Nash
We slept for an hour, rolling over half asleep at the same time, pulling at each other when our bodies woke, when our minds likely stayed frozen in whatever dreams made us shake and move in our sleep.
“You changed your mind,” she said to the darkness, a slow, soft stroke of her nails against my arm as I curled around her.
“You were right.” That small stroke stopped and the mattress shook with her small laughter. “Don’t get used to it. That’s a freebee.”
“I can’t see it right now, but I’m willing to bet your aura is red.”
“Red is good?’
She stretched, looking over her shoulder to squint at me. “Red can be good. It means virility and passion and…love.” She looked away from me, pulling her hair off her neck. “It could also mean anger and violence.”
“I’m damn far from angry or violent.”
“I don’t know,” she said, sliding closer to me. The feel of her soft skin and that wide ass against me was almost too much. She knew it. She knew the power she had in the small maneuver of her body next to mine. “That seems like something that might do some damage.” She laughed, arching her back so her ass rested full against me, teasing and rousing until I was nearly ready for her again.
“Demon woman, my body can’t…not yet.”
It was good to hear her laugh after so many weeks of irritating her, of telling myself she wasn’t what I wanted. There was a quiet in this space, something that I didn’t know, had never felt before, but that felt somehow right and real and what I wanted. Willow’s laughter reminded me of wind chimes, soft and sweet, and constant, something that filled my chest with sensation.
“Nash,” she said after her laughter had gone quiet and sleep had nearly taken us again. “Are you listening?”
“Yeah.” The word came out a little sleepy, a lot still high from the spell Willow worked over me. “Yeah, I’m awake.”
“I figured something out the other night, before…well everything.”
Something warm and numbing moved into my head then, something that had me dropping my guard and forgetting what I’d probably have to give up if I wanted to be with Willow. “What did you figure out?”
She moved then, slipping the comforter over her chest, holding it there as she looked down at me. “I think…I’m pretty sure we knew each other in another life.”
“In another life” echoed a little in my head, like the vibration from a chord when it’s played loud and piercing. Willow hadn’t misspoke and she wasn’t joking. She hung onto that comforter like it would protect her, like it would keep her safe in case I told her she’d gone straight out of her mind.
“Wait…what?”
“Think about it…” she moved closer, tugging up the blanket and nudging me to sit up. “Since the day I met you, I’ve felt this…this thing and I know you have too.” She moved her head, tilting it until I glanced at her and let her hold my gaze. “I’m not wrong, am I?”
It would be stupid to shut out the things racing through my head—how she made me feel, how much I wanted her again and again, all the things that tied us together in that moment. But there were other things too—memories that had kept me from sleep, memories that felt so real, so familiar and somehow had always kept Willow in my mind when I thought about them. But did that mean my entire belief system would be changed? Did that mean I’d have to start believing the fairytales our relatives had always told us?
I liked Willow. What I felt for her scared me a little, but that didn’t mean I was ready to buy into her out-in-left-field juju.
“Oh, there was something there. I’ll give you that one, but I don’t think it means that you and me knew each other. That’s doesn’t mean I’m ready to stop believing in evolution or that this life is it for us.”
Willow moved her head, the smallest shake that might not have been anything more than a twitch. But her eyes widened and I noticed the way her mouth twitched, not like she was about to smile. That was her fighting to reel in her irritation.
She didn’t pull away from me when I reached for her. Instead, Willow held my hand in her lap, tracing the lines and dips in my handprint with the tip of her nail. When she spoke, it was to my palm. “There’s something inside me. I can’t explain it, but it’s there. It’s this little monster that whispers to me when I sleep…every damn time I dream.”
I was familiar with the sensation. There was a loud, angry voice screaming things to me, telling me to feel something, sometimes to not feel anything at all. It was the same voice reminding me that I didn’t have time for women, that I was fine all on my own. But that didn’t mean Willow needed to know that. “What does it say?”
