Page 283 of The Professor's Wife

The thought should have pulled me fully into the hotel room, but part of me remained in the shed, listening to the chain move across the floor.

Tristan crushed the cigarette into the ashtray.

“I’m sorry, Daze.”

I watched his hand move.

“For what?” I asked in a tiny voice.

“For going in there.” His voice roughened. “I’m sorry…I’m fucking sorry you were in there.”

My eyes ached. I looked toward the hotel door. The moment was instinctual. A way of telling myself there was a way out of this. This room was not the lesson room. I just needed to know it was there. But Tristan noticed and stood.

He watched me for a moment and then he moved away from me, placing the bed between us and leaving the path to the door completely clear. He remained behind the bed, his scraped hands loose at his sides.

“There’s something else,” he said, cautiously.

I looked at him. Felt the hesitation in him as he considered his next words. His voice was low, uncertain.

“I’ve been having these dreams…All my life. In them…In them I see a woman.”

His face paled as he looked down at the ground once more, his fingers flexing nervously.

“When I was young, the dreams were broken up. They weren’t chronological. Just flashing images of things that didn’t make sense. The woman…she always had her back turned to me. And even when she turned, I…I never saw her face properly. But I knew how she was feeling. I knew when she was happy. When she wasn’t alone, even if I couldn’t see anyone else.”

His voice grew quieter.

“Then… Then she was never happy. Then she was always alone. Then she was always sad. And sometimes… I’d watch her holding a cold little hand. She was terrified of letting go.”

My voice was barely audible. “What else?”

“Then…it became the same dream, over and over again. She was somewhere dark. Trapped. I was trying to get to her, but she couldn’t hear me.”

I went rigid as Rowe’s voice raced through my memory.

I had a dream.

I pressed one hand against the wall beside the dresser. The air left my lungs.

You were trapped.

I was trapped where?

It was a dark place, and I kept telling you to get out, but you wouldn’t listen.

My vision darkened around the edges.

Tristan took one instinctive step toward me, and I shook my head quickly. He stopped, but he continued to stare at me.

“Daisy,” he said quietly. “It was you. In my dreams.”

My breaths came out harder.

“I’ve spent years waking up with this feeling that I was supposed to protect someone and didn’t. Like I got there too late or made the wrong choice. Like I walked away when I should’ve stayed. I thought it was about my dad. When he died, those feelings made sense for a while. Maybe I’d known he was going to die, and I’d regret putting distance between us. I thought the woman in my dream wasn’t real.”

His voice nearly choked when he said, “Then I saw you.”

My trembles intensified.