Dreams of 18

But what if I take them off and my anxiety comes back? What if his eyes, like so many others’, make my skin crawl?

I won’t be able to bear it.

For years, I wanted him to see me, just see me. Even though I avoided him myself, I harbored this little dream where he’d see me and his heart would start beating faster. But now I’m not sure if I’ll be able to take it, his eyes, and it scares me.

He’s not taking no for an answer though.

“Just do it,” he clips.

As if he’s the boss of me, I do it. I reach up and take them off and wait for my doomsday brain to start ticking.

I wait for the familiar flush to rise up around my throat and familiar prickling and itching and hyperventilation, to come back.

The flush happens.

I do feel the flush but it’s the same kind that I felt back at the bar, when I saw him. The edgy kind. The kind where the heat spreads out from my stomach and covers every part of my body, making me red.

Making me bloom like a rose for him.

Oh God. Thank God.

Thank fucking God.

I can stand his eyes on me. I can.

I can take it when his eyes move from one spot of my face to another. And they move thoroughly, almost frantically.

He goes from the top of my hair to my stubby eyelashes. From the side of my rounded cheeks to my small chin. From my little, slightly freckled nose to my parted, bee-stung lips.

I can take it all.

Maybe it’s the shy thing again. I’m shy to the world but not to him.

With that happy thought, I do my own taking in of his face.

Or rather his hair.

His hair has grown in the past ten months – that’s the very first thing I think of. It’s longer now, flicking against the collar of his blue plaid shirt.

Not to mention his cheekbones. Strangely, they’ve grown too.

They have sharpened, giving him somewhat of a gaunt look. And God, his eyes. The pupils are dark, blown-up, almost black but they are rimmed with red.

He looks… wild.

Messy and even untamed.

My Strawberry Man.

“You have a beard,” I say in awe.

Like he’s the only man in this world with facial hair.

For me, he might as well be.

In fact, that beard makes him look sexier. More masculine and dominating. Kind of older in that bone-tingling sort of way. It makes his strawberry like mouth even pinker and thicker.

“And you’re really here,” he muses.

He squints too as if he can’t believe that I’m here.

As if he’s seeing things and all this conversation was part of a dream.

“Unless you…”

I trail off, realizing what I was about to say. I was about to repeat what he said to me that night.

“Unless I what?”

His eyes are glinting in the dark. Glinting with knowledge. I think he knows what I was about to say.

“Unless you do this a lot,” I whisper to him. “See things that are not there.”

I thought he’d get angry. Get agitated, but he doesn’t. All he does is shake his head and mutter almost to himself, “Seeing things. Yeah, you have no idea.”

“I’m sorry?”

That seems to piss him off though. My non-apology apology.

“How the fuck are you here?” he asks, drawing out the fuck.

This is it.

I need to tell him. I need to say sorry. I need to ask him what I can do to make it up to him.

“I came for y-you.”

The reply blurts out of me without thought or any effort.

He flinches.

But it’s the truth. I did come here for him. I came here to face him and his anger. I came here to fix what I broke.

“For me,” he says woodenly.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because of what happened. What I did. I hurt you and –”

Suddenly, a squeak escapes me because his fingers are on my bicep.

Before I can comprehend what’s happening, he jerks me forward by the sleeve of my t-shirt.

And knocks the breath out of me.

At his yank, my spine snaps off the wall and my feet stumble.

Then he turns around and begins walking, dragging me behind him.

I only have the time and presence of mind to pick up my enormous hobo and sling it over my shoulder.

“What… What are you doing?” I ask his broad back.

The ripple of his muscles is the only answer I get.

“Where are we going?” I ask again, trying not to look around at the pedestrians.

Who are all watching us as we pass them by.

I can feel their stares. Most of them are jerking to a halt at the sight of us. At the sight of a large man dragging a tiny girl by the sleeve of her t-shirt.

That’s the part that I find more horrifying than the stares, him pulling me forward with the sleeve of my top.

The part where he isn’t touching me.