I saw the answer in the movement of her irises, how that slow, eager gaze gave away everything she wouldn’t let her mouth confess. But Willow was a master at distraction, eradicating the focus on things she did not want on her; the subjects that moved her expression into something that told me all I needed to know of how she felt.
“That doesn’t matter.” She moved away from me, dropping my hand to lean against the wood headboard next to the large window. There was moonlight peaking in through the glass and I thought, idly, that Will was born to bath in that light. A goddess living in shadows that kept hidden the secrets no one was worthy to unveil.
“So? The monster? That asshole keeps you up at night?” The half-smile was quick, only twitched her mouth into something that resembled a smirk before licked her lips, moving her attention onto the traffic out on the street and the group of kids passing a half-empty bottle between them. “What’s the monster doing to you, Will? He giving you the blues?”
“Not so much. It’s not the dreams themselves. It’s not what happens to her…”
“Her?”
“The girl in my dreams.”
“So there’s a girl and no monster?”
“The monster is the…the voice. It tells me to pay attention. It tells me that everything matters—the fire…the screams and the…God the emotions. The emotions are the worst.”
She mentioned the dreams like she knew I’d had a few of my own that kept the insomnia at bay. Willow couldn’t know what had happened to me the night she’d tugged me into her apartment. I had never mentioned it. But as she spoke, the spell of her thoughts, the reminder of her dreams, weaving something ethereal and holy into the room, I realized she had known about my dreams. She’d known and had kept the knowing to herself.
“Will…that shit isn’t funny.” I slipped from the bed, tugging on my shorts as she watched me, feeling my chest tighten and my face heat.
“You know I’m right. You…I hear you, Nash. When you dream. Sometimes you scream. Sometimes…sometimes I know what you’ll scream before you make a sound.”
The black t-shirt in my hand fell to the floor when my grip loosened and I watched Willow, trying not to think too much how she looked unreal, supernatural sitting against my headboard with moonlight soaking into her skin. If I’d ever believed in angels, it had been right then. But I didn’t believe in angels. I believed in facts and figures and a lot of logic.
“That’s not possible.”
“And yet here we are. Feeling…things.” Willow got to her knees, grabbing the sheet to wrap it around her shoulders. There was something about her expression that left me feeling nervous, curious but I couldn’t speak. Not with how she looked at me. Not when I knew she had something to say. “Every night for a week straight I tried to rescue…” There was a name bouncing on her tongue. It was right there in her features, in the way she frowned, how the smallest line between her eyebrows tightened the more she concentrated on not uttering that name. Then, Willow sighed, leaving the bed to rest against the cracked paint window, head back, face tiled up but she tightened her eyes closed. “I tried hard. Every night…every night I fail.”
I didn’t know what she meant. I only knew that I’d had dreams that felt like memories. I’d dreamt of Sookie and Dempsey and D.C. and love that went on and on, emotions that threatened to drown me. But there was no way Willow had dreamed the same dreams. It was impossible.
“I understand that you think certain things are possible…like reincarnation.” I sat next to her, pulling her hand against my palm. “A lot of people think that’s an easy way to explain déjà vu or the sensation of knowing someone, being somewhere that you’ve never visited.”
“And you don’t?” I hated the way she frowned, how her fingers straightened in my hand. “It’s not as simple as past lives.”
“What do you mean?” She dropped my hand, slowing her movements as she looked at me, crossing her arms like a shield in front of herself.
I’d heard the explanation a thousand times from classmates at MIT and during a few student worker lab jobs I had to help pay my tuition. But I didn’t think Willow knew anything about genetics or theories that hadn’t quite been proven.
“You walk into a place you’ve never been or see someone that you know you’ve spoken to before but never met. It’s natural to wonder about because sometimes it isn’t as simple as coincidence. But it’s not your memories. It’s not déjà vu. It’s called epigenetic memory.” Willow moved her eyebrows together and I knew the question she wanted to ask just by the confusion that twisted her expression.
