Page 95 of Return to Us
I tell myself as something wraps around me tighter. I hold on to the feeling of being held together.
I can do this.
There’s pressure against my neck, warm heat pushing through the ice-cold panic that the dream injects into my bones. My limbs tingle as it starts to thaw me. I can feel the muscles relaxing into the comfort.
I see the house on the lake. The way the water glints off the sunlight. This is new. This place, it’s beautiful and bright. There’re no planes here, just Grayson and Melia, smiling as we talk about their plans.
Yes, it’s working.
It’s hard to see the plane now. It’s dissipating as the light—that beautiful, warm sunlight—takes over the darkness. The house is there, the clouds framing it again, and I want to weep because it’s disappearing too.
I open my eyes to see Grayson looking down at me, his hand on my cheek, holding my face against his chest.
“Are you okay?” His voice is thick with concern.
Once again, Grayson chased away my nightmares, but there is a new fear gripping me. I wrap my arms around him, clutching tightly. “I’m okay.”
“The dream?”
I nod against him. “Always. Well,” I stop, turning my face to see him better, “when I’m with you, they’re not as intense and things are changing.”
By the slow grin that spreads across his face, it’s clear he likes that. “Good.”
“I should go back in the guest room.” My arms don’t move away from him though.
“You should. Amelia will be up soon.”
“It’s so early.”
Grayson laughs and then lifts me slightly, bringing our lips together in a sweet kiss. “Trust me, I don’t want to let you go either.”
“I’d rather her not catch us again.”
“At least we had a late dinner after the lake and could use the excuse of being too tired to drive.”
“You know in, like, two years that won’t fly with her,” I break it to him.
“Are you planning to be around in two years?”
My heart starts to race because my initial instinct is to say yes. That I want to be here. I want to be in his bed, his life, and his heart. However, I don’t know if that’s the best option for me. What if I do get cleared and I can leave? While staying here has never been in my plans, everything is . . . unclear. I want things. Things that aren’t centered around a life in Willow Creek Valley, but then there’s Grayson and Melia. I want them. I just worry that, at some point, I’ll regret not going back to the hopes and dreams I once held.
The life I was living before coming back was full of possibilities. If I didn’t like where I was, it was simple to make a change.
Here there are no choices.
It’s the factory, the inn, or some other shit job where I’ll be working just to live.
“Hey,” Grayson calls my attention as I push away. “Why are you doing that?”
“Because I don’t know how to answer that in a way that doesn’t hurt.”
He sits up. “Then don’t say anything.”
I get out of the bed, getting dressed just in case Amelia wakes a bit earlier. “But that’s the thing, Gray. I want to answer it. I want to tell you that I will be here—with you and Amelia. I want to be able to say yes, but there’s this part of me that is screaming inside.”
“Telling you to pull away,” he finishes.
“And I don’t want to pull away. I feel like I’m being ripped apart.”
