Page 34 of Way Down Deep

Your ridiculous, lust-addled thoughts are all the poetry I’ll ever want for the rest of my life.

But it’s late, stranger. And my body was so starved for that, it feels as though I’m wandering out into the larger world after years trapped in a cave. Like this screen’s burning my eyes.

But more importantly, I know if I sleep now, I’ll dream about you. If I dream. I hope I do, if you’ll be there. So perhaps it’s time to say goodnight, stranger.

Or rather, goodnight, Maya.

I’ll see you in the morning.

Goodnight, my Malcolm. Don’t worry about whether you’ll dream of me.

I’m already there, with you.

5.19am

Are you there, stranger?

I hope not. I hope you’re sound asleep, dreaming of me or of us, or perhaps not dreaming at all. Maybe just blessed blankness, like a starless night spread out beneath a new moon.

I should be dreaming, too, but I just had to write.

Something amazing’s happened. Something so tiny but so amazing. It’ll probably sound silly to even bother to say… Only no, not to you. You won’t think it’s silly at all.

I did dream of you, by the way. Not the sort of waking fever dreams I’d entertained earlier, not like that.

An odd and innocent dream, about getting up in the morning and finding you in my kitchen. In your shirt, or maybe it was the sweater. It was gray, and it fell to the tops of your thighs. You were at the sink, washing a mug. My mug, the one I always drink from, with its illustration of calla lilies, so faded only the blues are left, and there’s a chip right where your lips want to be. My mom’s old mug.

You were waiting for the kettle to boil. Your hair was down. It was long, darkish brown, wavy. Messy, like you’d just woken up. I think you had bangs. I don’t know what we spoke of, if we did, or even what you looked like aside from your hair and that you smiled, and when you did it made your cheeks so round.

But then the boy woke me with his moans. I think it must have been just after three. I’d have guessed that would’ve been the worst, to be woken from such a pleasant and charming mystery by that call to duty, but you know what? It was fine.

For the first time ever, I felt prepared. I felt rested, bizarrely. Or my body felt at peace, some sweet strain of resignation. Is that the definition of surrender, I wonder?

I went to him as I always do. I propped him up on his bed, pulled him onto my crossed legs, and hugged him tight around the middle. Rocked him and told him it’s okay. It’s only a dream. I’m here. I sang to him. He went still a little quicker than usual, I think, after five songs. Half an album—halfway through Harvest, to be precise.

When he fell slack, I eased him down onto the sheets. He sleeps in the fetal position, curled up tight like a little cashew. I lay next to him, with an arm flopped over his body, and let his warm head tuck up against my neck, under my chin, as he’d only allow in sleep.

I fell asleep, myself.

When I woke up an hour or so later, the amazing thing had happened.

He’d flipped over. Flipped around so the little cashew was curled in toward me, face pressed to my collarbone. I could just feel his breath in the fabric there, like a secret whispered through a wall. And when I craned my neck and peeked between us, I found his tiny hand fisting the front of my sweater.

He’s never held onto me before. I mean, for all I know he turned around because of a stomach cramp. For all I know he was dreaming of his mother, or about clinging to … to who can guess what. But a part of me wants to believe he knew it was me. Smelled me. Needed me.

Is that crazy? I hope not.

I’d have lay there like that forever, but he had another little spell. Not a bad one, just a minute’s soft whimpering, and when he settled next he was facing the other way again, clutching the covers and not me. But that doesn’t matter. I know I didn’t dream it.

Later today, when the sun’s high up and the roads have dried out, I’m going to take him for our first run. Between this teeny miracle and the peace you’ve brought to my body, I’ll be able to run and run and run. No matter that it’s been months and I’ve barely slept.

I’ll run for miles and miles and miles.

And then maybe I’ll fly. Because I can’t remember ever feeling this light before.

8.34am

I’m here, Malcolm—though I did sleep. And I did dream, of us. We were in a park, I think, or maybe just a big field. The sort of place I used to love to go to and just spend hours with some falling-apart book that I probably pinched from a library. There was a lot of long grass, shielding us from view.

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