head, a tear spilling onto my cheek.
He grabs my chin and turns my head so that I’m facing him. I keep my eyes down.It’s a dream. Only a dream. Don’t believe it, or it will destroy you.
“You wanted to see me,” he says, his voice gentler.
I shake my head again, and manage to force out, “You’re notreal. I don’t think you’re real.”
Once again, the voice that’s lain dormant for so long sounds strange in my ears.
But he’s heard my words. He lets go of my chin and chuckles softly. “Want to punch me and find out?”
That settles it. He’s a dream. The real Damien would never let me strike him.
It feels like only a little while ago that I would have welcomed the chance to hurt him. But now, the anger’s gone. All I feel is a hopeless sort of ache.
He takes my hand and passes it on his face. I feel his smooth skin, the slight stubble of his unshaved face, the dark locks of his hair. Then he presses my hand to his lips and kisses me, first gently, then hungrily. A moment later he’s drawing me to his knees, crushing me to him, his mouth finding mine. He kisses me deeply, sucking on my lower lip greedily, his tongue delving past my mouth, tasting me. My determination to put up a wall between us, because it’s a dream, it must be a dream, melts under his touch. If it is a dream, it’s a beautiful one, and I don’t want to wake up from it.
I find the little spot between his neck and his chest that seems to be made for me, and I sink my head into it. My body begins to heave with loud, guttural sobs, but I’m far too tired to be embarrassed by them, let alone prevent them.
He keeps a firm hold around me, shushing me quietly. My body begins to accept that he’s here, he’s really here. I can’t understand it.
After a while, the overwhelming emotions that his presence has awakened in me subside, and I remember what awaits me.
“Can you tell me when you’ll kill me?”
The words come out in a mumble, muffled against his chest. He doesn’t understand them. I wouldn’t be able to understand them myself if I hadn’t been the one to speak them.
“What did you say?” he murmurs, stroking my cheek, his face buried in my hair.
I blurt the words out again, my voice sounding harsh and flat in my ears.
At once, he withdraws his fingers from my cheek, and his other arm feels like steel around me as it pushes me away from his chest.
Panic strangles my lungs. He’s not happy. I can tell he’s not happy. I shouldn’t have brought it up. What’s wrong with me? “Please,” I beg, still feeling like I’m pushing past thick, impossible layers of silence, “please, keep touching me…”