“My mentor at Howard was a scientist. Roan. He was a chemist, but he had a lot of interests, he liked to dabble. Genetics was one of those softer sciences, according to him, that he liked to mess around with. Some things stuck.” She went on watching me, arms still crossed and for a second I wondered if she’d already forgotten that I’d just left her screaming, that I’d touched her and held her and changed our worlds with a few touches. I wanted to get that Willow back, the one that didn’t hesitate to touch me. The one that felt and let those feelings move her. But she’d asked, so I pressed on.
“Like the survival instincts that get passed down or those bad memories that trains future generations to fear certain places. It’s all genetic. It’s written into our DNA.”
“The memories?”
“That’s one theory, yeah.” Her frown deepened and I shot her a smile, banking on the way she’d told me my smile made her feel to push the cloud from us. “Maybe you don’t like heights or fear water because your grandfather did. Maybe you feel that familiar sense in a place because once upon a time someone in your gene pool died there or was hurt there. Our life experiences affect how often certain proteins are created from our genes, when the genes are “read.” A certain experience can trigger a negative or positive reaction.”
“You make it sound so impersonal.”
“Not at all,” I told her, keeping the small grin on my face. She unraveled her arms when I tugged on the sheet and I breathed a little easier. “It’s absolutely personal. It’s your family.” She might have let me touch her again, but even me moving my thumb across her knuckles didn’t take the tight line from her forehead or pull the frown from her lips. “But, then there is about ninety-eight percent of data we don’t know about DNA and genetics. There’s a lot of room for error.”
“So it could be much more than survival instincts.”
I was careful then, moving my head to watch her, cautious but still smiling. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just oxytocin kicks in and you get a rush of warmth and connection because something triggered it. There’s just no real way to know for sure.”
“So a rush of warmth? Like…like love?” She kept her face impassive, without any real emotion at all when she asked that and her reaction surprised me. Willow was an earth child. She loved auras and juju. She bought organic groceries and recycled. She protested at marches and volunteered at shelters. No one that does that is missing emotion. No one like Willow lives without love.
“Something like love. Isn’t it?”
“I…” Again she curled her arms in front of her chest, this time tighter, brushing her fingers up and down her arms as though she was cold. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“Come on, Will. You told me your folks have been together forever. You said they get along really well. You told me…” I stopped talked when she shook her head. “What?”
“They make it impossible.”
“Your folks?”
She nodded and kept rubbing her arms. I wanted to pull her close, warm her against my chest but she suddenly didn’t look interested in being comforted.
“Every day of my life. They couldn’t go long without touching. They’d be sitting there on the front porch, maybe at the kitchen table doing nothing at all…not touching, not looking at each other, reading the paper or doing a crossword, nothing spectacular. He’d hum, she’d whistle and out of nowhere, for no particular reason at all, he’d stop, grin at her and keep silent. But I knew, anyone would know. It was right there in his eyes. Just looking at her, made him smile and that smile told the world he was thinking, ‘My God, I love her.’”
“What’s so impossible about that?”
“Because it doesn’t happen like that.” She pushed off from the window, tugging the sheet higher over her shoulders. “Not for anyone but them. Not for normal people. They set the bar pretty damn high, the way they love each other; like that’s all they know—how to love each other when it’s a Tuesday, when it’s quiet and still. How to say I love you without a single sound.” She shook her head like she was frustrated and I could only watch her, wondering how she could make something like loving someone seem so ridiculous. Wasn’t that my job? “That’s not usual and when I bother to think about it, I realize that I probably won’t reach that bar.”
Until that moment I didn’t realize I hadn’t been the only one running from life. Running from something good and real.
“You don’t believe in love?” Willow moved her mouth, lips pressed together, answering my question with a single look, one I hated seeing on her face. “I can’t believe that.”
“And I can’t believe you don’t believe it’s possible that we knew each other before.” She stepped closer, that sheet falling from her shoulder. “Nash, if there’s still ninety-eight percent of data undiscovered then it’s possible you’re wrong.”
“Possible,” I said, not liking how she doubted me. “Just not probable.”
