The Soulless

Chapter Six. Longing

I lived a life full of secrets. The people with who I shared a roof had secrets, I had secrets, even the ones who I worked with had secrets. Like how the other waitress in the diner was stealing food, or how the cook was high as a kite most of the time. Oh, and the cashier hooked up with the mayor’s daughter even though he had a girlfriend back in the city.

Yeah, the days of my life were weird. But my nights got weirder. Every night he came back in my dreams, he sat on my bed and watched me. I couldn’t see him, as if some kind of a force stopped me from opening my eyes, but I still knew he was there. I could feel his warmth, his tender touch on my hot skin… Adan.

I lived waiting for the night. I knew these were just dreams, but I couldn’t get enough of them and I couldn’t shake the longing of being with him again, even if it was just an illusion. He was there, alright? He was close, maybe sitting at the far end of my bed, and he watched me with such deep love and regret. Only if I could open my eyes and see his loving face, touch him back, and kiss him, it would all be alright. His hand trailed the lines on my palm, his fingers dancing over my skin like our touch was something to be worshipped, craved… something long loved, but precious and always looked for. His caresses were always filled with longing, light like the breeze and completely enough to warm my freezing heart.

I was in love with a man who didn’t exist, a man who hurt me and left me to die in the desert. Yet, I couldn’t care less. When I dreamed I felt like flying, and I squeezed back his fingers, not willing to let go no matter what fate had planned for us. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t let him leave me again. I wasn’t able to live without him. Just let me open my eyes, I was thinking to myself. If I did, I could finally tell him how much I loved him, and then he would never go away from me again. But why was I not waking up? Why were my damn lids not opening? What was wrong with me? Was I really dreaming? Why were his hands so warm then? I felt his presence as real as the air that I breathed night after night when he came to me.

“I saw you today.” He told me once with a voice I couldn’t hear but one I would recognize anywhere. “Back at the diner, you were smiling shyly at some old gentleman who stood at a table near the window. Those black glasses of yours hid half of your face, but you were still the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. A little angel. Did you see how pleased the old gentleman was when you stood a little longer just to speak with him? You have always been so… human-like. You somehow know what it is that people long for and you always search for ways to help them. Which I guess makes me the monster. Like the monsters in all these human stories, those scary creatures who want to kill all things living and take the damsel to themselves.”

I wanted to tell him. He was not a monster. I was. Theresa was. I wanted things that could never be because the world was not shaped in the way I wanted it, because coming back here was a mistake, and because there was no other way… but I never found it in me to speak.

This was the last time I dreamt of him. After that night he was just… gone like I somehow snapped out of the dream-like I was healed of the frenzy, although I didn’t want to be healed. I hadn’t sensed Adan’s presence for days and sometimes I felt almost physical pain over this loss.

I was going mad, I just knew it. There was no other way to explain it. I was lying to myself day after day, feeding myself made up stories about the person who had hurt me, by my request, but he still had done it, would come back and sweep me off my feet telling me all would be alright. Was I this pathetic that I wanted a guy to come and save me? Craved it? Or was just really bat s**t crazy for wanting someone who I didn’t even know?

Probably. But, in the end, it was all stripped down to one thing – I lied to myself that the man I loved would come back to be with me. Surely deep in some old fat book on psychology, there was a scientific term for desperate fools like me. Something like manic depression, or schizophrenia, or whatever. What else would explain the emotional pit I had fallen into, willingly on top of it?

I walked around with dark circles under my eyes, glad that at least while I was at work my dark glasses hid my face or I would scare the crap out of Tracy’s clientele with my look a la dead person. All I wanted to do was sleep and when I got to it, it was never enough. Because he didn’t come in my dreams anymore. How pathetic was that? But I did love him and I hated myself for it, and for the fact that every morning when I woke up and he wasn’t in my dream, I died a little.

Then, it was one night in August, almost three months after I moved in with the Blackthorns when the dream finally came back. A sudden rush of dizziness overwhelmed me just because I felt his presence again. This time, however, he was… Adan was distant, cold. The air around me smelled of fresh rain and countless fields of sunflowers and rye and I had never sensed that before. He was oddly craning over me, like he was studying me, instead of just… contemplating. Even through my closed eyes, I knew he was staring at me with a soulless curiosity like people watch some grub the moment it turns into a butterfly or some s**t. I tried to smile, but I couldn’t move even a muscle, and when his icy breath hit my face, I shivered. Something inside me, something hidden and dangerous growled in warning. Wake up!

My heart almost stopped when the realization hit me. The man above me was not Adan, and this was not a dream. Instinct kicked in and I finally opened my eyes, my lips bared in defiance.

In the silence of my room, menacingly towering over me, a tall dark figure lurked. I couldn’t quite catch the features of the strange man through the darkness of the moonless night, but his eyes gleamed like the eyes of a beast. The scream that escaped my lips was inhumane and bone-chilling.

In the next instant, I was on my feet, the blanket tightly pressed to my chest in an attempt to hide my almost naked body, as I was not able to find my robe right away. With my free hand, I squeezed the night lamp, pointing it towards him as a weapon.

“Do not come closer!” I shouted, stepping from side to side. I wasn’t even thinking that I looked ridiculous and not threatening at all. My short night gown didn’t work in my favour.

“Who the f**k are you?” The man asked rudely and lunged closer to me, and in the darkness I could almost feel him staring at me, which was impossible, because how could he be seeing anything at all? He did sound more entertained than actually menacing. “And what the hell are you doing in my room?”