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Sleep
I rested my head against a pillow on the bed, glancing around at the empty walls. On the right side, a water stain from a leakage ran down in a jagged, beige line. That’d been there since before the divorce after a massive rain storm. Dave talked about fixing the distorted wall, but by then our marriage had already started to crumble.
A tiny clock I’d plugged into the outlet clicked in the corner. A thickness filled my throat. Something about my conversation with Meghan earlier had left my chest hollow.Something?I knew what it was. Her conversation reminded me of my inability to bond with even the closest people in my life.
I let out a deep sigh. For a moment, I imagined Dave laying here with me. I envisioned our old life together. In this memory, there was a TV against the wall facing the bed, an oak bureau, armoire, and a bedside table. And a candle on the bureau which smelled of mint, the aroma wafting through the entire room.
We used to have a medium-sized bookshelf to the right, beneath the damage from the water leak, where we shelved some of the editions of my books. Dave insisted that we keep a signed copy of each edition here because he wanted easy access tohissigned copies. You know, the ones he never bothered to read. Between the copies upstairs and those we kept on display downstairs, he never let me forget about my success as an author. He could make me feel important that way even though he’d never read one single line.
We shared many idle Sundays in this room, holding each other or just talking about random things. Eventually, as the relationship grew sour, and our communication grew sparse, we drifted further away from each other as we slept at night. In the final months, he slept on the far left of the bed, and I slept on the far right.
A tear escaped my eye. The imaginary furnished room—what once existed—crumbled away, falling back to the current state. Empty. And lonely. This room never used to feel so depressing. No. Not when the space was full of love. Right this moment, sadness crept through the bedroom as strongly as Jamie’s positive energy every time he entered into my presence.
Sometimes what hurt the most was the idea that I’d been the one to ruin my marriage. That I’d been the one to push Dave away because of my own mental health. Because of my brain catching fire.
I couldn’t help the way I felt. Couldn’t help that I saw the world in darkness sometimes as opposed to light—even then when I was happily married with a successful career. Sometimes, I couldn’t appreciate the joy in my life. Even when all the best things were happening around me.
That was just the way that my brain worked.
Suddenly, there was what sounded like a hollow knocking on my bedroom door. My bones shook, and I jerked upright.Who the actual fuck…
I instinctively shot toward the closet but stopped. Dave had taken the gun, too.
“It’s just me, Jemma,” Jamie said, voice muffled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I figured this time, I’d be a little more respectful and take a different approach before just entering…”
I relaxed back down against my pillow. I swallowed, the lump going down.Oh, thank god it’s Jamie.
“Oh, you’re here again,” I said, my voice dry, contrasting the relief I felt that this was Jamie as opposed to someone else who had broken into my place.
“Your words betray you,” he said playfully.
“Hey, just because I’m happy it’s you, and not some psycho murderer, doesn’t mean I’m jumping up and down for joy you’re here. I’m still mad at you, you know.”
Of course, what was worse? Having a psycho murderer in your house… or being a person who imagined a dead ex-boyfriend who wasn’t actually there? I still wasn’t one-hundred percent convinced of my own state of mind, as real as Jamie seemed to be every time he entered my life. As an afterthought and under my breath, I added, “I’m still partially afraid this is all a dream, and I’m going crazy and…”
“Can I come in?” Jamie asked. “I don’t want to intrude or anything.”
I rolled my eyes. Now he cared about intruding on my privacy.
“I cared before, too,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t have a choice in the matter when it comes to hearing what you’re thinking and knowing how you’re feeling…”
I groaned.Right. My thoughts.
“P.S…. you’re not going crazy,” Jamie said.
I waved a hand in the air at the wall, choosing to ignore his final statement. “Something tells me you’d come in even if I said no. So… fine. Come on in. If I’ve gone crazy, might as well do it with company.”
A moment later, a swoosh of energy surged into the room, casting aside all my worries, once more, that I had in fact gone crazy. Jamie appeared next to me on the bed. He sat crossed legged at the far corner of the mattress, wearing a Guns ‘N Roses t-shirt, cargo shorts, and socks that stopped below his knees.
I smirked when I saw the goddamn socks.
Though he sat far from me on the bed, my nerves wound through my body at the idea that we were sharing such an intimate space at all. Something we had only done once.
A flash of embarrassment crossed his expression.
“Uh… shit… you know what…” he started to say. “I can, uh, go and sit over in the corner… on the floor… and…”
I rested a hand on his. Maybe it was because I’d been feeling lonely, reminiscing about Dave. Or, maybe, it was because I needed a friend. I didn’t want him to sit farther away from me.
