Always he teases me, going only so far but never far enough. I want to beg and plead with him for more, but I’m afraid to break the spell, afraid to send my phantom lover back into the shadows.
It’s only lately that the dreams have turned into this. Only in the last few days that my body has been awakened, and each night since the first, I hurry into sweet oblivion so that I can be in his arms once more.
The dreams have become so real, so that where always before I wondered, now I knew here in this place, there was something different about the way I dream, the way I’ve been dreaming for as long as I can remember. But who could I ask?
It was as if they had been waiting for me to come here to escalate. It’s only here that he touches me, only here that my body seems to take on a life of its own. Here where my senses were heightened.
I writhe now beneath his hands, my own hands moving as if of their own volition, touching myself in places never before explored.
Again, I felt that other presence that frightened me even though I it couldn’t be seen. “Shh Jasmine, you’re safe; I’ll keep you safe.”
His whispered words helped to settle me as they always do and I reached for his mouth with mine, but once more as before, he turned away just in time so that my efforts landed on his cheek.
***
It’s never easy being the new kid having to start over, make new friends. It’s even harder when you’re naturally shy and introverted.
That’s why I’m not really looking forward to my first day at Havenhurst High. Bad enough I’d only moved to the town of my parents’ birth two days before, which meant I hadn’t had time to learn the lay of the land just yet.
It also meant I knew no one here, so now I’m suffering from a serious case of new girl syndrome.
The town itself seems to fit me somehow though, in a weird way. Like I’d come home after being away for too long.
It feels almost welcoming, even though I have yet to meet anyone here. But from the first moment I set foot off the plane, this feeling of acceptance overcame me.
It’s hard to explain, especially for someone who has never really fit in anywhere before, but Havenhurst spoke to me of new beginnings.
It was the first place I’d ever felt that sense of peace and acceptance, and I’ve been to a whole lot of places in my almost eighteen years.
I wasn’t going to stress too much on that other feeling, that one that was so thick it was as if I could actually touch the darkness of it.
I had almost asked my dad about it, it was so strong, but I was too old to go running to my father with nightmares.
That was another reason for concern, at almost eighteen I would be starting over at a school where everyone would’ve already formed their friendships since childhood.
From what little mom and dad had shared, their hometown was one of those places where everybody knew everybody else, and families had been here for generations.
I would be the outsider in more ways than one. None of that mattered now though, because I’d decided to make it home.
I know mom was still holding onto the hope that I might change my mind and return, but I was through living the life of a nomad.
This was the place of my birth; for all that I hadn’t seen it since I was too young to remember anything about it. But if my feelings on arrival were anything to go by, I was finally where I needed to be.
Apart from the nerves of having to start anew, there was an excitement bubbling under the surface, that I was hard pressed to put into words.
I’ve been having these strange feelings for the past year or so, things I couldn’t explain.
It was almost as if my life was playing out in front of me, and somehow I was moving towards something. What that something was, I didn’t know, and it made no sense.
I chalked it up to finally being settled, something I’ve never been in my life.
With a mother who always seemed to be running from her own personal demons, a woman whose answer was always to move from place to place, without any care as to what it did to the small girl she dragged around behind her, there was never any feeling of home. Here I felt it, whatever home was.
I felt heat spread across my face as I remembered the night before and the dream that had seemed so real.
“Jazz you about ready Sweet-pea?”
I had to smile; my dad is such a dork. He was so excited to have me finally come live with him, that he’d gone out of his way to make things super cool.