“That’s not…” She took a breath and her eyes went cool, glistened against the moonlight moving in through the window. “It’s ridiculous that you hold on to beliefs that haven’t been proven.”
“Says the woman who claims to read auras.” I hadn’t meant to make my voice so loud or insulting. But it was out there, right along with the cool air that circulated around my apartment as Willow stood across from me shivering. “Look, Will…” she held up a hand, quieting me when I moved to interrupt.
“This isn’t in my head. I’ve…there have been so many dreams, and God, Nash, they’re real. They’re so real.” She stepped close and I let her, too caught up in her words to move. “There are people in my head that seem like family. They seem, God I can’t even explain it right, but there are people and they are you and me, Nash. They are us and they’re not us and there are a lot of ignorant people trying to split us apart and there are promises, my God, the promises and they all feel so real. They feel like truth.” She’d gone breathless and her eyes glistened the faster she spoke. She exhaled, shivering a little and started to cry. “Nash, they tell me that everything I feel for you isn’t some random accident. With everything I am…I…God…”
“Willow…” her name came out of my mouth like something amazed, something broken in two, as though the disbelief I felt was a pathetic thread that loosened every second she spoke. I’d heard that phrase before, somewhere in a dream. It was tucked away with Sookie and Dempsey and the promises they wanted to keep. I could relate. Looking at Willow, seeing how glassy her eyes had become, right then I knew exactly how Sookie had felt when Dempsey kissed her. But how could Willow know? That phrase, those dreams, there was no way she’d heard that from the nights the dreams were too much. There was no way she had the same dreams.
“Will,” I said again, stepping closer to her. She moved back and it felt like punch in my gut. “Please don’t be upset.”
“How can I not be upset you don’t…wait.” She moved her chin, tilting her face toward me as though something had just occurred to her. “You talked about genetics and DNA…Nash, what do you believe?”
She held her breath, like whatever my answer, she was prepared for it destroying her.
“Willow…”
“Please,” she stepped back, breathing in through her nose. “Tell me what you believe.”
I’d had the argument a half a dozen times with everyone, even Roan. He didn’t believe in the supernatural or an afterlife, at least I was sure he didn’t. Roan had always told me to make decisions on what I saw. The things I could prove.
“I believe in science, Will. I believe things that can be proven, things that are bolstered with evidence. I believe in the things I can see, the things that are right in front of my face, not in things that ride on feelings and hunches and wishful thinking.”
For a long while she only watched me. I read her expressions and the thoughts that seemed to move around her face as she kept quiet, sorting through whatever it was that kept her attention inside her own head. Finally, tears began to collect in her lashes and I stood away from the window reaching for her. “Will…”
“I can’t…Nash, I believe in everything. I have to. This life, it can’t be all there is. It’s just not that cut and dry. I’ve seen things, felt things that you wouldn’t believe. My belief, it’s important and I can’t just… If life can only be narrowed down to facts and evidence and something you can point to and say, ‘there it is’, then what I feel in my bones is a lie. And it can’t be a lie. It can’t be.”
Disappointment choked me as tears spilled down her cheeks, as she shook her head like she couldn’t believe me, as if I had erased her.
“This doesn’t have to be a deal breaker, Willow. It’s just silly…”
“No,” she said, voice high, shrill. “Whatever else it is, it’s not silly. Not what I believe and I could never…” The room had gone still. Only the sound of our breathing and the rustle of the sheet sounded as she moved away from me, picking up her clothes that had been discarded around the room. “I can’t be with someone that doesn’t have any faith, Nash. I can’t be with someone whose life is so damned narrow.”
I wanted to stop her. Something old and angry inside me burned in my stomach, knotted hard as she dropped the sheet and tugged on her clothes. Even as she reached for me, kissed my cheek, I wanted to pull her close, do away with the work she’d made covering herself up again. But Willow was too determined, too sure, too angry, and I could only watch her as she walked away, wondering what faith had taught her to slam the door on something she wanted. Worse yet, I wondered what logic told me the same thing.