13. Dove
DOVE
A handsome smile.
Warm brown eyes in a rearview mirror.
Screeching tires.
Glass shattering.
Blood on my tongue.
Gasping breaths.
All of it was too much, too painful, too real until a familiar voice chanted urgently in my ear. “Dove, Dove, Dove!”
I woke with a start, disoriented and trembling.
The feeling was a familiar one. Something I’d been dealing with since the crash.
For a while, I’d escaped the clutch of the nightmare—the memory—had on me, giving me some semblance of peace.
For many years it had succumbed to an ever present, but bearable, ache in my chest. A tragedy that hung over me but didn’t overwhelm me like it once had.
I was learning to deal with it, allowing my subconscious to let go of the memory haunting my dreams.
Until Josh left.
Once he was gone, they’d slowly seeped back in, tainting my dreams like a drop of ink in clean water.
Only they weren’t the nightmares I was used to—if one could ever truly get used to such a thing.
They changed, morphing into an entirely new torment: Josh’s hands curled around the steering wheel, his blood dripping onto the windshield, his face obscured where I was sitting in the backseat.
I’d always wake drenched in sweat, tears wetting my face, a sob caught in my throat, with the urge to run to his room and make sure he was okay.
The first few times I’d done just that, forgetting.
I’d opened his door and panicked when I found his bed empty.
The adrenaline running through my veins from the dream fueled me into action, and it wasn’t until I was nearly to our parents’ door that I remembered Josh had left voluntarily.
If the nightmare had me on a high, the realization that Josh was gone—and I had no way of finding out if he was okay—was the crash.
Every year that crept by without a word from him only reaffirmed what I’d been afraid of: that I’d never see him again.
That all I had left of him was memories and nightmares.
As the haze of my current nightmare faded, I blinked through the blur of tears, stilling when Josh’s face came into view. He hovered over me, eyebrows drawn together, face creased in concern.
“Josh?” I croaked out in confusion until the nightmare bled away into reality, and I remembered he was home now. He was here. The worst day of my life hadn’t repeated itself, hadn’t stolen yet another loved one away from me. Hadn’t left me completely and utterly alone .
The sob building in the back of my throat escaped, and Josh’s frown deepened. His knee dented the mattress beside me, close but not touching, like he wanted to offer comfort but wasn’t sure he was allowed.
The distance separating us felt like a mile, and I needed to not only see, but feel for myself that he was really here, alive and whole and healthy.
I launched myself at him, burying my face in his chest. He caught me with a soft grunt, arms locking around my back without hesitation. His hand rubbed a soothing path up and down my spine, and he didn’t flinch as my tears soaked through his shirt—he just held me tighter.
The nightmare clawed at my mind again, but I clung to Josh, tightening my arms around his waist. The anger that had simmered since he left didn’t matter now.
I didn’t care about the walls I’d put up, or the distance between us.
All that mattered was the warmth of his body against mine—proof that he was here. That he was alive.
My eyelashes grew wet and heavy as more tears escaped, and I hid my face against his stomach to muffle my cries.
“ Shhh , Dove,” he soothed in a low voice, his hand warm through my thin sleep shirt. “It was just a bad dream,” he continued in a deep hush. “It’s okay. We’re both okay.”
Nothing felt okay except the strong embrace of his hug, where I could pretend that maybe our world wasn’t as broken as it actually was.
Josh let me be until my cries quieted, until my breathing was only interrupted by a few hiccupping sniffles. The warmth of his body against mine was comforting and inviting, and my eyes slid closed as a sudden exhaustion washed over me.
I was just beginning to drift into a hazy, post-cry doze when Josh’s hands slipped from around me. I stiffened, arms tightening, heart thudding with panic in my chest. I didn’t want to move yet. I didn’t want to face reality outside the protective circle of Josh’s arms.
“Hey, no.” His hand rubbed a calming path along my shoulders, “I’m not going anywhere, but if you’re gonna fall asleep on me, I’d rather be on the bed instead of hunched over it.”
I swallowed, embarrassed, and let my iron grip on him go lax.
“I didn’t say let go ,” he chided, pushing me back with gentle force so he could shuffle his way onto the bed. He straightened the twisted covers and slipped under them before I’d even had a chance to miss him.
His arms slipped around me before I even realized I was reaching for him, pulling me back so my spine rested against the solid strength of his chest. His broad chest radiated warmth, so inviting that I melted back into it, tucking my head beneath his chin and snuggling deeper into his embrace.
A tiny part of me tingled from the thrill of us being this close, and I pushed the warning that accompanied it out of my mind all together.
After all we’d been through, we were allowed comfort, weren’t we?
That’s all this was.
My breath hitched as a large hand cupped my hip.
I waited for it to go further, or maybe wished for it to go further, but it rested there, unmoving.
“Was it because of today?” Josh’s low voice broke through the quiet of my bedroom. “With the car?”
It took me a moment to figure out what he was asking, but then it hit me. The person who pulled out in front of us, Josh’s quick reflexes, my paralyzing fear as I was thrust back to that life changing moment in time.
But then I remembered something else. His hand holding mine, grounding me as we made our way home.
“Probably,” I admitted hoarsely, my throat sore from crying. “But…”
I bit my lip, torn. Did I want to admit that my nightmares had become regular reoccurrences again since he left?
Despite the nasty, anger-filled words I’d flung at him when he’d first arrived back home, I didn’t want to make him feel guilty.
But I knew he would. And I didn’t want to be reminded of the resentment that lingered between us right now. I just wanted… this. This moment.
“But?” Josh prodded, and his hand slipped the teensiest bit lower, his fingers now curving over the softness of my belly, which swooped at the contact. I gulped, throat dry, a thirst for something that wasn’t remotely water rising within me.
“I’ve been having them again for a while,” I confessed, burying my face in the pillow beneath my head to hide my embarrassment despite the darkness enveloping us.
His grip on me tightened slightly and my skin pebbled with little bumps as I shivered, though I felt the opposite of cold in his grasp. When it loosened, so did the breath in my lungs.
“How long is a while?” he asked, his voice adopting a forced air of casualty.
He suspected. I knew he suspected, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. I didn’t want to break this moment by admitting how much his absence had affected me. All I wanted to do was enjoy his warmth along my back as the little spoon and hopefully grab a few more hours of uninterrupted sleep.
I shrugged against his chest, and he let out a soft, annoyed sigh.
He leaned in closer so he could ask, “How long, Dove?” in my ear, and the movement slid his hand down even further, now directly under my navel.
I exhaled shakily and tried to focus on words instead of the blazing brand of his palm on the skin of my belly. “Three years.”
The real answer, s ince you’ve been gone , went unspoken. But Josh was perceptive, as always.
He pulled me back against his chest, halting my slow drift away from him that had started with each of his probing questions, and draped himself over me, his weight anchoring me in place.
“I’m sorry, little dove,” he whispered, voice genuine, breath tickling the shell of my ear as his thumb swiped back and forth under my belly button.
I waited for the promise, for him to tell me he’d never leave me again, like he had when we were teenagers.
But it never came. The hurt that washed over me was as familiar as an old friend.
I shouldn’t have expected it, anyway. His promises had never meant anything, not when he’d clearly never intended to keep them.
I reminded myself that having Josh here was better than not having him at all. Even though I had no idea how long he planned to stick around, at least I had him now. That was what mattered.
With that thought I allowed myself to snuggle back into him, pushing aside the selfish ache in my heart that longed to keep him.
If this was all I could have, I’d savor every second of it.
Even though I knew I’d eventually lose him—and I’d be wrecked all over again.