Page 62 of Ice Queen

I don’t know if she’s still buzzed, I hope not because she drove home, or if she’s delirious, but for some reason I find myself saying, “You can record it when I get home.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” She trails off, and at first, I think she fell asleep. But then she whispers, “Goodnight, Markus.”

I’m not sure if she meant for me to hear it, but I quickly pull the phone away from my ear and end the call before I can say something stupid, like “sweet dreams” or something.

I run a hand down my face, replaying the night over and over until I drift off to sleep.

“Markus.” It’s barely a whisper, but it pulls me from my place of rest.

“Markus, necesito hablar contigo.⁠*” Her voice doesn’t echo, it isn’t distant like it usually is. It’s right behind me.

I turn slowly, she’s suspended mid air, toes free, body weightless, and she’s wearing those Godawful faded overalls she used to love. One strap hangs off her shoulder, and I ache to push it back up. To hang on to the familiarity and safety that is her.

Her curls float at her shoulders. They’re dark, soft, untangled. Untouched by the memory that lives in my head. This isn’t how she looked at the end.

“¿Qué pasa, Millie?⁠*” I step toward her, my feet silent as they meet nothing. There’s no ground here, just endless sky. And her, the sun I revolved around.

She smiles at me, and that’s when my stomach drops. It’s the smile that let me know she had made up her mind about something, and now she was just waiting for me to catch up.

“It’s time to let go, Markus.” Her voice is gentle, careful, as if she knows the weight they carry.

My brows pull together. “What are you talking about?” I shake my head. “You promised. WE promised.” My hands tremble as I reach out for her.

She looks down at me, and a pitying smile pulls at her lips. “Markus,” she whispers. “Our story was never meant to be forever. We always knew one day our friendship would end one way or another.”

I take another step closer, and the light starts to fade. The air grows colder the closer to her I get. I can see my breath now.

“I’m not yours to protect anymore,” she says softly. “You still have a chance to make something beautiful of your life. Don’t waste it on what’s not in front of you.”

Waste it? I lunge for her, my fingers pass straight through her waist, and I’m met with cold. Cold like I just plunged into arctic waters. Shit, the cold.

“Don’t,” I beg, I haven’t begged anyone since I begged her to stay. “Por favor, Mills. No me dejes de nuevo.⁠*”

Tears burn as they trail down my face. I don’t even remember them forming.

“Sigue las estrellas, Markus.⁠*” It’s fully dark now; the only light comes from the thousands of tiny stars behind her. “They’ll lead you to your forever.”

“I don’t want another forever!” I shout, my voice unraveling just like I am. “I want the forever we planned. Raising our kids together like our parents did. All the vacations, your husband joining beer league with me. Us getting married if we were both still single by thirty. Me prometiste un ‘para siempre’, Millie.⁠*”

She smiles, and this time it's real. It's soft, sad, yet full of love. “I gave you my forever. But I was never meant to give you yours.”

As soon as the words leave her mouth, something in me snaps into place. A realization that what I felt for her wasn’t what I thought. I swore up and down that what we had was real love, and she just insisted on making me work for it.

My eyes dart over her face, trying my hardest to make those feelings come back. To make sense of them, to convince myself that there isn’t someone back in Tampa who my mind drifts to.

“Te dije, Markus.⁠*” Mille flashes that all-knowing grin she used to give me all the time, and I find myself smiling back. Even in my dreams, my heart knows it’s drawn to someone else. Regardless of the fact that I’m too chicken shit to admit it.

“Las estrellas, ⁠*Markus,” she whispers. “Ahora es tu momento.⁠*” She disappears into the sky, the stars explode, and then everything goes black.

I gasp, sitting up fast enough to make my head spin. My legs are twisted up in the sheets, my chest heaving. I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes. What the hell was that? I tap my phone, checking the time to see it’s three AM.

My body expects the nightmare, the blood, the absence of sound, the way her head lolled forward one final time. But this? This was worse. In the other dream, she needed me. In this one, she let me go. My throat tightens until I’m out of bed and racing to the bathroom out of fear that I'm going to hurl all over the place.

Is this what happens when you make progress in therapy?

I reach for my chest, noticing the absence of pressure that’s usually there after seeing her in my dreams. I don’t understand the stars, though, other than the odd shape or the fifty million things we “swore” we saw. We never really got into the meaning behind all that.

Pulling up my texts, I type one out to Kait, who I hope is asleep at this time.