“I think because it implies there’s so much more to reality than what we can perceive,” she said softly, the sound of her thoughtfulness something I could listen to for hours. “It’s gorgeous aesthetically. It’s emotional. And I like that the ending is open to interpretation. Did he stay trapped in a dream, or did he finally leave behind his guilt to rejoin his children in reality?” Nova quickly turned her head to stare up at me, her eyes wide with alarm. “Oh… have you seen this movie?”
I nodded.
“Okay. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay watching it after…”
She was so sweet, it melted my heart. She was worried about the subject matter and its parallel to mylore, as she’d called it. “It’s okay, Nova. I’m the one who suggested it.” I kept my tone teasing.
She relaxed, ever the caretaker. I could tell she wasn’t used to anyone taking care ofher.She hardly took care of herself, especially not when it got in the way of meeting everyone else’s needs and desires.
Besides, I wasn’t really even watching the movie. I was too busy watching her.
“I still can’t believe you have a DVD player. I thought that was a bit.”
I laughed. She stared up at me as I stroked her cheek. She had no fucking idea what she was doing to me, how much I reacted to those deep brown eyes trained on mine.
“Endings like this one are a litmus test,” she said, now ignoring the movie as much as I was.
“Oh?” I melted into those hopeful eyes and the way they attempted to pry me open, bit by bit.
“So, which is it?” she asked. “Did he leave the dreamworld or not?”
I let the question linger, another taut cord of tension to join the rest, and then I gave her my honest interpretation. “Yes. He rejoined the living.”
Nova’s lips curved; her whole face lit up. I stilled, fighting the urge to scoop her into my arms and kiss her, to test my own restraint already stretched to its limits.
“I think so too,” she said. Because of course she did.
She never turned back to the movie screen. We kept talking, and we continued well after the movie had ended, the world outside us dark. We went back upstairs and listened to records.
The night ended with her laying on my chest while Jeff Buckley filled the space with his hauntingly beautiful voice. When Nova’s breathing slowed, I contemplated tucking her into the guest bed. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted. What I wanted was to sleep beside her.
Instead of either of those options, I gently woke her up and called her a car.
“It’s only, like, a twenty-five-minute walk,” she protested sleepily. “I walk fast.”
“Your pace is very impressive, baby,” I said, teasing her. I shook my head. “But I will never in a million years let you walk home alone at night.”
She nodded, suddenly bashful, as if embarrassed she’d suggested it.
“It’s okay,” I said, tilting her head up. “You’ll get used to being taken care of.”
She looked away, as if she wasn’t so sure. “Sorry again about the stalking.”
I grinned. “You’re forgiven. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I walked her outside and then watched the cab drive off down my street with my heart in a tight fist. I needed to get used tofeelingthis damn much again. It was different than how Ifelt about my neighbors, my community, my friends. Everything with Nova was raw and intense and urgent.
And if this was how I felt one month in, I shuddered to think what would become of me.
Inside, I cleaned up and tried to stave off a different set of fears. I needed to get Nova the fuck away from the world I left behind. The Circle was not just a kink club for the rich. That was only the face of the operation, the cover for something far more disturbing than we’d witnessed so far.
Fuck. I should’ve told her everything. It just didn’t feel like the right time. It wouldneverfeel like the right time. But if she refused to leave The Circle until she found her friend, she would need to know the truth about me—the truth about the part of my life I killed five years ago, the part I desperately wished could stay buried forever.
But it couldn’t. Maybe inmyworld—the world I’d built for myself through pain and grit and surrender and sheer stubborn faith—it all could’ve stayed dead and buried. But we were in their world now.
Right where they wanted us.
AndIneeded to tell her before someone else did.
