Page 11 of Roads Behind Us
Not like it mattered though. Sweetie had been clear that she was here to work. She wanted to be left alone.
And, like, what was I planning to do anyway? If I had any notions of getting her in my bed, those flew out the window real quick when I realized Athena would be around, and I couldn’t even bend my knee. How exactly did I think I’d take Sweetie if I had to rely on crutches to keep me standing upright?
I mean, if you really want her, you could get creative.
Whoa. My mind had gone straight to sex. That hadn’t happened in years.
It was good, though, that Sweetie seemed focused on her job and couldn’t have cared less about me, because being in a relationship with anyone, or even just having sex with someone, would feel like a betrayal.
I couldn’t do that to Candy. I wasn’t ready. Maybe I never would be.
Turning on the TV with the volume set low so I wouldn’t wake Athena, I fell onto my couch and flipped channels till I found a familiar motorcycle show with a bunch of gruff-looking guys in leather cuts fighting each other in a parking lot in California, and my mind began to drift.
My eyelids grew heavier as I imagined Sweetie bent over my kitchen table, her long hair tumbling over her naked back, ass at just the right height for me to pound into her from behind.
The eerie, thin consciousness of a dream settled around me. I wasn’t sure when I’d fallen asleep, but static showed on my TV, which was how I knew with certainty I was dreaming because TVs didn’t show static anymore. It wasn’t 1994. If the show had ended, the next episode would’ve played, or the TVs screensaver would’ve popped up from inactivity.
The static was loud, though, and I startled. My eyes popped open, and immediately I felt a presence. When I looked to my left, my dead wife was sitting next to me on the couch. I covered my mouth with my hand so Athena wouldn’t hear me scream.
“I’m not really here,” Candy said.
But the heartache and surprise seizing my breath rendered me speechless. And the guilt I felt for wanting someone other than my wife threatened to swallow me whole.
“It’s okay, Bax,” Candy said. “You’re just dreamin’. You know that.”
Trying to slow my racing pulse through force of will alone, I sat up. “Yeah, I know. Dead people don’t come back to life just to watch TV.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Candy said, “but I mean, that Jax guy is hot.”
“Hey now.” I scoffed. She’d been gone three years but decided to haunt my dreams from the beyond just to lust after some other man?
Her tinkling laugh soothed the pit in my stomach I’d been feeling since she left me. I knew she was only a manifestation of my imagination or subconscious, but I was so relieved I hadn’t forgotten the sound.
“But there is a reason I’m here, Bax.”
“What is it?” I asked. “Is it Athena?”
Candy shook her head. She wasn’t pregnant anymore in my dreams. She looked like she had when we were eighteen and full of hope for our future, and I wanted to reach over to touch her, run my fingers through her hair like I used to, but I was too scared to feel the emptiness when she disappeared if I tried.
“Athena’s good,” she said. “She doesn’t dream about me anymore. Not like she used to.” Sadness crossed Candy’s face quickly, but then it disappeared. “She’s movin’ on as much as a young woman can from losin’ her mama.”
“Is the baby with you?” I whispered.
She didn’t answer, but she smiled softly, and I hoped the answer was yes. Every time she came to me in my dreams, I asked her, and she always smiled. Sometimes she’d nod. But she never actually said it. Not with words, but something told me he was safe wherever he was.
“I miss you both.”
God, she looked so real as tears filled her eyes, but abruptly she said, “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
She shook her head quickly. “Stop it.”
“Candy? Stop what?”
“Just stop,” she said, but this was the worst part of my dreams. She had already begun to fade away.
“Please stay,” I begged, but she had already gone.
