Chapter 1
283 Words
1
In the hermitage, I dream of him again.
This dream is slow and almost painful in its sweetness. We are on a plane holding hands, and he is scolding me for getting extra rental insurance for a car we’ve hired at our destination. I respond by scraping the pads of his fingers with my teeth until his scolds slip into shivers. We can’t bear to wait to touch each other until we get to our hotel later that day, but the cabin is full, and first-class seats aren’t convenient for under-the-airplane-blanket relief . . .
What if . . . he murmurs to me.
And it feels like the plane will never land, and maybe it never should, because at least if I’m here, then he’s here with me, and if we’re together, then that means I never left—
And then I wake up.
I’m sweating and my heart is racing and the sheets are slick with spilled semen. And my God, it’s like losing him all over again when I dream about him like this. All f*****g over again.
I sit up and scrub my hair, miserable with myself.
Four years and six months. Four years and six months of choosing this life, of finding a purpose beyond making money and chasing the next hit of dopamine. Of living close to the god who found me on the floor of my farmhouse one night, the god who’d found me when the tether holding me to life itself was gossamer-thin.
It’s also been four years and six months of clawing myself free from a love I swear I still feel in my guts and in my marrow.
It’s been four years and six months of trying to let Elijah Iverson go.
- Writer
